As today was such a warm day, we decided to head north about 50 miles to Cedar Key. To get there was fairly easy, all the roads were straight, 3 primary roads with straight stretches of 10-12 miles. Round here there isn’t much of a population, and most of the roads are tree lined. The trees down here seem to be confused, only now are a few of them losing their leaves, this should have happened in September! This morning we looked out of the window and there was a squirrel burying an acorn in the sand, quite a natural occurrence in the Great White North, but why in Florida??
Once I had learned how to steer the truck again I managed to park it at Cedar Key. This was very much a summertime waterside town, there were numerous old shops, all but one being closed (relief!!). We wandered around the town, and then out onto the small beach; beautiful white sand and very few people, although in the summer I imagine the place would be mobbed. We saw a number of birds out on the water, initially we thought we saw a bald eagle sitting on top of a pole in the water, but when we got home we checked the book and it was actually an osprey. We also saw an anhinga which is a water bird that can look like a snake rising out of the water. The bird has a long thin neck and a long pointed bill. It will ften swim under water with just its neck above the surface, giving the look of a snake. The long pointed bill is used to spear fish.There was also a large number of pelicans and cormorants around, the pelicans are fascinating to watch when they are flying, the glide within inches of the water for long periods of time and actually have to climb a little to give them room to flap their wings.
Despite it being a nice 20C day, there wasn’t an open ice cream shop in sight, guess it’s oo cold for the locals!
We tried to find a road with a few curves on the way home, but no joy! The good news was, that with straight and flat roads the fuel consumption in the truck was over 24mpg at 55mph (90km/h) not bad for a 6.6 litre turbo!
ANHINGA