I woke up in a peaceful place and took Tamu out for a walk around the area. We stopped at Kona Joe’s, which had an outside area so Tamu joined me for breakfast. Cedar Key was wonderfully quiet and undeveloped by the tourist industry. It had been a smuggling site during the Confederacy, and remains a reminder of sleepy, quiet old Florida. It was the terminal site for the railroad built connect the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico that began at Fernandina and was completed just before the Civil War. Cedar Key reminded me of Fernandina town as it must have been before the arrivals of hotels and condos.
We walked along the town, and most things were considerably cheaper than the rest of Florida. There were small artists’ shops, and I stopped at a jewelry store and took pictures of the new constructions along the coast. There was a startling lack of major chains, whether hotels or food. I found a beach front hotel for sale in bankruptcy, but decided to keep my day job.
I walked back to the water, and Tamu was feeling adventurous, running around the beach. We did not see many people; the rocks, pace of life, and friendliness reminded me of Ireland. Even the weather was noticeably cooler there, a real departure from south Florida. I returned to the Faraway Inn, which offered kayaking in addition to the peaceful and friendly atmosphere. But it was time to pack up and keep moving.
I stopped at the Cedar Key Museum State Park. The site commemorates the time naturalist John Muir spent in Cedar Key, and also includes the St. Clair Whitman House for touring. Whitman donated his house to the town, and it was eventually moved to the park. It offers a view of life there in the early 20th century, as well as Whitman’s massive shell collection, a contemporary piano, and mixing bowls like my mother’s, which I use now in my kitchen.
We reluctantly moved on from Cedar Key. It had been a magical place. I had ignored my colleague’s advice in going there, but I spent the rest of the day following up on other advice. She was a University of Florida alumna, and insisted that I take in some of the Florida canopy, which I did not really understand until I got into the Gainesville area. So I stopped at the Ocala National Forest to walk a bit under the canopy with Tamu. We stuck to a trail, which we had to ourselves that day. The forest was the site where Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings set her book, The Yearling. We already had a long beach walk that morning, so we walked as far as a felled tree that we could not climb over, then headed back to the car as the sun set. Then we were off toward the panhandle for the night.
