The birthday celebration

Larson's birthday is really on the 22nd of February. We had the birthday bash today because today is Saturday. Seth was in charge of the food. He did a "seafood boil" he used a turkey fryer to boil the water and cooked shrimp, clams, mussels, crab legs and assorted veggies. The process was exceptionally complex. Luckily for him he had Jamie & Dave to assist. Courtney made a Coconut-tres leche-cake. It's preparation required a power drill. (Long story). The party was a great success. Everyone had great time, especially the kids.

Aubrey models her cheer uniform

Potential future "geeks"

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Van overload

The San Antonio stock show and rodeo is this week. The kids and their kids all packed into Courtney's van, that's 9 souls, and went rodeoing.

The cousins get together

We invaded Seth's house and things became somewhat chaotic. Seth fed the kids and there was some outdoor play at sunset. Here is an attempt at a pic of the kids.

Play room antics

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Larson's B'day

We're back in S.A. for the big 89th. We flew in for this shindig. Lindsay, Jamie, and the 2 boys are here. We are all staying at Larson's house. It's pretty cozy but it's working. Connor is a truck aficionado so we took him to the CFG warehouse and let him toot a few horns.

Get home itis

We should be at Magnolia Springs State Park in Georgia. We were there for one night and we were supposed to stay one more night but the weather was forecast to crump and we were only 3 1/2 hours from home so, as so often happens, we bailed. Magnolia Springs was a confederate prisoner of war camp that was liberated by Sherman's march to the sea. We did spend the afternoon of our arrival riding bikes and exploring. Oh, by the way, there is a spring.

Black-White water

We rode our bikes into White Springs. The town is named after a sulphur spring that has been used as a spa forever. The natives used it until we found out about it and then we built a swimming pool. Anyway, the water table has been sucked so low the spring is history. We ate lunch at a local gourmet restaurant and then, hiked to the largest rapid on any river in Florida.

Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park

That really is the name of this park. Stephen Foster wrote a lot of songs in the mid 1800s. One of them was "Way down upon the Suwannee River". The unexplainable truth is that Stephen Foster never set foot in Florida. He lived in Pittsburg when he wrote his songs. Truth is stranger than fiction. We did get here early enough to allow me to ride an 8 mile, single track, bike trail, that has just recently been finished. Finished, is maybe an overly descriptive term. Since this park is devoted to history I've included a historical pic.

3rd day at Manatay (it rhymes)

Yesterday I was very athletic. Jenny not so much. I biked and kayaked, Jenny wished me well. Today was different. We rode our bikes, primarily off road, for 3 hours. Jenny had only 2 crashes. The best one was caused by her shoelace getting wrapped around one of the pedals. I'm hoping it will be funny later. We move tomorrow.

Manatee Springs

We only drove an hour and we're here for 3 days. The big deal here is that manatees hang out near the outflow of the spring during the winter because the spring water is 72 degrees year round. The spring flows into the Suwannee river and that is where the manatees are. Watching manatees is not particularly exciting but we did spend some time doing that this afternoon. These pics are of the spring (including scuba divers) & a 90 foot deep sink hole that connects to 5 miles of underwater caverns.

Island hopping

Today was a kayaking day. We could have technically put in here at the RV park but the water at low tide exposes a humongous mud flat and the low tide time was inconvenient. We put in at a city boat ramp. All the islands around here are wildlife preserves and are off limits. All except 1. We stopped at that one first and did a hike, then paddled around another one. We were out for about 4 hours. It took us 3 days but we finished eating that 10 lb. bag of clams today. We move tomorrow.

Sea horse key

This island is a few miles S. of Cedar Key. It is open to the public only a few times a year. Luckily it was open today. We rode a boat out and attended several presentations given by PHDs from the U of Florida. The island is devoted to research and is a wildlife refuge. It would have been a great place for topless sunbathing except it was a little too clilly.

Clam bake

Other than tourism, the main driver of the economy on Cedar Key is clam farming. We walked into the biggest processing facility and found out how to farm clams. They start at fertilization, feed the infant clams home grown algae and then put the Tiny clams in a fine mesh bag and place the bags in a piece of ocean floor they have leased from the state. The whole process takes about 13 months. We bought 10 Lbs. We steamed or grilled half of them. Yummy!
We also got a smoked mullet, some oysters & something called mullet dip. Haven't tried it yet.