Saturday January 24 to Monday January 26
Big Flats Campground
Myakka River State Park
Sarasota, Florida
Friday Afternoon and Saturday
After my wonderful Friday morning with the barred owl and others, I return to find that the week-enders are rolling in. The wide open spaces around us, with the campsites on either side of us unoccupied for the entire week, disappear.
To Winnona’s right a large gray closed trailer, the size of a small horse trailer but not, arrives in the late afternoon to reveal two Harley Davidson Motorcycles.
Apparently the owners also sleep in the trailer. It had an awning out over the door until the strong afternoon winds rip it up and throw it over the top of the trailer.
The site to our left remains open all day. Then after dark three 20 something guys move in, set up their tent by car headlight and proceeded to get completely drenched over night. It was great having such a roomy site for most of our stay here so we don’t mind the two day week-ends on either side of our week.
It’s actually kind of fun to watch the week-enders. The boys, we discover, have no clue how to build a fire. We get a great deal of entertainment out of watching that and later on Saturday watching the “designated chef” try to grill hamburgers by constantly spraying his charcoal with fire starter while the burgers are on the grille above. I guess this is the hurry up and cook method. I’ll bet they were really yummy.
Friday the high was 80 and it was so warm I wore only a t-shirt to sleep in – luxurious. That’s my kind of “winter”.
But overnight Saturday things totally change. We have a huge pounding rain storm with lightning and high winds. I feel really sorry for these people in their tents. The boys next door get completely drenched. The storm dumps a lot of water on us. Thank goodness this is a sandy habitat which will swallow the water pretty quickly. The cold front that brought us the rain also brings much cooler temperatures as they drop steadily all day long.
Saturday morning, water is everywhere. We even have a lake in the middle of the circle. Our property values have gone up overnight.
I dress in flannel lined jeans and a sweatshirt to keep warm. A perfect day for chocolate chip pancakes with fruit on top which I was too busy eating to photograph.
It’s our last day here at Highland’s Hammock and because it is a Saturday the park is full of people.
We bike around the loop one last time and manage to find a “not on the map” short hike on what is known as the dam road. It does go over an old dam whose works are still visible. Because of the rain, the swamps have ‘expanded’ and much of the water has gotten too deep for wading birds. We’re not sure if there is always this much water on the sides of the trail or just because of the torrential rains last night.
It’s also too chilly for the gators to be out of the water so the only wildlife we see today is a couple of great egrets. Amazingly for a Saturday, the only people we see here at the dam are a father and son fishing. Beyond the dam we move into a slash pine scrub habitat and find the skies have turned blue with puffy clouds.
We bike on to the Cypress Swamp Boardwalk and walk around one last time. The resurrection ferns on the tree branches are thrilled by all the rain.
We stop at the Fern Garden Trail to see if Ms Gator is there knowing that it’s not sunny enough and too cold for her today. We’re right but we do see the blooming pickerelweed.
And then that’s it for this time at Highland’s Hammock State Park.
At the end of the afternoon we’ve only done 3.7 miles of biking and 3.3 miles of walking but some days are like that.
Tonight things will be much different from Friday night’s warmth. The low is predicted to be 41. Back to flannel pajamas and electric heaters.
Sunday
The low is indeed 41. I know that’s considered warm winter weather in many places in the north. I remember being thrilled when it got up to 41 after days in the 20’s but it sure feels cold here. Made it hard to get up and get going to move on to Myakka River State Park. So we get a rather lazy start.
Once I am outside packing up, I’m not surprised to see that nearly everyone else is doing the same. After all it is a Sunday and Monday is a work day. That means long lines at the single dump station for this 138 site campground. I try very hard not to have us moving on the week-ends for this very reason. Let the week-end warriors have it. But sometimes, it can’t be helped especially in the winter in Florida when reservations are difficult to put together if, like us, you want to stay in state and national rather than private campgrounds.
And so we sit in a line running down the entry road so we can drive up the little hill, stop at the top, dump our tanks and drive back down. There are 4 rigs in front of us when we pull up and soon there are 4 more behind us. By the time we are finished 45 minutes has gone by. But that’s OK since we are only going 70 miles and have all day to get there. AND the added bonus is that it is all on lightly trafficked back roads. I don’t think we have even one stop light all the way. This is definitely my kind of driving, my kind of move.
It’s good bye to Highlands Hammock and hello to Myakka River. We were here a few weeks ago for the week-end between our two two weeks stays at Oscar Scherer. For that week-end we stayed in the newest of the three campgrounds. This time we are staying in the oldest and interestingly our friends Bill and Nancy are in the site we had for the week-end. They are here for two weeks.
We arrive about 2:30 and as though they had radar Bill and Nancy come riding up on their bikes. The two campgrounds are about 3 miles apart so it isn’t as though they saw us come in.
We get set up and go up to their site to sit and chat a while. They have graciously invited us to stay for dinner. Nancy’s potato soup is outstanding and we are more than happy to help her eat it. Of course I forgot my camera so you don’t get to see how beautiful it is in addition to being delicious.
Now dessert, pretty maybe but delicious, not so much. On Saturday night David and I had experimented with a dessert recipe from the Engine 2 vegan repertoire. Desserts are a tough thing to come by on a no oil no sugar diet. This one is a banana strawberry cream pie but it is really a dud. Looked good but the taste was just too boring.
Perhaps just the word dessert conjures up expectations of sweetness in one’s mouth. But this one just didn’t make the grade, so it’s a one time pie. We offered to leave some slices with Bill and Nancy but they declined our generosity. LOL SO my guess is this pie will be David’s to eat since he’ll eat pretty much anything.
We finish the night playing dominoes. Everybody wins at least one round except poor David who had the largest total score for most of the rounds. Better luck next time David. I guess that’s why you get the pie as your prize. HA!
Actually as we started to leave, I told David to make a run for it and leave the pie on the counter but Nancy quickly told Bill to lock the door. LOL!
So we took the pie and headed out into the night. It’s supposed to rain again tonight and be very windy tomorrow. The water is up in the river. We’re hoping to go kayaking while we are here for a week but with the winds at 22 mph and more, it probably isn’t going to be tomorrow.
