MORE ON CEDAR KEY.....

Cedar Key is a "city" in Levy County on the NW Coast of Florida. The population was 702 at the 2010 census.  The Cedar Keys are a cluster of islands near the mainland. Most of the developed area of the city has been on Way Key since the end of the 19th century.

The old-fashioned fishing village is now a tourist center with several regionally famous seafood restaurants. The village holds two festivals a year, the Spring Sidewalk Art Festival and the Fall Seafood Festival, that each attract thousands of visitors to the area.  Aside from these two festivals, tourism seems "sketchy" these days....we have been told by locals that fewer folks are arriving to visit than few years back.  This is borne out by the fact the population has dropped by some 11% since the 2000 census.  

A very interesting part of Cedar Key's history involved pencil making....here are the plaques in town describing that period:

 

We like it here and it will be on our "come back and visit again" list.  The town is charming and offers good bike riding and kayaking opportunities.   Two days ago we took our new Adventurer "break down" bikes to town (they both fit in the back seat of the Mini!!) and biked around, stopping for lunch at Tony's, famous for its world renowned clam chowder (check it out here http://www.tonyschowder.com/), winner of three straight years (2009-2011) in the chowder competition in Newport, RI.  And yesterday we took the kayaks out into Cedar Key Bay for some offshore sightseeing and some good exercise.

 

 

 

Here we are a few hundred yards offshore....the currents in the bay were reasonably strong in that before we knew it we were quite a bit further east than we had planned...not to mention aways out as well....so course correction (not without some effort) was necessary.  

 After our kayaks were back on top of the Mini, we came back to Low Key and got Ali and took her to the town beach for a swim.....

which she thoroughly enjoyed!!

 

On one of our rides to explore the area, we came across this interesting signage on the front of this colorful house....

 What a strange thing to see on someone's front porch!   And to those of you who are wondering......"no, we didn't".  (We have other plans)!!

 

 



 

 We close out this blog entry with this wonderful sunset that we watched from the comfort of our coach!   Stay tuned.....our next stop (early next week) puts us in Morgan City, Louisiana for a month long stay.   More and different "stuff" to come, for sure!