Last full day down the gulf coast

Last night I walked down the street to a ribs place, bad ribs as it turned out, and they didn't sit well the rest of the evening. It was 40 degrees when I left Marianna and I pulled something in my right side huffing the Harley around in the parking lot so that hurt (for the next coupe days). I think I was just plain old getting tired from the long days and it was time to head home. So one last long day down the back roads of the gulf coast. Up here on the peninsula, there are not too many people. It is pretty rural and more treed than other parts of the state I have visited. The smell of the salt water marshes as I blasted by brought back memories of being down here when I was a kid. Not much in the way of small quaint towns, but rather lots of left over 60's roadside tourist businesses long since gone. These roads are really wide with lots of mowed roadside. Saw cotton fields here and there, some harvested and some not.

I saw a sign for Cedar Key, which was where I was headed yesterday and decided to check it out. This little island is not like anything on this side of Florida. It was an old small beach town, much like Key West, but smaller and not commercialized much, yet. Might have to come back with Deb... The temperature was now over 70 so I lost that cold stuff from the morning. I texted Skip that i was headed his way and then sorta got lost going south, then east, then south and finally bumping into Rt 27, which I knew would take me to Cleremont. Skip had just gotten back from work, so he took me to an excellent Mexican restaurant and then we drove across town to a friends house in a nice development. This is the "new" Florida where they take 150 acres and build really nice developments. Very nice digs. We headed back to Clermont. Deb tipped me off that the weather was getting really bad on the whole eastern seaboard so I called Delta and got and earlier flight home through Detroit instead of LaGuardia, missing the main ugly parts of the storm. Not too keen on spending Thanksgiving in and airport. Off to bed and one last ride tomorrow into Orlando to return the bike.