myakka river state park « verdure
myakka river state park
Sunday, April 11th, 2010

Maybe it’s just us, since we seem to have this complaint about a lot of places, but really, where’s the parking? Especially when driving the GTO, hanging off the side of the road isn’t appealing. And while you’re at it, make a bike/pedestrian lane. There should be space for people to stop, take pictures, point out creatures that they’ve misidentified, without blocking the road. We did appreciate the excellent signage for finding the entrance to the park, and the map in the brochure from the ranger station was much more readable than those offered at some other parks.

The canopy walk is an 85′ suspension bridge between two towers in the middle of the forest. The later tower continues above the bridge to a hight of 74′. I’m guessing that doesn’t count the extra foot or two for the lightning rod. This structure is by far the tallest object anywhere for miles and there are no hills in this part of Florida. Obviously the view is great, but half of the experience is the swaying, of the bridge from people walking, and of the tower from the wind.

In the heat of midday there weren’t many birds near the birdwalk. There were fishing spiders, baby fish, a snake that I didn’t get to see, the croaking of what was probably a few bull frogs, and lots of dragonflies. My best guess of this species is Carolina Saddlebags. This is an difficult perspective to see its wings properly, but there are red-brown bands on its rear wings near its body.

This quill leaf bromeliad (listed as endangered because of its destruction by the invasive Mexican weevil) was at the turning around point of our walk because the mosquitoes finally found us. There is a lot of swampy area in this park, and I’m surprised we made it as long as we did mosquito free. We saw a few blooming swamp irises (Anglepod Blue Flag?), but my hand-holding in the shade didn’t turn out so well.

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2 responses to “myakka river state park”

  1. Mike says:

    I’m an American, and I should be able to park wherever I please!

    If I want to park on top of endangered forest of cute baby animals, I should damn well be able to! No Obama secrit Mooslim atheist anti-Christ blackie McBlackerson should be able to stop me.

    Palin in 2012!

  2. Hear Hear!

    I am going to park on top of a bunch of orphans. It was their fault for losing their parents in the first place!

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