Our Nest on Wheels

I think this is another one; this one's dry.


We also saw our largest concentration of alligators on the Anhinga trail.  In one single spot there were 13 of them basking in the sun. I could not get them all into one picture (they don't move when you ask), but here is part of the group. I think you can see parts of 6 alligators.


But one of the coolest things that we saw nearby was the Nike Missile Base. At the height of the cold war, during the Cuban missile crisis, the Everglades were home to a US military Nike missile base. Now that the base is no longer operational (closed in 1979), you can tour it most days at 2:00 pm.


The base is largely intact, pretty much unchanged from when it was last used. The missiles are gone, of course, but there is still much in the way of equipment and buildings. But what made this tour so interesting was the tour guide. Our volunteer guide knew a lot of the history of the base and included lots of stories that kept us both interested and amused.


During the Cuban missile crisis, there were Russian missiles located in Cuba, just 90 miles away from the US. In terms of time, this is only about 15 minutes. So in order to have the ability to intercept and destroy an incoming missile, any base would have to be in far south Florida, and the Everglades were chosen as the best location. The base was mostly operated by kids. The average age of the missile men was about 19, so except for a few officers, the safety of our nation depended on the judgement of 19-year-old kids. The missile site was staffed at all times and ready to launch missiles within 15 minutes. You can learn more about it here.

Once they get a little bigger, they are ready to go into a mesh bag and go out into the Gulf of Mexico. A couple miles offshore are leased clam beds. Large mesh bags that contain around 10,000 clams are taken out and attached to the sea bottom. Clams like to be in the mud, so they're good with this. Here's our tour guide showing us one of the bags.


The clams spend about a year out in the gulf.  During that time, they get visited by the aqua-farmers, who separate the larger clams from the smaller ones and put them into different bags. As it turns out, one clam will climb on the back of another to get a better shot at the food coming by in the water. But eventually they all get their chance to grow to full size. Once the clams are full size, the bags they are in are collected off the ocean floor for the last time, and the clams come ashore for sorting.

Here they go through an initial sorting, where whole clams are separated from empty half shells.

Now the whole clams are in these large baskets.  Next they get sorted by size, then bagged up and ready for sale.

The aquaculture farms here are wildly successful.  At this time, 95% of the farm-raised clams in the US come from little Cedar Key.  And, of course, you can get some of the best fresh clams at pretty much any restaurant here.

Want to learn more?  Here's a link to the Southern Cross Sea Farms site. And here's a video that Southern Living did about the clamming industry in Cedar Key.  Next time you enjoy a nice clam chowder, you'll remember that these clams probably grew up here in Cedar Key.

Cedar Key feels like it's at the end of the road, probably because it is at the end of the road. There are no chain restaurants here, no chain stores. No Walmart or Publix market. There is a small local grocery store, but if you want something closer to a supermarket, you'll have to drive 30 miles to Chiefland. Cedar Key does have a local  hotel with 10 rooms.
And a lot of shops selling somewhat unusual combinations.  For example:


Cedar Key is relatively small, around 900 residents, 1800 during the winter. But it had at one time been much larger. Depending on what you read/who you talk to, the heyday of Cedar Key was 1885 when there were around 5000 residents on all the local islands. Or it was when there were 1900 residents some time later. No matter, the history of this place is one of setbacks and rebuilding. When you read the history, you find a recurring theme. It goes pretty much like this:  "The railroad was completed in 1861, bringing daily trains to the town. But then in 1862 the Union Army took over the town and burned the railroad depot down." And "The island was home to a factory and many homes, until the hurricane of 1896 destroyed the factory and 40 of the houses," and "...until the hurricane of 1910 destroyed...," and "...until the hurricane of 1935 destroyed..."

Seems that whenever things were going well, another hurricane showed up and wrecked a bunch of stuff. I think when you keep getting wiped out every 10 or 15 years, you don't bother to try build too fancy.  As Jane said, "this town takes 'rustic' to a whole new level."  Currently they are rebuilding from the hurricane of 2016. That one was called Hermine.

In a town this small, you don't really need a car to get around. It often seems that golf carts outnumber cars and are the preferred mode of transportation for the locals.
Even the police department, which has at least two cars and two trucks, also uses a golf cart. How would you feel about getting pulled over by this:
In any case, the golf carts are everywhere, and especially on Dock Street, which is the old railroad dock, elevated over the water.

Dock Street is mostly restaurants and gift shops catering to tourists.  No chain restaurants, even though these local birds looked to be lined up on the remains of an old dock like retirees outside the Old Country Buffet at 4:00 pm.

One of the main industries of Cedar Key in recent years was the fiber plant. Cedar Key was home to the Standard Manufacturing Co., which made the fibers for making whisk brushes and hat brushes. These fibers were extracted from the sabal (or cabbage) palm tree and exported all over the world to brush makers, including the Fuller Brush Company (you have to be over 50 to know about them). They also made their own under the brand name Donax.

The company got started in 1910 when a dentist from Indiana came for a visit and met a local who knew how to extract palm fiber and make brushes. The dentist he quit his dental practice to set up manufacturing in Cedar Key. The company was quite successful, employing over 100 people and operating from 1910 to 1952 (...until the hurricane of 1950 wiped out most of...). There's not much left of the factory site, the land having been sold and converted to condos in the 90s, but there is one building left, and the house that the owner lived in was saved and moved near the Historical Museum.

And speaking of the owner,s house, it turns out that the son of the factory founder still lives in the area and likes to hang out in his old childhood home, now part of the Historical Museum.  So we got to meet him and get a personal tour and explanation of the whole process of extracting fiber and making brushes.
We're still in Cedar Key. We'll be here until the end of the month. I'm not sure if there's much left for us to see, but we do want to kayak out to some of the islands. And maybe take in more of the Fine Art and Smoked Mullet.

The other thing that Saint Augustine is famous for is this:

That's right, the oldest wood school house in the USA. I imagine that someone can do a study of old school houses and find the stone one, the brick one, the one made out of bark, or clay, or sod.  But I'll leave that for another time. Just know that "it all started here,"

Pennekamp is a Coral Reef state park, which has lots of snorkeling available 3 to 8 miles offshore.  It's some of the best snorkeling in the Keys, so that makes it a good location.  But it's also 100 miles to Key West, so you don't go there on a whim.  But with our Honda HRV getting around 40 mpg, we don't mind driving some distances to see interesting things.

The first interesting thing that we found was just a couple miles down the road.  We discovered that the African Queen, the boat from the Bogart/Hepburn movie of the same title, is now located right here in Key Largo.  You can book a cruise on it, but it's rather expensive.  So we just stopped by to look at it.  We found that it was having mechanical problems (it is over 100 years old), and there were a couple guys working on it.  Of course, Jane sweet-talked her way onto the boat, and she got to be on the very boat from that classic movie from 1951.
A ways down the road, on Islamorada, is Robbies.  Robbies started out as a fishing marina near one of the bridges.  After feeding an injured tarpon, they soon found that lots of tarpon were showing up for a free meal.  Now feeding the tarpon is a popular activity at Robbies and thousands come each year to do that.  Robbies is now also a restaurant, and multiple gift shops, as well as boat rentals, etc. We did the normal thing, which is to pay $2 to go out on the docks and feed the tarpons.

Tarpons are huge fish, with a large mouth that opens kind of on the top of their head.  If you dangle a fish just over the surface of the water, one will jump up and take it out of your hand.  The challenge to feeding the tarpon is getting past the dozens of pelicans that also want the meal of free fish.
 Here's a small army of pelicans, just hoping for a handout.

Here's Steve dangling a fish above a hungry tarpon.  Note that there are no pelicans here, and that's because Robbies employs a guy full time to just shoo them away.  Catching the tarpon eating the fish is very difficult with a camera, because it all happens so fast.  But follow the link above to Robbies website and you can see more pictures of what it all looks like.

Further down the keys, at Big Pine Key, you'll find the Key Deer wildlife refuge. The key deer is a species of deer that live only in the Florida Keys, and is the smallest of all the deer.  A full grown key deer is between 20 and 28 inches tall at the shoulder.  We had been driving in the areas where these deer are supposed to be found several times, but had not seen one.  So we stopped at the Visitor Center and asked for some tips on where to find them.  An elderly volunteer at the center told us "Oh, you'll see them for sure", but we remained a bit skeptical.  But we gamely headed out to one of the suggested trails.

After 10 or 15 minutes of seeing nothing but palmettos and hardwood hammock, I suddenly noticed something just off the trail ahead. Sure enough, it was a baby key deer, about 12 inches tall, and about the size of a toy poodle.

Here, see if you can find the deer in this picture (above):

OK,  I've zoomed in so you can see him.

While that was the only one that we saw on the trail, we soon met a whole lot of key deer just by driving down some side roads.  We saw 5 munching in someone's backyard garden, and another group of 4 by the roadside.  When you stop to look at them, they don't run away, they seem rather curious and begin to approach your car, to see what's going on.

Our last interesting creature are the polydactyl cats of the Hemingway house on Key West. Polydactyl (six toed) cats are thought by sailors to bring good luck.  Ernest Hemingway was given a six toed cat by a sailor friend of his, and kept it for good luck.  Now, many years later, the hemingway house on Key West has 53 cats, 30 of which are six-toed, all descendants of that original cat, that live on the property in lives of ease.  They have cat houses, cat condos, the full run of the place, 3 cat ladies that tend to their care and feeding, and a veterinarian.
Here's one of them, you can see the extra toe on his front paw.

These are just a few of the interesting things we've found here.  We'll probably write an entire post about our snorkeling adventure, where we saw fish in numbers that can't be counted.  And all the creatures of the Everglades will likely be featured in another upcoming post.  So, stay tuned....