Our Tour Of Myakka River State Park

On May 2nd, we took a wonderful 4 hour “Orientation Tour” given to all Myakka River State Park volunteers!
Meet Jim Watson, our tour guide and he has been a volunteer here for years.
 Jim and his wife Lois spend several months a year as volunteers here. Lois works in the Visitor Center answering many, many, many questions by visitors!

First critter we saw on our orientation tour was a turkey! Warning….  most of the following images were shot through the window of a bouncing 4X4 Ford Explorer!  Not much here totally in focus!
Below is Clay Gully…. a very slow moving creek

Clay Gully is also a great fishing hole as evidenced by the red plastic bobber caught up in the tree!
Many deer share their world here at Myakka River State Park which is the main reason the speed limit is 25mph here. You never know when a deer will jump out in the middle of the road! We have witnessed it many tines!

Jim and Chuck in the front seat as we all go “Uh Oh rain drops” on the windshield!

The rain stayed in the distance although we did get a few quick showers.

The Pickerelweed below is beautiful plant to look at but NOT a native plant to Florida.  It is prolific and quickly chokes out native plants and choking up our waterways!

I thought I had captured an alligator in the background, but upon closer examination it was just a neat old log!


Another deer enjoying the wild side of Florida! New antlers are just beginning to show on this guy!

One of our  stops was at the Sweetmeadow Pastures ranch site. The original pioneer family of ranching lived here, laughed here, worked here and loved here long before “here” became a state park.

Bertha Palmer was enticed by the lush wetlands and a vast grassy prairie land. In 1910 she built her 19,000 acre ranch along the banks of the Myakka River. Mrs. Palmer was innovative in her approach to ranching. Over her short 8 year tenure, she introduced Brahma bulls improving her spindly Florida herd. she also built dipping vats to combat tick fever. She also fenced in her land, all unheard of customs in her day!
This is one of her dipping vats.  You would walk the cattle in at one end, through the dip potion and out the other end.




Can you even imagine walking 100’s of cattle through these vats???

I am sure you all have heard of saw palmetto, the herb to help men’s prostrate. Below is a saw palmetto and the small flowers peeking out are the medicinal part of the plant.

Another deer watching us pass by!

Below is known as “deep hole”.  Alligators collect themselves here.  It is just one of the mysteries of Myakka State Park.



Below is an Osprey perched on a branch far, far, far away which my hand held 300mm tried its best to get a good image!

If you enjoy camping, whether in your backyard  or in one of the many state or national parks that our beautiful America enjoys, you might love this recipe!
Waffle cones with marshmallows, chocolate chips, bananas, and strawberries. Wrap in tinfoil and throw on the fire. aaaaahmazing

Saying goodbye to our good camping volunteer friends Connie and Cecil.  Their time here is up and they head back to upper Michigan for the summer months and home gardens!


DoogieBowser and Radar definitely love living the life of vagabond gypsy doggies!

It seems hard to believe that in 4 short weeks our time here at Myakka River State Park will be done. KaPut! Over! UNTIL we get the opportunity to return again as volunteers!  We have really enjoyed our time here and we encourage all of you consider volunteering at one of the state parks in your area!

We are lucky here at Myakka that we have such a wonderful support group, “Friends Of Myakka” pay for our uniforms, our equipment and our immediate needs at the park. Below is the fancy swamp buggy used in helping with control burns and trimming the trees with low hanging branches just waiting to snag one of the larger RV Motorhomes!

These tires are almost as tall as I am!

We hope you enjoyed this tour of Myakka State Park and will one day get to visit this piece of Old Florida!
Florida, before the land grabbers and the land developers came and decided they had bigger and better ideas for “La Florida”  Land of flowers!
We hope you get the opportunity to come explore this “wild” piece of Florida soon!
Please leave a comment!  We like to read about your thoughts!
Happy Trails from the crew of the “MotherShip”  Chuck, Geri, DoogieBowser and Radar!