Low Key Hideaway

Our last night at Ho Hum RV Park in Carrabelle was spent with the neighbors and local seafood. We grilled local oysters and shrimp and enjoyed a feast! The oysters were a bit of a chore, since I had never shucked an oyster before, but a special knife, a glove, and some patience put us over the top.

We left Ho Hum on Wednesday, heading east along the "Forgotten Coast" of Florida. Cutting through dense forests again, but on a beautifully maintained state highway, we made our way to the long end of a dead end road in Cedar Key, Florida. We're staying at the Low Key Hideaway, a spacious park with three total rv sites. Last year they had four, but new owners have downsized the rv area to concentrate on the six unit motel. Our site has an awesome view from the front window of Nessie!

The deck in front is one of three, roughly spaced in front of each rv site. Behind the motel is a small open air bar and a small pier leading out to a floating dock and several basket chairs.

We drove into the town of Cedar Key to check out the "happenings". That took about 20 minutes. Cedar Key is a small fishing and tourist town that is now one of the largest farm clam and oyster suppliers in the country.

Dinner, it being a travel day where D doesn't cook, was had at the Island Hotel, the oldest commercial building in town. A repast of steamed Cedar Key clams in garlic butter, crab bisque, and stuffed fresh redfish with cheese and artichoke took care of that!

Back at the motorhome, we watched a beautiful sunset.

Next morning, with coffee in hand, we spent some quality time on the deck. The weather was warm, the dog had had here walk, and the sun wasn't very hot yet. The sunken boat just offshore with a large Osprey nest on the broken mast added a pirate feel to the morning. The Osprey mom has been catching fish and feeding her baby, a lot, often, all the time, morning till night. No sign of dad, the flake, but mom is working her tail off....

Another quick trip into town to let Sasha run on the beach. She loves the water, and ran and ran and ran, splashing all the while in the shallow water.

Of course, every beach town has to have a tourist spot, and Cedar Key is no different. There are hundreds of rental condos in town, and this area caters to those people with restaurants and bar. Oh, and T-shirt shops...

After a stressful day, we had to watch the sunset again.

Today the water outside our window was glass smooth this morning, so...again with the coffee on the deck.

We were visited by some of the local bird population while we sat.

This afternoon, Friday, at 1:00, a clam and oyster farm just down the road offered a tour of their facilities. Southern Cross has been in business for years, growing clams primarily, and they walked us through the entire process, from fertilization to table, a process taking about two years.

Many tanks are used, gradually increasing the amount of food and water available to the clams. This is one of the intermediate set ups.

Starting at such a small size that a spoonful of freshly born clams would contain more clams than there are people on the planet, they eventually eat enough high-nutrient algae to reach this size, when they are transferred to outside tanks.

When a particular size is reached, the clams are placed in mesh bags and "planted" in the warm water around the key. Eventually harvested, sorted, and bagged, they are ready for market. These bags were harvested this morning, and will reach Sacramento, California tomorrow morning. They are shipped in insulated boxes via airplane to distributers who then send them to restaurants.

The worst predator in these waters is a snail that bores a small hole into the clam while it's in the gulf, and sucks out all the goodies.

Southern Cross also retails their products, as well as other items locally caught. The prices are pretty good.

Many thousands of natural oysters grow in the shallow waters around Cedar Key and are visible at low tide. Protected by law, they are off limits to harvesting.

We've enjoyed three nights at Low Key, but doing nothing is hard work! We're looking forward to the next leg of our '16 journey. Stay tuned.

Ho Hum, Indeed!

The weather was predicted to be a little stormy today, but a slightly overcast morning has given way to a beautiful Florida day. The temperature is in the high 70's with a slight breeze. Perfect for morning coffee on the "patio"!

We slept in this morning after talking to the neighbors, Don and Dianne, last night until almost eleven. Lovely people with a great outlook on life, and fun to be around. They had visited a local seafood market yesterday, and were experimenting with grilling oysters. Their efforts were so successful that today we bought a dozen oysters at the same store and hope to grill them tonight! I'll let you know how that works out!

The seafood store is Millender and Sons Seafood Company, in Carrabelle. It's a fourth generation shop that wholesales seafood across the southeast. We talked with a great-grandson, who gave us some tips on preparing the oysters, as well as the jumbo shrimp we also bought.

Their prices are exceptionally reasonable....check out the price for Lobster tail! And these were about 3/4 lb tails!

 

We needed to get some fixin's for dinner, so we stopped by the Carrabelle IGA store (they only grocery store for miles...). Several very friendly ladies helped us navigate to our needed items and then back out. As we returned to the park, we saw a sign advertising a really cool southern redneck thing!

A quick check of the website told us that the next event wasn't going to be until Labor Day, when music, mud racing and free truck washes were going to be on tap for four days of fun and frivolity! Known far and wide as the Redneck Throwdown....getcher tickets now....!

Our time at Ho Hum is coming to an end, sadly. We've met some great people and enjoyed the Gulf views from our site. We may have to come back!

Florida's Big Bend

Sunday we left Tallahassee about midmorning, dreading our long 69 mile drive south to the Gulf Coast. We wandered around a bit getting some air for the motorhome tires and such, and then embarked on our journey.

Highway 319 south out of Tallahassee is a nice, smooth, wide two lane highway that cuts through miles of dense pine forests.

Our destination was the Ho Hum RV Park in Carabelle, Florida. We checked into site A40, on the waterfront, with the best view out of our front window that we've had so far this trip!

The view of the Gulf is amazing! Several of the campers are fishermen, and have been catching everything from Sharks to Catfish to Manta Rays from the end of the pier.

Monday, today, we drove into downtown metropolitan Carrabelle to explore the hidden treasures therein, like the World's Smallest Police Station. Hey, every town has to have a gimmick, right?

Just west of Carrabelle is the town of East Point, which is even smaller than Carrabelle, but from there a causeway runs out to St George Island. This was at one time a huge Turpentine producing area, with forests of the type of Pine tree needed to make the odd smelling liquid. One of the trails we took Sasha on winds through such a forest, and the smell of the Turpentine wafting through the air was almost overpowering, but it sure cleared our heads! The temp was in the high 70's, but the humidity was a bit high, so it felt pretty warm on the trail. Sasha, being mostly black, didn't like it at all, but was a real trooper all through the two mile hike. We had water for her, and we stopped in the shade from time to time, but she still needed to be carried most of the way back to the car.

These trees have an unusually large bark pattern, and some of the trees still have scars remaining from being "hacked" years ago. Back in the day, resin was collected from these trees and processed into Turpentine. This particular area of trees is now protected by the state of Florida.

We left St George Island with a powerful hunger after our hiking, so we headed three miles west of East Point to the town of Apalachicola. A small town of about 3,000 inhabitants, it is named for a subgroup of Seminole Indians that lived in the area. The name is loosely translated as "the people on the other side of the river". This probably refers to the Apalachicola River that empties into the gulf here, and is navigable all the way to Atlanta.

Apalachicola is also (not very) well known as the town where John Gorrie invented the modern method of cooling air. In 1848, Dr. Gorrie was trying to find a method of reducing the temperature of his fever patients. A museum in town commemorates this factoid, and contains a replica of his "ice machine".

Apalachicola provides more than 90% of Florida's oyster harvest, and about 10% of the oysters used in the rest of the country. Today, fishing and tourism are the main industries in town.

We still needed a place to eat, so a quick drive down by the dock yielded the Up The Creek Oyster Bar. The "creek" is the Apalachicola River, and we watched the shrimpers come in while we ate oysters and crab cakes for lunch.

On the way back to Carrabelle, we noticed a perfect Florida beach house tucked back into the trees. What a jewel!

Now we know why so many people vacation in this area called The Big Bend because the Gulf Coast  makes a huge turn from East-West to North-South. It's laid back here, without a lot of spring break type tourists, just a group of easy going locals and a lot of seafood!

One Day to do it All!

With the time zone change we experienced yesterday, we were a bit late getting going this morning, but we managed to get out and enjoy an 88 degree day in Tallahassee. Oh, by the way, the humidity this morning was 98%. Strangely enough, we didn't notice the humidity or the temperature as we checked out the highlights of the city.

Our primary reason for visiting Tallahassee was two-fold: we were waiting for a site to become available at our next destination, and Tallahassee is the Florida State Capitol city, so we wanted to visit that.

BTW, I mentioned yesterday that our site at Big Oak RV Park was not level. For you mechanically inclined out there, this is what we needed to do to the front wheels. Those blocks are 5 1/2 inches tall! Fortunately, Nessie was quite good at creeping up the makeshift ramp.

The State Capitol Complex is located just a few miles from "home", and includes many, many buildings devoted to the various aspects of state government. The Capitol buildings, the "Old Capitol" and the "New Capitol", are located adjacent to each other. That is the 22 story New Capitol in the background.

The grounds are immaculate. Sasha would have fun!

We wanted to visit the Old Capitol to get a taste of the history of Florida. Just beyond the information desk, this set of stairs leads up to the second floor where the House of Representatives and the Senate met.

The central portion of the Capitol sits where the first log cabin was built to house the first government. This central area was completed in 1842, and expanded several times over the years. In 1977 the New Capitol building was constructed behind and around the Old Capitol, which was then remodeled into it's present state, representing it's shape and condition in 1902. The interior colors are muted red, white and blue, and the rotunda reflects the same colors. The Old Capitol has been restored exactly to its 1902 condition, and includes many of the furnishings that were in the building at that time. When various renovations were performed, old furniture was sold at auction or given away. Thanks to the generosity of many benefactors, many of the pieces have been donated to the Old Capitol for the enjoyment of all. One of the first pieces dated to 1902 was the chandelier in the entrance lobby. Built to use electricity as well as gas, the fixtures are from a time when local power plants only provided electricity four hours a day, so gas backup was essential.

From the second floor the rotunda is a small but colorful accent in the ceiling.

On February 28, 1902, a strong storm buffeted Tallahassee. The night watchman heard a loud noise, and discovered that a portion of a wall in the uncompleted new south wing had collapsed. Extensive roof damage caused leaks throughout the Capitol, including Governor Jennings office. A few weeks later, someone placed this sign in the rotunda.

Many interesting characters inhabit the halls of the Old Capitol, including Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, a Duval County sheriff who gained fame and notoriety by using his personal ship Three Friends to smuggle guns and supplies to Cuban revolutionaries fighting the Spanish before the Spanish American War. He was elected Governor soon after.

In a small side room, several Civil War artifacts are on display. Of course, many Floridians fought for the Confederacy, about 15,000 in fact, but I didn't know that 2,000 fought for the Union as well. This is an actual carpetbag used by entrepreneurs seeking to make their fortune in the south after the Civil War.

The one character I will remember longest is a young lady named Donna who was caught wielding her authority over the Senate Chamber!

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Of course, who could forget the "characters" involved in the 2000 presidential election?

Passion ran high on both sides of the political fence, giving us some humorous memories.

 This painting shows a group of men and women throwing snowballs on the Capitol steps on February 13, 1899. At two degrees below zero, it was the coldest temperature ever recorded in Florida. In the 1890's, extremely cold weather destroyed the citrus groves of North Florida.

 We got a close look at a huge Magnolia tree from a second floor window. See the Resurrection Moss on the branches?

Just across Apalachee Street from the Capitol Complex, the Florida Viet Nam Memorial stands in memory of that conflict and the Floridians who lost their lives in it.

Down the road a mile or so, on Macomb St, we ate lunch at Nefetari. This is an unusually decorated restaurant that carries the African/Egyptian theme to it's logical conclusion. Overwhelming!  Done in purple, gold, and black, the entry slaps the senses. A lion named Maliki is permanently posted as a guard/greeter!

The centerpiece of the dining room is a huge table set for a Pharaoh!

After a delicious lunch that featured an unusual combination of Creole, Jamaican, and African flavors, we jumped across town, past the Florida State University campus (yes, and football stadium), to visit Mission San Luis. This is Florida's Apalachee-Spanish Living History Museum, run by the state park system to showcase the relationship between the Apalachee Indians and the Spanish settlers. Archaeological evidence places inhabitants in this area some 3,500 years ago, but life changed dramatically in 1540 when the Spanish arrived. The grounds of the Museum show how the two cultures lived together. This is a recreation of a Council House used by the Apalachee. It is huge!

Donna is standing in the full-size door way. That gives you some idea of the size!

The interior is constructed of large timbers buried in the ground, and is ringed with "cubicles" for resting and storage. The Council House was used for dances, tribal meetings, and protection from the elements.

A recreation of the small house the Franciscan Friars shows the minimal luxuries they had.

The Mission Chapel has been created as closely as possible to the original, using accounts written by friars that were there.

We've enjoyed our short visit to Tallahassee. The city has been a surprise to us, because we expected the area to be flat. The city is built on many hills, and as you drive, you seem to be constantly rising, falling, turning or twisting. It reminds me of a miniature San Francisco with large and stately trees! Very, very beautiful! We talked a bit with a gentleman at the Old Capitol information desk about how pretty the city is and how we would consider living here. His response was "come back in July and August". Temps in the nineties with high humidity coupled with a lack of breeze is not our cup of tea!
In fact, as we walked the grounds of the Mission San Luis, we noticed signs pointing to "cooling stations" scattered about. Hmmm.

Nanetheless, the tree lined streets are cool and inviting this time of year!