Micanopy or Bust!

Well, the trip wasn’t that bad… Micanopy’s only 6 miles up the road from us.  The ‘bust’ part was more hyperbole than substance.  I was put in mind of the “anyplace or bust” expression when

The sign and the trunk. The distance is 16 miles — if you don’t mind walking through swamp half the way.

I saw this sign in the Micanopy Historical Museum about a man who arrived at the Gainesville train station, took his trunk (luggage), put it on his shoulder and walked all the way to Micanopy — not a small feat for your feet!

Micanopy is billed as the oldest INLAND town in Florida.  It’s barely 1 square mile in size and with a population of only 600 it’s smaller today than it was in it’s heyday.  But it is a quirky, lovely, lazy town that’s worth a day’s trip to visit; maybe more than a day — I suspect that we’ll go back again before leaving Florida for the season.  There’s more to see here than we got around to considering the lateness of our start.

Who wouldn’t love living in a small town with old street signs carved in wooden posts?  It’s just so ‘old Florida.’  The small museum located inside the Thrashers store warehouse building has quite a bit of history for such a small museum including information both on the Civil and Seminole wars as well as on the town’s early history.

It seems that during the Spanish ownership of this part of the country that the Spaniards allowed escaped slaves from Georgia and the Carolinas to live amongst the Indian population as a result when Federal soldiers showed up to deal with the Indians the native population was benefitted by the former slaves living among them who had learned the hard way about dealing with whites.  In the end, after three Seminole wars it cost the government about $10,000 per Indian to relocate them to Oklahoma plus the cost in soldiers’ lives — and even then they did not succeed in completely eliminating the Indian population.

There was a lot of old Florida flavor to be found in Micanopy.  Old houses, old disused building, old live oaks: just walking the streets of town soaking up the flavor of a time that used to be was fun without spending a penny.

Most of the visitors to town arrive to see the antique stores — there are more than 1/2 a dozen to be found and all seem to have some unique emphasis — music and cameos being two examples.  In addition there were art galleries — we particularly enjoyed Somewhere Along the Way which had a very compelling variety of work and fine craftsmanship.  Top Notch!

We had a bite to eat at the Old Florida Cafe where cuban sandwiches and a tasty carrot cake satisfied our grumbling tummies.

Thanks for stopping by and I’ll talk with you tomorrow.