April 4 – 5, 2011 A Low-Key Hideaway on Cedar Keys…

Bill shoots us an e-mail touting Cedar Keys (sometimes Cedar Key) and a place called the Low-Key Hideaway campground and motel and tiki-bar, and we haven’t gone wrong yet with his recommendations so off we go.

We drive north from St. Pete on Hwy 19, which in the early part is three lanes each way, lots of strip malls and stop lights. Probably half the billboards are for personal injury lawyers, their smiling faces promising skillsets that all but guarantee huge and rightly deserved settlements. Of the remaining billboards, probably half are for medical services – hospitals, urgent care clinics, medical centers, eye centers, dental, plastic surgery, weight loss by a variety of means (none, surprisingly, the lap belt technique so prominent on Hwy 99 billboards in California). Not uncommonly, hospital and urgent care billboards include large electronic clocks displaying the current waiting time for emergency care and less-urgent care. None of these billboards seems to make much sense for the citizens: heavy advertising for services already incredibly costly and inefficient. This road must generate a lot of accidents leading to medical treatment and lawsuits.

Eventually Hwy 19 becomes rural and forested and the signs cease, a welcome relief. We spot our turn at Hwy 24 and proceed 20 miles west to the Cedar Keys, again through forests. We break into bayou territory as we approach the Gulf of Mexico and soon spot the Low-Key Hideaway, a 1950’s brightly painted motel and an adjacent five-RV campground with full hook-ups. On Bill’s advise we drive beyond, make a U-turn when possible, and pull to the shoulder. We soon see why.

Low-key Hideaway motel and campground.

We register with Cindy and are joined by Pat who points out our site, requiring us to back the trailer across the highway, maneuver between neighboring RVs, trucks, and palm trees, and land next to the hook-ups. He offers to back-me-in, and I think he means he would drive my truck; perhaps he only means he will give me guidance signals. I pretend he means the latter, and get in my truck. Cindy blocks traffic coming toward us, and Pat blocks it from the other direction. Nervously I drive forward, angle to the right, stop, check my mirrors, and begin to back. I nail it, on the button, to Pat’s under-his-breath “wow—a professional!” and likely Marcia’s look of pride (and surprise). I get out of the truck, calmly, as if it is always this easy; when Pat moves on, Marcia and I high-five. (My Oregon cousin Scott drives and dispatches for GTI, a large northwest trucking company. I think he would be proud of me for this one.)

Our campground is indeed low-key and the weather is wonderful, so we relax in the bright sun and gentle breeze, more appealing and comfortable (today, anyway) than my memory of Hawaii.

After a while we venture to the Tiki Bar where Pat is tending and have beers, sitting on stools in a rustic open wooden structure decorated with license plates from around the country, old flip-flops and boots, and signs. We learn Pat and Cindy’s story: They travel as much as possible, full-timing the previous four years. They previously operated a restaurant, and on travels to Baja bought some land way down the peninsula are considering turning it into an RV park and restaurant. They came to the Cedar Keys just a year or two ago and manage this site for an owner that previously had little success. The place is beautiful, in the promised low-key way, with the Gulf not more than 30 feet away (in either direction), a comfortable hammock slung between two palms, a raised deck with comfortable deck furniture. And then there is the Tiki Bar. For legal reasons the owner wanted nothing to do with this, so it is set up as a separate business entity and Cindy and Pat own it.

We stick around for a fabulous sunset and go to Tony’s, on one of the three downtown business streets, for great clam chowder and a grouper sandwich. When we turn in the sky is full of stars but the forecast is for a dramatic weather change.

We awake around 5:30 feeling the trailer being buffeted by a strong wind. Rains come and then lightening, with distant thunder. The big winds continues for a long time, and at daybreak I peer out the back window and see the hammock looking more like a spinnaker, wind-filled and pulling on its stays; if an end breaks loose, I wonder if it would smash into the trailer.

Around 8 AM things settle down and by 10 AM we are ready to venture out for a hot breakfast at Annie’s, a rustic café down the road. Bumper sticker on the wall: “For a Small Town, There Sure Are a Lot of Assholes Here”. We overhear the locals talking about last night’s “big blow”. One remarks that this was the third time recently they’ve dodged the bullet. Pat hasn’t been here a long time but he volunteers that it is the closest he has come to a hurricane. Having recently read accounts of the hurricane of 1935 I know this was nothing, but nevertheless it was impressive.

Work must go on, even at the Low-key Hideaway.

A bald eagle next in the Cedar Key cemetery.

Two horned owls, if you look carefully.

Funk for sale - if we had come here prior to St Pete, we might have gone to the other festival.

Downtown Cedar Key, Tony's restaurant on the left.

We spend the day shelling, walking in the cemetery, birding, and of course having a fine dinner – at the Islands Dining Room at the ironically named Yacht Club.