On The Meandering Road: October 31, 2015 - Chiefland, FL & Cedar Key, FL

Boo! Did Edith scare y'all?

We thought about swimming at the spring, but figured it might be crowded now that a lot of campers and visitors are here for the weekend. Instead we decided to drive down to Cedar Key, FL, which is about 39 miles away.

The last time we visited Cedar Key was years and years ago, so we were anxious to see how much it has changed over the years. The drive from Chiefland to Cedar Key was very lovely. And, to make it more pleasant the weather cooperated greatly.

We managed to find a shady parking space one block from the main street. There were few Halloween decors in town. There is one corner building that seemed like it will be used as a haunted house tonight.

From the parking space we strolled to the city dock, watched some boaters leaving and entering. There were pelicans and seagulls in the water waiting for the discarded guts being thrown from the boat.

Camera shy

Edith remembered some of what the town looked like, even remembered the upstairs restaurant she ate at with Gracie, Jerry and her mom many years ago.

Seeing some stray/Tom cats in Cedar Key reminded us of Key West, FL where there are hundreds and hundreds of stray cats roaming around.

We watched the anglers trying to catch fish at the pier. Almost every square inch was occupied and that was because it is Saturday and everybody is off from work. We watched them for a while and did not see anybody catching a fish.

We realized that Cedar Key may be the best “fishing” town to spend few days there as opposed to Swaunnee, FL that we visited a couple weeks ago. There are few campgrounds/RV resorts outside of Cedar Key.

We had late lunch at Holey Moley and got Cuban sandwich (split order) with a bag of potato chips and a bottled drink (we got IBC root beer).

Erwin wanted to visit Cedar Key Museum, so on our way there Edith wondered if there was a cemetery in town. Just few minutes later there was the cemetery! She found some old tombstones, some broken ones. It is not a very big cemetery.

The admission fee to go in the museum is $2 per person. There is a restored Saint Clair Whitman house nearby. It used to be on 6th Street near the town, but was relocated. The house is well preserved and there were lots of vintage items in each room. Saint Clair Whitman was a local resident who established the first museum in Cedar Key. His collection included sea shells and Indian artifacts.

Built in 1880's

We drove and drove around the town hoping to see something unusual or special, saw Indian Burial Mounds, went to Shell Mounds, about 8 miles outside of Cedar Key. The mounds is about 6,000 years old and 20-30 feet high and at that time the Indians discarded oyster shells in one place. It seemed their diet consisted of solely shellfish and fish because they ate so much of it!