Back to Sunny Florida

Tuesday
January 19

Back to the beach, the only place where salt lowers your blood pressure.

To paraphrase Jimmy Buffet:

Change Your Latitude and it Changes Your Attitude.

Since coming South to Florida last month  I'm looking at life differently.

This is not the bridge over troubled water. It's the bridge over calm waters.


Back after Christmas I leave Miami and head to Cedar Key on the north Gulf coast. I have all the "essentials" in the Doodlebug--- bottles of wine stashed away in nooks and crannies, warm and cold clothes, packaged Margarita mix and Jimmy Buffet CDs and old tapes of Ella Fitzgerald.

I still want one.

Came across this blast from the past at the next RV park.  Something I've wanted since 1967, a 1967 VW camper van.
This one belongs to Rob from Toronto, who found it online and had it imported from the UK.
Rob reminded me a lot of Maynard G. Krebs. He even has a GoPro mounted on the dash.

My home for the next week will be Sunset Isle on Cedar Key on the Gulf coast. 
It has a definite 60's vibe which attracted me as well as a bunch of musicians who hang out there all winter and play whenever they feel like it, especially Friday nights.

We heard folk songs, country blue grass, old ballads long forgotten, and one guy sounded so much like James Taylor I had to get a good look  to be sure it wasn't him. 
Still not convinced it wasn't.
His Sweet Baby Jane was the real deal.

Every night there's a cozy campfire where everyone gathers
  by the Clubhouse.

 Elly and her Wheaton Terrier.    Buildings painted by a local artist.

 This one went down in the last storm, and yes those are bowling pins around the palm tree.

Their own cafe, Ada Blue,

has great grub

My site by the water

 with  Nemo windsock

Tiki Bar next door to the RV park

A very friendly crowd 

and cute bartender

Cedar Key pier in town has

shops and restaurants

I always wanted to be a mermaid.

Watchband made of alligator skin by a local guy

New friends Carole and Marc, 

French Canadians who spend the winter here 

in their Doodlebug twin Roadtrek

My view out the back window

with the moon barely visible in the night sky.

Every place I go is a change from the last place --- the scenery, the people, all different.

That's the point of my journey, everything changes, my life, the country.

For me, I'm looking for a new beginning.