It's been a long time since I've posted here. Christmas just about wore me out, to the point I needed time to recoup and gather my thoughts again.

After that we were gone a week, then back into the fire,though at a slightly reduced pace. We've been catching up around here, while trying to work on a new look for our pages honoring service men. It will become it's own site soon.

I took a ride today to the little hamlet of Horseshoe Beach on the gulf near the "Big Bend" area. While Cedar Key is tourist oriented with shops, restaurants and historical sites, Horseshoe Beach has remained fixed in time until recently.

Located on a spit of land, it's dozen or so streets following the land to the waters edge with small fisherman's shacks, a couple restaurants (cafes really), the post office and town hall with fire house, and a small grocery to complete the town.

Looking out over the gulf you see a couple small keys (islands) the fishing boats pass by as they follow the channel to work up the days catch. Traveling down the main road, CR 351 or Main St, the fishing boats dock next to the road.

One resident, apparently out of his love of fishing, has built his pier home in the shape of a fully keeled boat. Perhaps thinking that should another "blow" (hurricane) come through he'd be prepared for the worst.

But this quiet, lost in time community is about to lose it's innocence. Developers have found her and gulf side lots are selling in the range of $100-120,000 and new, pier built homes are going for $300-400,000. A series of pier built condos in currently under construction and will dominate the gulf views.

These tower over the original homes of the community nestled under tall southern pines and outstretched live and water oaks. These original homes probably sold in the range of $10-40,000, depending on when they were built and house the hard working fishermen, businessmen and those who wanted to leave the rush of city life behind them.

Now it's catching up to them, and with it the increasing property values carry a double edged sword. While their net worth skyrockets, so are the property taxes. Many of these folk are most likely living on subsistence wages and as taxes begin to pressure them, they may have to leave their homes for lack of ability to pay "the man."

And so those, the wealthy out of towners, build and move in, and in the process the quiet, lazy, nostalgic out of the way settlement that attracted them morphs into something different and perhaps not so attractive as they imagined.

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