On the way to my parent's house last week, we took a side trip down a road I had never been down before! You know my saying about half the journey is getting there...? The kids and I were in no rush and so I thought it would be fun to drive out to Suwanee. I checked out the roads on the Tom-Tom and it showed they connected back up with State Road 19 just a bit futher up in the correct direction we were going. Soooo...
When we got to Suwanee(looooong drive), it was as I thought it would be- small fishing village, nothing really there. You go there to fish and then relax if you are visiting! We turned around and drove to where the Tom-Tom showed the turn off for the road heading to Horseshoe Beach. UH... Nothing there but a dirt road and a sign that says Dixie Mainland Road and and arrow pointing down the road pictured above! So I scrolled up and over on the Tom-Tom and it showed a connecting road a short distance away, so I figured that the road would be paved after that point. We started down the road and all the while I'm praying "Ok, God. We are going on an adventure here, I have no cell phone service, and no-one knows we are out here, PLEASE TAKE CARE OF US!!!!!" It really was beautiful out there! We saw crabs crossing the road, Sweetie pie saw an owl up in a tree, and herons. The cicadas were singing but otherwise it was quiet! Not another soul out there the whole way(read- Whew! I could hear the banjos playing in the back of my head...) Here's some photos I took along the way:
My Clyde Butcher wanna-be photo. It would be really good except for that weed in the foreground...
Most of the road was like this. It was absolutely marvelous!
Sweetie Pie and The Rocket got a bit restless towards the end and kept asking "When are we going to be there???" Zman missed out on the drive 'cause he was in Tennessee. When we finally got to a paved road, the paving didn't go in the correct direction, it went to another town on the coast, Shred Island. So back to the dirt road... It eventually led to the road that takes you out to Horseshoe Beach(yes, here's the paved road!). I don't know if these dirt(limestone) roads are well travelled or not, but they were in fantastic shape, very smooth and at one point I got up to 50 MPH!
Now, on to Horseshoe Beach... I read an article in a magazine once about this little town and in the article it mentioned an ice cream shop. Knowing this, I had promised the kids ice cream when we got there if they kept a good attitude on our unintended nature drive. We found the shop- it was closed-and looked like it had been for a while. BUMMER! So we drove on down the road and came upon this:
A houseboat! (hehehehehe) And it's for sale.... hummmmm!
We hopped out of the car and took a closer look...
I took this through the window, but from what you can see it really is a houseboat- or is it a boathouse?
The view from the porch... ahhhhhh!
A closer look at the bowsprite. Ain't she purty?
Just down the road there was another house with a bit of interestingness mounted on the elevated front porch:
HA HA, Love the character!
"I had promised icecream!" the two beings in the backseat kept reminding me, so we wandered into a little restaurant to find out if they offered it or was there another place in town that did.
They did offer icecream(Saved!)! This is a nice little cafe, with ravings in the guestbook about how good the suppers are! I guess the sign out front says it all:
Now, don't let the name of the town fool you, there is NO public beach at Horseshoe Beach! There may be small private beaches behind houses, but no public beach. Again, as with mostly all the small coastal towns up here in the "armpit" of Florida(and I say that because of the location in relation to the shape of Florida), you come here to fish and scallop-that's it. There is very limited shopping, if any! In fact, I'll show you what could pass for the mall in Horseshoe Beach:
You got your real estate office, your knick knack shop, and a marine/convience store for your shopping pleasure.
It was a neat trip, and now I can say " I have been down that road!" Another curiosity satisfied...
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