Heading Toward Home (Florida Boating, Post 33)

Sunday, February 21

Sadly, it’s time to drive home. We’re going to try to take it a bit slower. We have scheduled a night and half a day at a state park near Tallahassee, as well as two nights and a day at an airbnb near Houston in order to visit Monica safely.

At this time there were still reports of power outages and boil water advisories in Houston. We expected things to be back to normal by the time we arrived, but just in case, John bought extra bottled water at a grocery store here in Fort Lauderdale so we would be self-sufficient for the rest of the trip, all the way to Tucson if needed.

We had loved Lake Griffin State Park in northern Florida where we briefly visited on our drive down, so we had high hopes for our reservation at Torreya State Park. We even planned to stay an extra half a day there, rather than arriving at dusk and leaving right away in the morning.

Turns out it was the ugliest state park I have ever seen! It was laughably ugly! I could not understand why there was a state park there at all. 

I tried to take some nice pictures for you. Ok, there was this big house.

There was a “famous” overlook behind the house.

I admit, it would have looked better in the summer – greener at least. But this spot is never going to be spectacular. The Florida state park website claims, “High bluffs overlooking the Apalachicola River make Torreya one of Florida’s most scenic places.” HAHAHAHA! Florida has a lot of beautiful places, but this isn’t one of them.

We tried to get a good picture of the Torreya tree. This was the best picture we could get.

It was only about 10 feet tall and the top half looked even more raggedy than the bottom half. We later discovered on the internet that the Torreya tree is critically endangered due to a fungal blight that started in the 1940’s.

Since we were there, we tried to go for a walk.

The only redeeming feature is the sunset. A good sunset can make anything look nice.

We almost got lost in the featureless brush and muck. I don’t know why John was bothering with a mask. No one else was out there (for good reason). Except mosquitos.

We made it back to the campsite before dark.

I guess this state park is really more of a sanctuary for a critically endangered tree than a park for human enjoyment. Which is fine, but not what we were expecting. The next morning we got up and left instead of staying our planned half-day.

Onward!

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