Vacationing with George

It has been a while since I have posted anything on my blog. Now that I am newly retired, I have more time for such things. Hopefully there will be someone to read my posts besides myself.

Our latest adventure was in going to Cedar Key, Florida. It is about 5-6 hours north of us (south of Gainesville). Unfortunately, using our GPS to get there caused us to add on over an hour to our journey. Evidently there is only one entrance to Cedar Key (it is an island, of course) and the roads that our GPS staunchly recommended took us in a circle around Cedar Key, but never closer. We had to get on the phone with my oldest son who became my human GPS and my hero.

Picture this scenario. The driver, George, is getting a bit surly. He is annoyed at the GPS, he is worried because we are out in the middle of nowhere, with no civilization in sight and we have less than a quarter tank of gas. There is no one around to ask for directions.

We pull into a wildlife sanctuary to look for the office. Closed on Fridays. (Guess what day it was.)
I decide to call my son for help. There is no cell reception in the useless wildlife sanctuary. We use a bit more of our valuable gasoline to travel back to the highway. So now we have no phone, no help, almost no gas and not much of a sense of humor for that matter.

Once we got a hold of Jeff, things started looking up. We were not that far from Cedar Key. And then when we found the only gas station near Cedar Key, we were ready for our weekend adventure.

Somewhere between the wildlife sanctuary and Cedar Key, the cares started dropping off our shoulders. We traveled on 4 bridges over water and then arrived on Cedar Key, a tiny spot of color and character amidst the tranquil blue of the Gulf of Mexico. We had the first good luck of the day and found a parking place right in front of our hotel. Lunch was first on the agenda. As we sat outside on the deck with seafood platters, we had no cares in the world.

Our second problem was that we had not prepared for cold weather. We could see the sunrise over the water right from our suite. Unfortunately it was freakin cold and we did not have the outerwear for it. Not even long pants, just shorts. I found George outside at sunrise, wrapped in a blanket and my sweatshirt which was way too small for his body, taking pictures of the sunrise. I spared you a picture of George but the sunrise was worth posting.

The rest of our trip was awesome. Cedar Key is unique...unless you fish, boat, or drink, there is not much else to do there. Our favorite thing was to talk to local people, who were interesting, kind and lots of fun. We would definitely go back.

Right outside our suite at the Harbour Master.

We met many doggies.