Cedar Key...

When we left the Orlando area it was a beautiful 70 degrees and we found the same good weather when we arrived at Cedar Key, Florida. Of course the next day was cold and rainy! Cedar Key is a small fishing village on the Gulf, population 700, about an hour and a half north of Tampa. It ended up that we only had one day of decent weather out of the three we were there but, fortunately, the town's small enough to have seen most of it in a day. As you can see in the photos, it's quaint and cute!

The Pickled Pelican

We had dinner the first night at Tony's Seafood, renowned for it's World Champion Award Winning Clam Chowder and I can testify, the Chowder is delicious! We ate at The Pickled Pelican another night. They were out of many menu items, but the decor was funky cool and the shrimp I had were good.



As we walked through town, we noticed there were cats wandering everywhere. We we counted about a dozen in one block. They were under bushes, on walls, on benches - wondered if they were a feral colony but they looked well fed and some would approach to be petted.

We stayed at Cedar Key RV Resort, it is a fairly new campground about 6 miles from the town of Cedar Key. I loved it. The sites are wide and are scattered in such a way that they are not on top of each other and every site has a paved pad, patio and picnic table. There is a heated outdoor pool, but it was too chilly to try it. Oddly enough the washers and dryers are outside on a porch, but we have our own washer/dryer combo, so that wasn't an issue. I would definitely stay there again. Cedar Key is about 30 minutes from any inland town and has only one gas station that has diesel and the price is about twenty cents a gallon more than surrounding areas...but when you need fuel, you need fuel!

This guy was hanging around the pier hoping the fishermen would send something his way!


We think it would be a cool place to visit again...in better weather!

Owls, Cranes and The Mouse...

After our week in Daytona we moved on to the Orlando area. Actually, we stayed about thirty minutes south of Orlando in Haines City at Central Park of Haines City Campground.  While there was nothing wrong with the campground, it just wasn't the place for us.  The campground was clean and the sites fairly flat.  People were friendly, but there were lots of permanent campers, many old and run down. Not sure if I mean the RVs or the inhabitants ;)...and we're not exactly spring chickens ourselves!


We did enjoy some wild life and I don't mean parties!  There were a pair of Horned Owls living in the tree above our camper.  Everyone who walked by was craning his or her neck trying to spot the owls.  They were hard to see among the leaves, but easy to hear...and they serenaded Jack at night!  Sadly, they were never visible enough to photograph.

We also were treated to a pair of Cranes sauntering through our campsite. They were up close and personal and I was able to take a few photos of them.

Walt Disney World was not on our agenda as ticket prices of $95 for one day, one park, one person were just too rich for our budget.
We did spend an afternoon wandering around Downtown Disney. It bears no resemblance to the Lake Buena Vista Village that it replaced and that I visited years ago. It is huge, with lots of shops and places to eat and things to see. We walked our legs off, had a good time and I got my Disney fix!

 

It was a gorgeous, sunny day, the best weather we had all week.

The hot air balloon was beautiful, but they had to close it down due to the winds.

The Lego productions were just awesome!  Had to get a picture to send Jackson...the Lego King!

 Jack liked T-Rex!

We used some of our time to do some grocery shopping and a little housekeeping, including visits to Camping World and Costco.  I also found time to get a manicure...so it was a productive week!

Next stop...Cedar Key.