Busy Friday!

This morning Bruce, Roberta, Brad, and I road our bikes into town to explore the island.

We stopped for some glamour shots... Brad was having trouble with his bike helmet, apparently.

Whew, there!

Some gulf shots from over by the airport.

I think we really may be in paradise!

We covered almost all of the island... We'll have to ride that last little bit next time.

This afternoon, we took a tour at the Southern Cross Sea Farms, where they raise clams.  We pass this place every time we go into town.  It's an easy 5-10 minute walk from our RV park.

This was our tour guide.  He did a really good job explaining the process to us.

These are the various trays where they wait for spawning to take place.

This is where they grow algae to feed the teeny tiny creatures.

These containers hold the little clams until they are about a month old.

There's the cute little one month olds... That's all clams, not sand.

Finally at about 4 months old, they are recognizable.

This is when the "clam seeds" are sold to the clams farmers, who put them in mesh bags and go out in the shallow waters to "plant" them.

This is a fully grown clam. This place plants and grows their own clams, but also buys clams back from the farmers they sold the seeds to.

Here they are cleaning the clams and separating out the empty shells.

Baskets of clams!

They had a machine that separated out the clams by size and bagged them in whatever quantities their customers wanted.  The different colors mean different sizes and quantities.

When we were bike riding today, we stopped at the little store below Steamers, the restaurant we went to yesterday, to get some ice cream, and sat and ate it outside.  We saw a guy unloading bags like these to take up into the restaurant.  So if you order clams around here, they have probably just been harvested the morning that you order and eat them!

Tonight we are smoking some of the fish that Bruce, Brad, and Ed caught on their fishing excursion.  We are doing trigger fish tonight.  Here it is in a brine, with brown sugar, cayenne pepper, onions, and garlic added.

And now it is patted dry, and a coating of brown sugar put on.

And they're cooking!

Mm-mm-mmmm!  Done!

Some of the musicians at the play along at Sunset Isle tonight.

Visitors!

Brad's parents and his Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Jim came over from The Villages to visit today.  Marilyn and Jim are visiting Dick and Marilyn from Georgia.  We visited for awhile outside in the beautiful weather, and then went into town to have lunch beside the gulf at Steamers.

Look at the wall behind us... It is all covered in shells.

Marilyn, Dick, Marilyn, and Jim are all studying the menu.

This was our gorgeous view.

That is Atsena Otie Key in the distance.  We're hoping to kayak there one of these days.

Jim, Marilyn, and Marilyn enjoyed some ice cream after lunch.

After supper we went back to Steamers with Bruce and Roberta to listen to the live music.

Our view

First full day in Cedar Key

This morning Brad went out fairly early in his kayak to fish.  Then after we had some lunch, we walked into town to check things out with Bruce and Roberta.

This is the Low Key Hideaway, which is next to our RV park.  Love the bicycles on the roof!

Up on the mast of this capsized boat is an osprey nest, with an osprey in it.

We saw this glass artwork along the pier/bridge in town.

Outside one of the restaurants.

Looking back at some of the restaurants, and one hotel, along the pier.

This evening Brad and I went next door to the Low Key Hideaway to visit the tiki hut and watch the sunset.

We sat outside in swings for a bit, but the wind was making it a little chilly, so we went back inside.

The walls of the tiki hut were made of bottles.

It was funny to catch people sitting on this bar stool!

There was a barrel of monkeys at the bar!!,

Pretty blue bottles on the top of the walls!

There were license plates all over the ceiling and rafters... Lots from Michigan!  And I found one from Montgomery County, Kansas!!

And, the sunset, of course.

Perdido Key to Cedar Key

It was a long drive today!  We left our campsite in Perdido Key about 8:15 this morning... Brad and I both woke up really early this morning.  We tend to do that in moving days.  We met Bruce and Roberta at the rest stop on I-10 about 10:00, and headed towards Cedar Key.  We had a really good drive, but I forgot about losing an hour by crossing time zones.  We pulled into Sunset Isle RV Park just before the office closed at 5:00.  We all took about an hour to get our rigs set up, then we walked to the dock to take in the sunset.

This is right behind our RV.  It is the canal that leads out to the gulf

There we are!

And our cute little picnic table.

This is set up outside the clubhouse.

And the sunset views.