I think mid-70 degree sunshine definitely calls for our first scenic drive event and I wanted to come up with something close, so I chose a drive out of Jan Godown’s book, Scenic Drive FL and altered it a bit. I’m not going to decide on an exact date and time right now, lets just leave it up to discussion. So far I’ve pm’d LABoy and Night-Ryder-987 about doing a scenic drive so there should be at least us three. We can also decide on a place in town to meet up. Details of the drive and an area map are below.



The drive starts on SR-441 near Payne’s Prairie and then turns onto highway 346, which is a gorgeous tree-canopied road with some fun, banked twists. From there we take a right onto highway 325, a.k.a. Old Florida Heritage Highway and go through the “old-Florida” town of Cross Creek. We pass Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings State Park, where one can tour the home of the Pulitzer Prize winning author and see views of Orange Lake. The author lived here during the 1930’s while she wrote her famous book, The Yearling. Rawlings is said to have entertained authors such as Zora Neale Hurston and Robert Frost at her Cross Creek home.

Adjacent to the park is the perhaps the best part of this drive, the restaurant named in honor of Rawlings’ book, The Yearling. The restaurant opened around 1952 and the head cook has been there since. This eclectic restaurant is known for serving authentic Southern “cracker” food and tops the best restaurants list of both the Gainesville Sun and the Ocala Sentinel. The place might look a bit run down, but there’s no better place in FL for some fried frog legs or gator tail.

After lunch, we continue on the Old Florida Heritage Highway until it reaches Highway 301. We head South until reaching Highway 318, which we take back west to 441. Both routes offer some great views of quaint one-road towns such as McIntosh and Micanopy and also some good curves to stretch the legs of the croc.

I’m going to post this on a few forums to try and generate some sort of buzz. The drive is very convenient for members in Gainesville, Ocala and its surrounding areas. Ocala members could meet us at the restaurant, as the drive is only 20 minutes for them via highway 301. Perhaps even some of you Jax, Tampa or Orlando members can come up to Gainesville for the weekend and join us

- Suneet

that sounds good Suneet! let us know when. I was in crescent beach the other day and i think i saw you pass by!

Shane, I did see a red Cayman S Wednesday evening! Kind of in-between Crescent and St. Augustine, around the Wings surf shop and that Publix\starbucks shopping center.

I didn't guess it was you, I had half a mind of turning around and following... we were on our way to dinner at the Gypsy Cab, awesome date restaurant.

Anyways, I can do the drive whenever... though I'm busy the next 3 Saturdays mornings until 3; Sundays are always open for me.

- Suneet

Suneet, send me a contact # or something so we can figure out when to cruz

OK Suneet! This is not far from Orlando and I would love to meet up please send me contact info and tenative dates so i can put it on my calendar That looks like a great drive!!!

UTI that is awesome!

My cell # is 352.870.5387, name's obviously Suneet.

I pm'd crocrr to see when he'd be in Gainesville because I know he was planning a trip up soon. I will post tentative dates soon.

- Suneet

Hey guys I'm bumping this because I thought we could do it this Sunday, 4\15.

I will contact each of you separately... except for you UTI Cayman, I don't know your number. I know it's kind of late notice since you're out of town, but if you can't make it, we will redo the drive whenever you come up

I tried getting more people at other forums to no avail; the Cayman drivers in Gainesville just don't seem to be forum people, I see at least two every day, saw a silver one downtown yesterday with 19'' Carrera S wheels and a huge dent on the driver side and then another silver one on NW 43rd street w\ 18'' Cayman wheels.

- Suneet