Tram Tour and the 9 Soup Dinner

Thursday January 22, 2015
Highlands Hammock State Park
Sebring, Florida

 

 

Just after dawn this morning I bike directly over to the Lieber Trail.  It’s over an hour before the park opens.  No one is here but me.   I walk in very slowly soaking it all in. There are no words for how it feels.  At some point perhaps I’ll do a post of the pictures I took but right now I’ll skip to the afternoon.

 

Even though we took the tram tour last time we were here, when we saw it yesterday we decided to take it again.  The cost is $5 a head for the hour long tour which takes you through some restricted areas off limits to the public any other way. 

If nothing else, it’s a nice donation to the Friends of Highlands Hammock who do an amazing number of programs in the park including a Wednesday night pot luck in the recreation hall, a Thursday morning coffee, biscuits and home made jam and a Thursday evening Soup Dinner all in the Rec Hall.  

Since most food is made with meat, oil and sugar we opted to skip the pot luck and David even skipped, with regret, this morning’s biscuits. 

I think next time we’ll just support the Friends, do it all, and then spend the next month cleaning up our act.  LOL

The Friends tram tour tickets are only for sale the day of the tour and the 1:00 sells out pretty quickly after the 8:00 opening of the ranger station.  If there are enough people, they will do a 2:30 tour as well.

Having gotten our tickets first thing, we headed over to the tram pick up point in front of the CCC Museum about which I did a  post last time we were here.  If you are interested you can find it with this link.  I may do a more detailed one this time if that works out.

 

Kevin was our guide last time and again today.  He took us down the Hammock Road stopping at the homestead to talk about the original white pioneers in this place and the orange groves they planted.  He also stops at the trail head for the Richard Lieber Trail to talk about Lieber who is the father of the Indiana State Park system, one of the first in the nation, and was a consultant to many other state parks as they started up.  When coming to Highlands Hammock he said it was one of the 3 most beautiful places he’d been in.  Pretty high praise.  Of course he discusses this old oak which even though filled with concrete, shrugged off the best intentions of man to put out new growth and continue on to its next 1000 years.  They give 970 as the date of the tree.  How they know that neither I nor anyone else asked.

 

 

 

Now it’s time to turn off the paved Hammock Road and head down a dirt road marked “Restricted Access”.  Luckily it was a warm day and we didn’t have to drive very far before Kevin pointed out the first of several alligators out sunning themselves.

  Of course this was what people had come to see so they all stood up to take a look and get pictures.  That was when I first realized that I’d been on the tram in plenty of time to pick which side I wanted to sit on and I was by the rail but I was on the wrong side.  Always sit on the side where the driver is.  He’ll mostly be pointing out things on that side. 

 

 

 

There were several Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons along the way as well but the folks in front of me were too tall for me to even see them much less take any pictures.  But that’s OK, I’ve seen plenty of them before.  This canal road would be a great hike if it were permitted.  I later asked why it’s restricted and Kevin said because of the cottonmouths.  Hmmmm, on the road?

 

We did see an anhinga in a tree behind the canal.   I had to get my picture from a distance and quickly before the tall folks could spot him and jump up to get theirs.

 

 

My favorite sighting of the afternoon was these two alligators and the brave turtle sitting behind the closer one.  Kevin says turtles aren’t too smart or don’t have good memories about the fact that alligators like them for food.  Not sure about that either.  Isn’t it possible that this turtle either knows he’s too big for these two or knows they have already eaten and won’t need anything for another week?

 

 

 

We saw lots and lots of turtles.  Kevin was calling out cooter and red bellied and yellow bellied sliders all the way down the canal.  I can’t tell my turtles so I have no idea who these are except that they don’t have red bellies.  Wonder how you can tell a red bellied if you can’t see his belly.

This guy just popped up out of the duckweed and struggled to get above it.  It was comical to watch him pull up and then slide down.  He finally made it.

 

 

 

 

Soup

The Friends of Highlands Hammock Soup Dinner is also held in the Recreation Hall off the campground, easy walking distance for us.  It starts at 5:00 and like the potluck last night there is to be music at 6:00.  Since we didn’t attend the potluck, a decision we are regretting, we didn’t hear that music and this is a duo we have heard before and liked so we are looking forward to hearing them again.

We bring our own bowls and spoons but the cashier ranger informs us that the health department will not allow that.  He says we can pour the soup from their styrofoam bowl into our glass one if we like.  But the point for me was to decrease the use of styrofoam.  Oh well…….

 

 

The servers are lined up manning what turns out to be the 8 crockpots and warming dishes holding the home made soups.  Seems #9 didn’t show up so we had no bean and ham among our choices.  

The cost is $2 a bowl with saltines provided.  So how to choose among these?   I’m told the Bean with ham has not arrived yet so that makes it a tiny bit easier.   After looking them all over I decide to try something I’ve not had before, the Tortilla.

 

Here we have the broccoli cheese on the right and the chicken corn chowder on the left.

 

Chicken Noodle on the right and chili on the left.

 

From the right these are gumbo, tortilla and vegetable beef.  I guess I neglected to get a picture of the very first one at the top of the table, barley beef.  That was David’s choice.  He’d eaten it before I thought to take the picture.

 

 

We eat an early dinner usually so we joined the early crowd at the table.  It’s about 5:30.  Notice David’s bowl is empty and mine is still full.

He actually has 3 bowls of soup.  The beef barley, the gumbo and the vegetable beef.   Do you see a pattern here? 

He declares them all to be excellent but that the gumbo is his favorite.  I vote for the gumbo too.  Since it was labeled spicy, the server was kind enough to put just a taste in my bowl so I could try it before deciding.  It was delicious so she filled my bowl.  If I’d had room for a 3rd bowl it would have been the gumbo.   The tortilla was very good though too salty for my taste.  I think I’ll look up the recipe and see if I can make it vegan style with a lot less salt.

 

 

 

 

Aiden and Christine who call themselves Friction Farm perform to great approval. Music to eat by or just to listen to.  They call themselves a modern folk duo.  You might call them part timers. 

They quit their high profile high stress jobs and went on the road as musicians.  We saw them at Sebastian Inlet which has concerts at its campground stage.   They seem to do Florida in the winter and have a home base in South Carolina.  Maybe you’ve seen them if you’ve been in state parks in the southeast.

Their latest album, I Read Your Book, in which all the songs they wrote are based on books they had read over the course of a year, was appealing to me as a bibliophile. They play an acoustic guitar and a bass.  Their voices sing lovely blended harmonies with thought provoking lyrics.    The acoustics in the building proved to be very good which was a bit surprising with the high ceilings and large space.  If you ever get the chance, give them a listen.

 

 

 

When I step outside to head home, the little sliver of a new moon is shining brightly in the sky.  What a beauty. 

 

 

 

 

I follow it all the way back through the pines and the palms to Winnona who looks quite content sitting under her tall pine and a sliver of a moon.

 

 

 

 

 

Highlands Hammock has a lot to recommend it.