Cedar Key

Michelle and I took a little day-trip on Saturday. We went to Cedar Key (Pop. 800), which is a old fishing/tourism village on the gulf coast. It's about 1 hour southwest of Gainesville. Of course, it doesn't look quite like the painting above, but it is the sort of idyllic place you might expect to find on Florida's "nature coast", which couldn't be more different than "Manhattan on the beach" that is most of Florida's Atlantic coast.



Cedar Key is actually a very old community, dating back to B.C. It is named for the unusual abundance of red cedar. It is close to the mouth of the Suwanee River so it's always had a productive fishery. Interestingly, they elected a black mayor back in the 1870's and it is where John Muir ended his "Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf". Here is the chapter on the Cedar Keys.



Resourceful folks in Cedar Key made high-quality brooms from cabbage palm fibers and good old fashioned No. 2 pencils from the common red cedar.

Since we did such a poor job with the camera Saturday, here are a few other pictures that tell the story(s) of Cedar Key. The pictures below are from a short hike through Florida scrub, where we saw, of all things, a Florida Scrub-Jay.















Chance and his cross-pawed ways.