After a fairly busy first day at the Gulf coast, I woke up the next day with no real plan except my reservations in Cedar Key that night. My first stop of the day was the Gamble Plantation Historic State Park in Bradenton, which is the only surviving Antebellum plantation house in Florida. It is believed to have sheltered the Confederate Secretary of State after Richmond fell, until he could escape to England. It was restored by the Daughters of the Confederacy, and is now a state park. Up to this point in my trip, every effort I made to visit a plantation had gone awry. I was always there on the wrong day or it had closed the year before, so I could not tour the site. This year was no exception; the Gamble Plantation was closed the day I visited. So I pressed on with the Sunshine State.
To use time efficiently, I had to choose between Tampa and St. Petersburg because I did not have time to visit both sides of Tampa Bay. It seemed like Tampa offered great shopping, art galleries and nightlife, but I like to prioritize elements of each state that I cannot find elsewhere. So, on this day, I was aiming for a manatee shelter further north and opted to travel on the west side of Tampa Bay. I thought I would try to see the Dali Museum in St Petersburg after a little stop for Tamu to walk.
Instead, Fort DeSoto Park turned out to be one of the most joyous stops on the trip. It has a beautiful white sand beach. In addition, it had an off-leash dog beach area, so Tamu was free to run and play with other dogs. It was such a great combination of happy things–a day at the beach and doggie play. My face started to hurt from smiling so much. As usual, Tamu avoided actually swimming, turning back whenever he found himself in as far as his chest. The other people were really nice, and I loved being at a beach again. What had been meant to be a quick stop became a longer one, and it knocked my other potential St. Petersburg sites off the list because they closed too early to get there.
I headed north to try to get to Three Sisters Springs, a unit of the Crystal River Natural Wildlife Refuge, where visitors can swim with manatees. But I got stuck in traffic coming out of St. Petersburg, and the refuge was closed by the time I got there. As I write this so many years later, I look at this day as the one where I missed a lot of opportunities and would like to go back to enjoy them. But I had reservations further north, so I headed on. After the traffic jam of St. Petersburg, highway traffic thinned and thinned again. When I was planning the trip, my Florida-raised work friend thought I was a bit crazy for wanting to stop in Cedar Key. But I had been intrigued to learn there was a part of the state that was on coastline that had been relatively undeveloped. I figured it would give me a taste of old Florida, from the days before it became a vacation and retirement haven. To get there, I had to turn off I-75 and head west in the dark for 24 miles. I could feel the sense of peace as the stars brightened in a sky devoid of human lights. I felt really happy to get to this quirky, independently owned motel for a warm welcome. Tamu and I walked the grounds and admired the stars. It had been a very happy day, despite the missed museum and manatees.