the essence

Ray & I had a fabulous weekend getaway. Saturday morning I packed our bags & we drove about an hour & a half north to Micanopy, FL (just south of Gainesville). This was the absolute smallest town that either Ray or I had been. It consisted of a bunch of old buildings, countless antique shops, two little cafes, a stain glass shop, a used bookstore & a teeny tiny art gallery. Of course everything was closed by 5:00 and it spanned about 400 feet. Check the link above, the stats say the land area for the town is only 1 square mile with a population around 650. It was teeny tiny. Their "claim to fame" is that Doc Hollywood was filmed there about 15 years ago.

The antique shops were fun though. There were so many different things to be found & not nearly enough time to look at everything. It could get a little overwhelming. The only thing we ended up buying were some postcards. One shop had a piece of stone with some carvings on it & the tag said it was from an Egyption tomb dating back to 1500 BC & was listed at $17,000. And it was just setting out for anyone to touch. Whether or not all of that was true is hard to say for sure but it was still really cool.

I also found some old year books that I would have liked to have had more time to look through. There was a very funny note that took over one page that someone wrote in one of the year books. At the end of the letter it was signed "In undying admiration of your sex life, Vic Edwards your friend." I got quite a laugh out of that letter.

Even though the town closed down at 5:00 there was one restaurant that was open that was close by, a little pizza place. It was little but it was also packed. Like I said, it was the only place open close by to eat at. It wasn't too bad either.

Ray & I went back to our B&B & had a wonderfully romantic night. It was so nice not having a tv in the room. I lit some candles, we had some wine, a massage, & lots of fun in the noisiest bed in the world.

The B&B we stayed at seemed much more like an Inn to me but it was very nice. Its called The Herlong Mansion & we stayed in Dorothy's Room. It was a nice room on the second floor at the front of the mansion. We had double french doors leading to the veranda that held a bunch of chairs & two enormous porch swings. We loved that feature. The weather was gorgeous & we sat out there & read for awhile.

The breakfast Sunday morning was fabulous too. The eating area is lovely & we sat with this nice older couple from St. Pete. Breakfast consisted of fresh squeezed tangerine juice, coffee, mini muffins & breads, a delicious egg dish with different vegetables & fresh basil as a garnish, cut fruit, biscuits, & a warm sweet baked peach & cherry dish with yummy (pecan?) topping.

We left around 11:00, stopped at Ray's dad on the way home & thanked them for the Christmas gift, & then arrived back home. Ray decided we were still on vacation for the rest of the day so we didn't even go to church that night. It was so relaxing being able to sit around the house doing nothing productive without any guilt. :)