The Legacy Trail

Thursday January 26, 2012
Oscar Scherer State Park Site #95

Another Fine Morning begins.

I want to get outside first thing and go for a walk. 
Not a “power walk”, did that yesterday.   Just a walk walk.

So I walk around the campground looking at possible sites
I might want to sign up for next year.

I walk up to the Nature Center to see
if the Vegetable man is there.

Nope, Not Yet.

I see the pancake breakfast has just started.
Pancakes and sausage and coffee.  $2.00

The Friends of Oscar Scherer do this every
week on Thursday morning from 8 to 10am.
They also man the Nature Center from 10 to 3:00
every day and have many other activities and events.
It is quite a big group of dedicated volunteers
who also help out the park in many
other maintenance type ways as well.

All righty, vegetables I can walk or bike to.

The Vegetable man arrives and we buy
strawberries and oranges and tangerines and tomatoes
and beets and bread and I can’t remember what else.
It’s great to have him come right to the park and
sell the local Amish community’s things.
Saves us the time and gas of going out to find them.
And I hate to drive so this is really Terrific.

We set off to pedal the Legacy Trail

After the big  shopping trip we decide to pack a lunch
and take the bikes out  for a spin on the Legacy Trial
which runs beside the park. 

It is a Rails to Trails bike path totaling more than 10 miles in length.
The trail runs from just south of the city of Sarasota
to Venice following the former CSX railroad corridor.

We set out to  do the section from the park to the
historic Venice train depot, have lunch, and come back.

We ride through the scrub forest on both sides
of the trail.  Neither of us thinks to get a
picture of the other riding along.

In a few miles we come to the first well marked
street crossing.  Across we go and back into the trees.

 

There’s a Mountain to Climb in Osprey Florida.

Up ahead we see the  mountain bridge over a serious
highway.   WOW!  You can go around but
we take the challenge and both go over in a
LOW gear.

It’s totally enclosed at the top. 

We arrive!

On the other side of the bridge is the town of Venice
and shortly the train station.

We notice the modern AC attached to the
caboose office.

The station is beautiful.

View Full Album

We learn all about it from the
historic sign just outside.

 

A Mediterranean design, it  was built in 1927,
and was the last stop on the Seaboard Air Line Railway
which ran from Richmond Virginia to Sarasota and then Venice.
Until passenger trains quit running, in 1971,
the train station was the arrival point for people
interested in buying property in the new town
being developed by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers;
and later, the cadets of the Kentucky Military Institute,
arriving around Christmas to stay until nearly Easter.
The last train to use the station, belonged to Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey Circus,
which made its winter home in Venice from 1960
until the train tracks were no longer usable in 1992.

The sun is warm the skies are blue.

We look the station and surrounds over carefully.
No place calls out as a lunch spot.
So we hop on the bikes and turn back to
the trail.

Along the way we see this gopher tortoise

also looking for lunch.

After we’ve ridden about half way back we
remember there was a park just off to the right.

In short order we see it and pull it to check it out.

It not only has a nice bench overlooking the pond
for our lunch, but also a community compost
and garden.

Just look at all the vegetables growing in January!

You can see the bikers on the trail in the distance
behind our picnic bench.

After lunch we watch this group of what
I think are hooded mergansers.  Hope
Judy will let me know if I’m incorrect. 

And this fellow skulking in the grasses

Back on the trail we soon come to the bike trail/park intersection

There must be some mighty hefty bikers here.

As we cross the bridge just before the
side trail into the park, David notices this weight limit sign.

I see it's only 3:00 when get back.

I decide it’s time to get out on the water.

But that story will have to wait for another blog on another day.