Blogtrotting: Palatka, FL

Welcome to Blogtrotting Palatka-Style!!!

When Cara asked me to do a post on my town, I kinda felt like, "What in the world am I going to tell you about little ole Palatka?"

However, I have since come up with several interesting tidbits about the town where I currently live.

First, a little about me.....I'm Melissa. I'm a pastor's wife with 3 children. We have only lived here for just short of 5 years. Being in ministry, as some of you might know, does not give me the luxury of staying planted very long. God uproots His plants, sometimes quite frequently. We have lived in 3 parts of Florida, as well as 2 parts of South Dakota.....in 12 years. So, this had the potential to be either a very lengthy post about all the places we have lived or just about the place we are now. For the sake of your reading pleasure, I'm choosing the latter.

So, Palatka.........

...........well, the very first weekend we arrived, we were introduced to an annual event called The Blue Crab Festival. This shindig brings people from all over. It's quite the boost to our poor little town's economy. We have even built several new hotels just to accomodate all of the patrons. We have attended every year, except the last. It poured down rain. And for the record, I have never eaten a blue crab. I don't even know what one looks like. The funny part about that is........I love seafood!

.....there is so much more at this festival than just eating blue crab, however. There are rides for the kids, booths with all kinds of neat vendors, and the best part???? Fried green tomatoes!!! Welcome to the south! It's just what we do here. Everything tastes better with batter!

That leads me to my next highlight of P-latka (as some around here call it). Angel's-Florida's Oldest Diner. You wanna good burger? Onion Rings? Heart Attack? You can have it all! Good on the food, bad on the arteries.

So if you're an aspiring Biggest Loser contestant, Angel's will help you get there!!! However, if you want to burn off the fat, then my next feature is just for you!

Ravine Gardens State Park is located right in the middle of Palatka.

It's a beautiful walk-thru/drive-thru scenic adventure full of history and mystery (click the link to learn more. During the month of March, Palakta holds the Azalea festival. In Spring, the Azalea's are in full bloom and it is truly breathtaking!

During the rest of the year, the park is open to walkers and runners to use it's peak/valley terrain as an exercise course! It's full of adventure for kids as well. Suspension bridges and look outs over the ravines are so much fun to experience. It's not the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone, but it's special and unique to Palatka.

So there you have it. That's a snapshot into where I live. One more thing that's neat is that I am about an hour from Daytona Beach, St. Augustine, Ocala, Gaineville and Jacksonville. I guess we are like the Donut hole....:)

Thanks for visiting......