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Tips for the trip Beauty of Yankeetown found all over
By Karen Haymon Long/Tampa Tribune
YANKEETOWN - I hadn't counted on my car breaking down the day I planned to go to Yankeetown. I never intended to forget to wear my watch there. But, dealing with a broken-down car and leaving my watch behind made my weekend escape to this sleepy river town seem all the more relaxing.
On a Friday afternoon, exactly when I had hoped to leave for the weekend, I sat in the front seat of a tow truck in horrendous Tampa traffic. Two hours later after an evening drive to Yankeetown, I was calmed by Spanish moss swaying from giant oaks, cats yawning on the porch rail at the Izaak Walton Lodge and tea-colored waters of the Withlacoochee River flowing languidly toward the Gulf.
Yankeetown earned its name in part by drawing Yankees to this quiet coast of Florida - between Crystal River and Cedar Key - to fish, watch birds and just generally relax.
It works every time - for Yankees and Floridians.
Yankeetown has no traffic lights, no Targets, Kmarts or Wal-Mart stores. But it has a general store and a first-rate lodge with amazingly good restaurants, the beautiful Withlacoochee River and hundreds of live oaks dripping with moss.
It's a place where townspeople wave to strangers, pets snooze under pickups and a black dog sits atop the owner's desk in one riverside fish market. It's a place where residents proudly display their names on their houses. And, if not that, the names they call their homes.
``Wheels turn very slowly in Yankeetown. Some of us even blink slowly,'' Andy Fischer, our tour boat guide told us, only partly joking.
That was fine for us, for we were in his boat gliding down the river past majestic great blue herons and snowy egrets, idle shrimp boats and even two dolphins leaping from the river's brown waters.
Time could have stopped for all we cared.
Named after Izaak Walton, the 17th-century author of ``The Compleat Angler,'' the Izaak Walton Lodge lives up to the spirit of the English fisherman who wrote so long ago of the virtues of fishing over the violence of hunting.
Many who stay here are here to fish, in the river and nearby Gulf. But others come to canoe, ride in pontoon boats and motorboats or walk along narrow roads canopied by umbrella oaks. It would be a pleasant weekend just to come here to eat in the lodge and take a few naps and afternoon strolls.
The lodge's Compleat Angler Restaurant is long and narrow and bordered on the riverside by a window looking out to oaks, old twig chairs and the slowly flowing river. Spanish moss swaying from the trees in the evening breeze casts jitterbugging shadows against the restaurant's walls.
At dusk, turtles laze on logs across the river and anglers head toward town for supper, if they're lucky at Izaak Walton Lodge.
Big-city restaurant owners would be proud to have the variety and quality the lodge restaurants offer.
Linda and Wayne Harrington, who live on one of Yankeetown's Gulf islands, bought the 70-year-old, two-story lodge in 1987 and set out to restore it to its original glory. They replaced all the plumbing and old wiring, but preserved the lodge's charm and distinctions, such as the limestone fireplace and tree trunk roof support in the smaller restaurant.
Maybe because of the way it's shaded by trees close to the river, or maybe because the wooden structure is painted tar black, the lodge looks like it would be right at home in Montana or in one of California's national parks.
But many houses around the lodge are Florida Cracker style: small frame cottages raised off the ground, their back yards stretching to the river. One, built with palm tree trunks embedded in its outside walls, is Florida incarnate.
After breakfast one day, we met Captain Andy, as Fischer calls himself, at the lodge dock. For the next two hours, he took us in his converted mullet boat down the Withlacoochee, through Bennett's Creek and close to the Gulf.
The scenery looked like a Winslow Homer painting: tall Sabal palms surrounded by marsh grasses, bald cypress trees stretching to the sky, osprey soaring by. We even saw the giant nest of a bald eagle in a tall tree near the lodge.
Fischer, who has lived in Yankeetown all but 10 of his 35 years, spoke passionately about the need to keep developers out of his beloved hometown. Many folks in Yankeetown agree, he said, showing us land many of them chipped in to preserve from development.
Steering the boat past a young couple in a canoe, he waved hello to the woman, who was paddling, and the fly-fishing man who plaintively pleaded for advice.
Fischer doesn't fish - he might be the only Yankeetown resident who doesn't - so he couldn't help. But, he offered them a tour sometime in his boat.
He does know about boating, and scuba diving in the creeks, where he has found an amazing array of fossils and Indian arrowheads. He proudly showed us some and offered to take us hunting for them in the riverbeds.
He also knows about birds and pointed them out as they soared by: osprey, anhinga, turkey vultures, blue herons, egrets and others.
Between sightings, he showed us a bridge that was in the 1961 Elvis movie ``Follow That Dream,'' he told us the names of families who lived on the island hammocks during the Depression, and he recommended where to buy fresh stone crab claws - at the Seafood Shack, a block or so from the lodge.
The next day on one of our walks near the lodge, Fischer passed us in his truck and waved. Later, we passed another of Yankeetown's 650 or so residents, a man we saw taking a walk the day before.
A town that has a main area only three blocks wide and six miles long breeds walkers and bicyclers.
It's just too pretty to be cooped up in a car, especially when you aren't going that far.
TIPS FOR THE TRIP
HOW TO GET THERE We took U.S. 19 north to Inglis in Levy County, then headed west on County Road 40, then left at the sign leading to the Izaak Walton Lodge. The 100-mile trip from Tampa takes about two hours, depending on traffic.WHERE TO STAY
WHERE TO EAT
- We stayed at the Izaak Walton Lodge, (904) 447-2311, at 63rd Street and Riverside Drive in Yankeetown. Lodge rooms are $34; efficiencies and suites, $79, two-bedroom apartments, $99.
We settled on an apartment because it was the only thing available the weekend we wanted to go. With its two bedrooms, a good-size kitchen, living room and bathroom, it seemed like a little cottage. We even awoke to the smell of coffee and omelets coming from the kitchen below our room.
- The area also has a few RV parks and other motels, most along U.S. 19.
THINGS TO DO Be sure to take the scenic boat ride with Capt. Andy Fischer, who gives the tours in his mullet boat along the Withlacoochee River for the Izaak Walton Lodge. Cost is $35 for two and the trip usually takes an hour or so. Make reservations at the lodge.
- We highly recommend the Izaak Walton Lodge's Compleat Angler Restaurant, where we thoroughly enjoyed our steak au poivre, brushed with peppercorns and brandied mushroom cream sauce, ($19.95), and our fresh red snapper topped with crab, scallions, mushrooms and bearnaise sauce, ($15.95). The chateaubriand for two also was delicious and served with warm bread, roasted potatoes, carrots and snow peas.
- The lodge's Little Angler Restaurant offers scrumptious breakfasts - the omelet stuffed with grouper, shrimp and crab was wonderful - and lunches featuring grouper sandwiches, soup, burgers and other choices.
- We didn't have the chance to visit, but were told that December's on U.S. 19 in Inglis also is a good place to eat.