My husband Bob and I drove up to Brooksville, FL back in 1996 to look for a home. Our friends were building a house in Cedar Key,100 miles north of us. Bob had to get transfered and Brooksville had an opening.

We saw a sign outside the realtors office,”home for sale on river.” It looked like that was just what we were looking for.  We made plans to see it on our week~end house hunt.

It was off of I75 and State Road 50. The street was a very nice with large over hanging oak, down the turns and twists of the road. We loved the street.  The homes were set back off the road on the left side, and up towards the street on the right.

We took a left turn on to a long winding driveway, which made us fall in love with the place without even looking at it. We thought, what ever it is at the end, we want it!

We saw the end of the long driveway, and fell in love with the look of the Cedar home sitting up high on stilts. The entrance of the driveway was concidered the back of the house because the house sat in front of a river.

The river was, the Withalacoochee River which runs north. Which there are only 3 rivers in the world that run north, this is one, but don’t ask me to name the other two.

We walked up to the edge of the river and thought, how cute. It was like a stream of water that never made us think that it would get any higher.

The home was to die for. A wall of windows over looking the river, and a glass room, which was the dining room. The loft was very large which over looked the wall of windows in the living room.

We bought the house in April of 1997. In Dec. of 1997 we had El Nino come to visit. The storm from hell. By the end of the month the water crept rapidly up the embankment  of the river and engulfed our yard. The cute stream turned into the anger of Mother Nature.

It was all new to us, being surrounded by water, 10~12 feet surrounding our home. We ended up with no electicity because it came up over the electrical box. Our water did not work because we had a well. The only way out was by boat.