How I Spent My Summer Vacation The Fourth Week In April

Musings from Florida's "Big Bend"...


In my considered opinion, if it weren't for the mosquito's and "sand gnats", this place could almost be considered to be the perfect vacation spot.

OK...one of several I know about and have mentioned here on the blog in the past...including Mexico Beach on the "Forgotten Coast" and of course our Little Island--St. Simons--on the south Georgia coast. (we're doing all three in a week this time)

And especially if you can come in the middle of the week in April rather than a weekend like Memorial Day, fourth of July, or Labor Day.

That's pretty much how I've handled my vacations for the past near twenty years--off holiday and off season.

Of course I understand that you have to be retired or un-employed (and independently wealthy) or self-employed to be able to do that schedule, and of course you can't have school aged children in order to spend weeks of the time in spots like this in the late fall and early spring/summer.

Add to the location and schedule the ability to meet business obligations and even do business in/near one or more of the locations and I just don't know how much luckier a fellow could be in life.

Believe me I don't take my good fortune for granted, and I don't mean to appear to brag too much here but I just want to tell everyone about the places I love to visit in hopes that you might take the time to visit too sometime.

I've been all over the US and the Caribbean and a number of other places around the world and when it comes to the perfect coastal experience, I think I know a thing or two about the details.

Cedar Key today is like Key West was back in the late 1970's the first time I visited it--before the Spring Breakers and the modern ill behaved asshole tourists arrived and the Overseas Highway was widened to four lanes.

Of course by writing about it I guess I'm contributing to spreading the word and risking dooming this little place to the same fate.

But then again, there aren't any "ill behaved asshole tourists" in my regular readership. Some come on down next October and Pat Missy the Turbo Pup and I will meet you here.

Time now to head on over to the dock to get on a boat for a few hours touring the outer "Keys."