Found it!!!!

Beautiful Cedar Key waterfront


So the Woodstork says to the Pelican .....








For those who are of the opinion that you cannot use the words “undeveloped” and “Florida” in the same sentence, we now beg to differ. May we introduce you to Cedar Key? It is described by locals as a quaint fishing village. That might be a stretch. It is a village and, they do fish. Maybe it’s quaint after sunset. It is definitely unique. It seems to be populated by folks who may have been kicked out of Key West for failing to uphold the local moral code. Characters all!! The waterfront, of course, is inhabited by one bar after another and, they seem to be habitually, if not continuously, frequented.

In fact, we happened to set foot in one such establishment…..briefly. Being the only tourists, we nursed our beer at the bar, while listening to the neighborhood scuttlebutt. It seems that the news of the day involved a village lady shooting a village gentleman in the face as the result of a rather indelicate advance. He is apparently still alive. Rather than commiserate with either of the protagonists in this drama, the local women at the bar (all evidently single and all over 50) were commenting on how the poor victim would have fared had THEY shot him. It appears that they are more heavily armed than their village sister. One did mention something about a 357 magnum!!! I immediately decided to warn my single brethren. This is NOT a good bar to pick up chicks!!!!!

We pulled into our current location, several county road turns out of the booming metropolis of Old Town, after dark…….a new and interesting experience for us. We were cruising down the last county road at the rip roaring speed of about 5 miles an hour, trying to find the place and…..guess what? The RV Park is doing an excellent job of conserving electricity!!!! No lights! It is fair to say that the star-gazing in this region is excellent. There is NO ambient light! We finally found the welcoming ambiance of a locked gate! Fortunately, we had called ahead to advise of our late arrival and, had learned the “trick” for the gate. In the end, all went well but, we ARE stocking up on flashlights.

This part of Florida (due west of Gainesville) is undeveloped and, is likely to stay that way for some time. However, we visited a large, state run nature preserve in Homosassa that was extraordinary. They had virtually every animal and bird indigenous to Florida plus one, 47 year old, 7,000 pound hippopotamus……long story!! Most of the residents had been injured and nursed back to health. We finally saw a Florida panther and a couple of bobcats. They had literally thousands (no exaggeration) of birds: Bald Eagles, Spoonbills, Whooping Cranes, flocks of all the shore and wading species and, numerous varieties of owls, hawks and herons. Every bird you could think of. For Brenda, the hits of the place were the Manatees. We caught the Manatee feeding. They truly are gentle giants.