Celebrating at Cedar Key, FL

June 23-26, 2008

To celebrate our 10th anniversary and Nana's 64th birthday we traveled to Cedar Key with some of our toys...

Staying at the comfortable, yet inexpensive, Dockside Motel, we had great views of the ocean, the new dock, and the marina.

View of the Dockside Motel from the water

Dock Street, the most "happening" street in town

Dock Street from our kayaks

We kayaked the 0.6 mile stretch of water to Atsena Otie Key, once the site of Cedar Key.  Atensa  Otie is Creek for "cedar island"

While Dave set up the fishing gear at the water's edge, Nana doused herself in DEET and took the mosquito ridden trail in to the old cemetery

The Eberhard Faber pencil  mill was once on this island; this is its old cistern.

At the other end of Atsena Otie Key

This is the end of the horseshoe crab nesting season....the crab's carapaces were widespread on the island.

Here is where we launched out kayaks

The cormorants were a common sight

The popular island transportation is via golf cart, and they are readily rented; bicycles are also popular.  We biked out to the north end of  Way Key (current site of the town of Cedar Key) and visited the cemetery

We dined at the Island Room, on the waterfront, with great food!

In the Cedar Key Historical Society.  The sabal palm ("swamp cabbage") was used by prior dentist Dr. Dan Andrews to manufacture  the palm fiber which was used in whisk brooms.  Apparently this became more lucrative than dentistry.

A most-photographed location, the Thomas Guest House (1959) -- aka the "honeymoon cottage", built over the water by a previous resident as a "second home".  One of the many hurricanes took out the walkway from land to the cottage; storms and time have done the rest.

One of the Cedar Key homes, the Kirchhain House, circa 1880s

Popular eating and night spot across from our motel

There are several gift shops with art by local artisans, like this one

Directly across from our window we could observe the construction progress on the dock, scheduled to be ready for fishing on July 4th.