Moon shot at Dicerandra Scrub

Growing up in the Space Age, it’s always been a joy to stop in Titusville and admire the view across the Indian River Lagoon of the hustle and bustle of Kennedy Space Center.

It saddens me that the wind-down of the Space Shuttle program will have a ripple effect on local businesses, such as the Clarion Inn at the end of SR 50 that just recently closed. But there will always be the moon.

Space View Park is an excellent place to see the starry skies over the Indian River Lagoon, but I lucked into this daylight shot in Titusville at Dicerandra Scrub Preserve, no tripod, with my Nikon D-80. Perhaps the stars were in alignment?

Lake Mills

One of the first Florida Trail Association events I attended was a picnic at Lake Mills Park in Chuluota, almost a decade ago. It was a delight to return and wander the lush forest – where Florida rhododedron were in bloom in the uplands, and the fern forest a deep green in the cypress floodplain – and enjoy a stroll along the lakeshore. This Seminole county park is an off-the-beaten-path favorite of mine because of its eminently appealing campground set in the shade of a scrub forest; I’ve camped here several times, and always enjoy being tucked away in the woods with a good bathhouse nearby. Large picnic shelters, lakeside shelters, and a playground round out the high points of the park.

Swimming area on Jenkins Creek

One of the conundrums of naming a place is that people DO expect to find what’s in a name: Silver Springs, for instance, or White Springs, or Lake City … logically, those landforms should exist in those towns, and they do. Hernando Beach is a different animal. I remember after a 60s visit to Weeki Wachee, going in search of a beach and being disappointed at a rough spit of land with sand and pine trees on the Gulf, down at the end of SR 50. But Hernando Beach, I think, was a marketing ploy by a developer who carved canals out of estuary and sold lots at sea level. Shoal Line Road is lined with some fine restaurants, but this is a mostly residential area to the west of SR 19.

You can’t see the Gulf of Mexico from Hernando Beach, even from the top of the tower at Jenkins Creek, but you can smell the salt air and drive along stretches of highway in the middle of a salt marsh. Pedersen Park at Jenkins Creek is a pretty little place for fishing or swimming, with picnic tables and pavilions and a man-made beach along a crystalline palm-lined creek, a slice of Old Florida at its finest.

Observation Tower at Wall Springs Park

Along the Pinellas Trail in Palm Harbor, Wall Springs Park is a perfect escape for folks who like their wilderness tamed and safe. The namesake springs – which do bubble up fresh water within a few hundred feet of a mangrove-lined bayou – were a popular natural swimming hole and spa for more than a century, but like many such places in Florida, fell out of popularity and into disrepair. Pinellas County brought the property back to life with a host of urban amentities, including a paved trail system more than a mile long, a boardwalk for birdwatching along the spring and its outflow basin, several fishing piers on the Gulf of Mexico, a massive playground with a sun canopy, and the one surprising addition that blew me away – the largest open-air observation tower I’ve encountered yet in Florida.  It’s built like a giant Lincoln Log structure of telephone poles, and the multiple decks are big enough to hold an entire classroom of kids. From the top, you get a sweeping view of the Gulf, including distant Anclote Key and Honeymoon Island.  Stop in for your own personal panorama!

Osprey at Honeymoon Island State Park

The busiest beach in Florida has a secret that only birders and hikers know. Get past the beach at Honeymoon Island State Park – and I do mean that literally, just drive into the park and past ALL of the beaches – and you’ll find a quiet corner with a picnic area, playground, and “Nature Trail” sign. This is another of my hikes in “50 Hikes in Central Florida,” where a revisit confirmed that very little has changed along the Osprey and Pelican Trails, save a few changed kiosks and a LOT of new benches. But the highlight of a summer’s afternoon spent in this virgin slash pine forest was seeing not one, not two, but two dozen or more osprey going about their lives. This is a major nesting area for osprey, and the chicks are in the nest. The sounds of the birds, the closeness of the nests, and the constant hum of avian life in the forest – beyond these grand raptors – made it an unforgettable walk.

North Loop boardwalk at John Chesnut Park

Two shores, two parks: Lake Tarpon’s a big place that most visitors don’t even know exists, hidden as it is by businesses and residential areas along US 19 north of Clearwater. On the western shore, in Tarpon Springs, A.L. Anderson County Park is a large county park where you can drop a boat or kayak in to putter around the lake, or enjoy a picnic under the cypresses along the shoreline.

For more extensive recreation opportunities, John Chesnut Sr. County Park in Oldsmar grabs a large chunk of the eastern shoreline and offers it up as a wild place to play. I revisited the park to update “50 Hikes in Central Florida”  to discover efforts in progress to replace all of the boardwalks along the lakeshore. The birding is superb here thanks to a screen of natural floodplain forest along the shoreline.

The Peggy Park Nature Trail is at the south end of the park, offering up a quiet walk under the cypress and a stroll along Brooker Creek. Nearby, boardwalks lead from the boat ramp along the shoreline to hidden niches with picnic tables,  a tall observation tower, and covered decks along the lakeshore, perfect for catching a breeze while reading a book or watching the gallinules in the shallows. Thanks to Barbara Bowen, who met me for this visit, I discovered a whole section of the park I’d missed on my first visit, complete with dog park and large playground, picnic pavillions around a large pond, and another hiking loop with a boardwalk through a floodplain forest where birds are bountiful.