DAYCATION—CROSS CREEK & THE YEARLING
‘Slip Back To Old Florida’ By Dean Blinkhorn • Photos By Trevor Byrne
For a slice of Real Florida, nothing is more authentic than going back in time to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ old homestead in Cross Creek. And a detour for some cracker food at The Yearling Restaurant nearby just adds to the experience!
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WHY GO? Most Central Floridians enjoy living here but don’t have much sense of its history. Author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had a deep appreciation for this area, her adopted home, and wrote about it extensively in her books, most famously in perennial favorites The Yearling and Cross Creek. Her home has been well-preserved and is worth an afternoon. A LITTLE HISTORY: Rawlings was attracted to Central Florida immediately and moved here full
OCALA’S GOOD LIFE retirement redefined
time in 1928. She would eventually call Cross Creek home for more than 25 years and her attempts at gardening, hunting, and running a successful orange grove would become deeply entrenched parts of the stories in her famous books. WHAT TO DO: This is admittedly not the most exciting of the Florida State Parks, but it’s
