Myakka River State Park, Florida

Name: Myakka River State Park
Location: 13208 State Road 72, Sarasota, FL 34241

Size: 37,000 acres, 14 miles of Myakka River itself within the park, 38.9 miles of nature trails including a canopy-level suspension bridge available to hikers and researchers
Created: Myakka River State Park is one of the largest and oldest parks in Florida, it was delineated in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps
Activities: Hiking, biking, backpacking, camping, bicycling, birding, canoeing and kayaking, boat tours are very popular here
Pros: Stunning wildlife, big skies, remote camping, excellent birding, great hikes
Cons: Can be crowded and busy around the visitors center, try to get there early in the day if you plan on taking a boat tour as the wait can get quite long

Camp Thunderbird Vitamin D Intensive Excursion

Dave and I boarded a plane to Sarasota last February to visit his retiree parents in Florida. Normally, when we head down there our trip tends to overlap with spring break so we coordinate with his brother’s kids’ school schedule. That year, we weren’t able to make it happen, so Dave and I went down over Presidents’ Day Weekend.

Retiree vacation is awesome, you guys. Florida trips with kids tend to revolve entirely around the kids and their schedules and their needs. And that’s all fine and good, sure. But a couple of thirtysomething adults hanging out with a couple of sixtysomething adults, operating on their sixtysomething schedule is the life, man. Wake up around 8 or 9 a.m. Get mad at the news. Eat some breakfast. Go kayaking for an hour or so. Then lunch. Then naptime, or reading for a while. Maybe you’ll visit the beach in time for sunset. Maybe your parents’ retired friends brought enough daquiris to share on the beach. Then you eat a half rack of ribs, drink a glass of wine with an ice cube in it and go to bed at 9:30 p.m. Retiree life is great.

Dave and I did take one day to go on a nice, long hike as long as we were in Florida in February which is the ideal season for hiking down there. Temperatures hung around 80 degrees. There were no pesky bugs. The sky was clear and blue and big. We chose Myakka River State Park because we could drive there in about 45 minutes from where we were staying and because we could get probably an 8 or 9 mile hike in. That’s long enough to take all day, but not long enough to totally exhaust you. We were on vacation, after all.

There was very little planning done between deciding on Myakka River and deciding on which trail in the park. There are almost 40 miles of trails in the park, many of them leading to remote, primitive campsites. This would be an ideal place for wintertime backpacking, if someone wanted to spend a night on a dry prairie possibly surrounded by Florida panthers.

We arrived at the Visitors Center, got the lay of the land, and chose to leave our car parked in the main lot by the lake while we hiked to Ranch House Road, past Bee Island and then around the dry prairie for a while until the sun began to wane.  

The wildlife at Myakka River State Park is stunning. We saw huge flocks of ducks, herons, ravens, Ibis, egret and probably others I didn’t recognize. As we were driving in, Dave noticed a rather large ground snail right in the middle of the paved road and navigated around so he didn’t run over it. As we were passing, he noticed the nearby raven clearly keeping an eye on things. I’m pretty sure this raven knows that cars crack open delicious snails when they run over them. I’m pretty sure this raven tried to use us a tool. Ravens are really smart, you guys.

While we were out on the prairie, we saw evidence of what I suspect was the Florida panther. Big cats have been making a comeback in recent years (praise hands emoji) and there have been sightings in the region. The evidence that I saw was a very large, furry scat.

Myakka River has two of what they claim are the world’s largest airboats. That’s probably true, I didn’t investigate. We arrived shortly after noon to find a Visitors Center bustling with bored-looking tourists. I guess the airboat tour is very popular, and I can see why, but no small part of the reason we came to the park was to wander about in the solitude of nature. So we quickly walked away. If you wanted to take the airboat tour, I would recommend arriving early in the day before things get too crowded. We did have ice cream and bought beer coozies in the visitors center, so I can easily endorse ice cream and beer coozies.

Wildlife spotted:
Anole, Black vulture, Blue heron, Crocodile, Ground dove, Tricolored heron, Snowy Egret, Red-Shouldered hawk, Coconut palm, Spanish moss, Cabbage palmetto, waterlilies, asters, ferns