Thursday, February 10, 2011

Our Trip To Myakka River State Park, Florida

Rosie reserved a cabin for us for February when we started to get cabin fever in December.  We were really looking forward to the cabin which was advertised as "sleeps 6".  We thought if someone else wanted to come with us, we would have room.  Last year we stayed at Okeefenokee in a state park cabin that had two full bedrooms and two baths, and we expected something similar.  We were a bit taken back when we pulled up to a log cabin built with palm logs.  The cabin measured 16' x 20' - one room with two full size beds with the mattresses wrapped in crunchy plastic and a bag of clean sheets and one thin blanket on each bed.  We made the beds ourselves.  There was a small couch on one side of a fireplace at the other end of the building.  We assume it opened into a bed for the other couple.  The other side of the room had a table with six chairs where the guys immediately sat down to play one of a marathon of cribbage games.  

 I think after many games and much complaining and whining that they ended up dead even on games.



While the men played cribbage in their "man cave", Rosie and I went outside and enjoyed the morning sunshine.  We all went to the boat basin to take an airboat tour of the lake, followed by a tram ride through the forest.  Part of the tram ride went through an old homestead of the Palmer family.  That was interesting to me as it is an old family name from a couple of generations back. 

We learned a lot about the native plants and animals on the tours.  We are always happy to visit some of the best places in the United States that someone had the foresight to retain as parks. 
We had such a nice trip that while we had a burger and shake at the Steak and Shake in Sarasota in the evening, we already began plotting for which park to visit next.  We all decided that we should do two different parks next season.  For more pictures, you can look at Rosie's blog.