(c) 2009 Lydia Hinshaw
Ospreys on a channel marker
Restaurants on Dock Street, Cedar KeyCEDAR KEY, FL -- Finally, a cool weekend and a pleasant camping trip.
We set out Saturday morning for this end-of-the-road town, on the Gulf Coast just about due west of home.
The coastline in this area as little in common with our East Coast, or with the condo-lined beaches farther south along the Gulf. The demarcation between ocean land is less distinct. There are miles of marsh before you get to open water. What's land and what's a waterway depends on the tide, the wind direction, phase of the moon. Wide sand beaches are pretty much missing.
Cedar Key was once prime lumbering ground for a couple of pencil manufacturers, who eventually cut all the trees down. There was oystering, but something went wrong and the oysters died.
In the 19th century, there was a thriving port here, served by a railroad reaching to Fernandina Beach on the East Coast and connecting to points north. A hurricane wiped out most of the town and the last four miles of the railroad in the 1890s.
Fewer than 1,000 people live here now, most working either in tourism or the latest seagoing industry, clam-farming.
It's a good place to go to eat seafood and wander streets than haven't changed much in decades, to admire views unblemished by high-rises, to fish, to kayak to nearby islands in search of wildlife. Cedar Key has no stoplights, no big box stores, no nightclubs. Most of the restaurants have prominent signs warning that they take only cash or checks, no credit cards.
We took a boat tour Saturday afternoon (paid cash), ate dinner outdoors on a deck over the water on Dock Street, and retired to a campground on the water (but not the Gulf) where things were quiet as soon as our neighbors finished watching the Gators win.
Sunday we hit one of the town's two museums before beginning a meandering route back that included stops at the Suwannee River and a barbecue lunch in Chiefland.
We hadn't been to Cedar Key in five years or so. I don't imagine we will leave it unvisited for that long again.
We set out Saturday morning for this end-of-the-road town, on the Gulf Coast just about due west of home.
The coastline in this area as little in common with our East Coast, or with the condo-lined beaches farther south along the Gulf. The demarcation between ocean land is less distinct. There are miles of marsh before you get to open water. What's land and what's a waterway depends on the tide, the wind direction, phase of the moon. Wide sand beaches are pretty much missing.
Cedar Key was once prime lumbering ground for a couple of pencil manufacturers, who eventually cut all the trees down. There was oystering, but something went wrong and the oysters died.
In the 19th century, there was a thriving port here, served by a railroad reaching to Fernandina Beach on the East Coast and connecting to points north. A hurricane wiped out most of the town and the last four miles of the railroad in the 1890s.
Fewer than 1,000 people live here now, most working either in tourism or the latest seagoing industry, clam-farming.
It's a good place to go to eat seafood and wander streets than haven't changed much in decades, to admire views unblemished by high-rises, to fish, to kayak to nearby islands in search of wildlife. Cedar Key has no stoplights, no big box stores, no nightclubs. Most of the restaurants have prominent signs warning that they take only cash or checks, no credit cards.
We took a boat tour Saturday afternoon (paid cash), ate dinner outdoors on a deck over the water on Dock Street, and retired to a campground on the water (but not the Gulf) where things were quiet as soon as our neighbors finished watching the Gators win.
Sunday we hit one of the town's two museums before beginning a meandering route back that included stops at the Suwannee River and a barbecue lunch in Chiefland.
We hadn't been to Cedar Key in five years or so. I don't imagine we will leave it unvisited for that long again.
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