Highlands Hammock to Start 2023

December 30, 2022 to January 12, 2023                   Most Recent Posts:
Highlands Hammock State Park           Days Before and After at Alafia River
Site 45                                                               Winding Up at Wekiwa Springs
Sebring, Florida

Somehow, sick as I was, I managed to drive to Highlands and get set up.  The pictures below are my site and my surroundings before the crowds showed up.

As soon as I could on Monday, I went to Urgent Care in Sebring.  The place was packed.  I didn’t think to take this picture when I first came in.  This is after about an hour.  I was told it would be a two hour wait and it was more than that. 

And another 45 minutes once I got into the room to see the doctor.  During that time they did a covid test which they said was negative.  He came in said they were out of flu tests but I looked healthy enough and my chest sounded fine  He prescribed an antibiotic which made my diarrhea worse and a cough medicine which the pharmacy told me hasn’t been available for several years.  Because it was January 2nd, it cost me $113 since I had not met my medicare deductible.

This is exactly why I hate going to Urgent Care.  I took the amoxicillin for TEN DAYS and it did nothing but give me diarrhea which quit the day after I stopped taking it.  Clearly this is not a bacteria.

I was SO TIRED of being sick that on sickness day 13 I took myself to Ihop and had breakfast just to give myself a treat.   They cannot begin to compare with David’s “Farm Breakfast” but it’s all I have.

I always drink hot water and really wish restaurants had cups that didn’t make the water taste like coffee which I don’t like.  I need to remember to bring a hot thermos of water for myself.

When I returned, the crowds had shown up.   Winnona is there on the left.  Highlands Hammock is the oldest of the Florida State Parks and  opened for tenters in 1931 four years before the park system started.   Its sites are a serious jumble probably because the campground was originally created for tents.

This was on  Winnona’s left side complete with multiple tents on two sites.

No idea what the two tall green things were.  If you know, tell us.

And here’s the view out the front window.  Thankfully I was on a circle and the middle of it was open and grassy.   This is a really busy park with 143 campsites with water and electric and one dump station that all 143 campers have to use.

For more than a week this was my view from my antigravity chair.  But it’s WARM.

My brother and sister in law had tried to send me my absolute favorite chocolates for Christmas to Carrie’s house but they did not have her current address even though she’s been there 2 or 3 years now.  So, luckily for me, the people at her old address refused delivery or sent the candy back to Esther Price.   Probably a very good thing since I seriously doubt the airline would have allowed me to bring back potentially dangerous chocolates on the plane.    SIGH!   

Though they had wanted to surprise me, ultimately they called let me know this sad story and get my current address.   It was a giant pick me up when the chocolates arrived although they made me cough more but  if I’m going to cough a lot it should be for a good reason.   Many thanks to Dave and  Cindy for this sweet treat.

This is THE BEST candy in the world so treat yourself and have them send you a box.  They have lots of other possibilities than coconut creams.  They have every kind of chocolate you can imagine.  If you like chocolate covered cherries or a selection of dark or light chocolates, go for it!   They even have chocolate covered potato chips.  Or stop by the Esther Price Candy Store if you are ever in Dayton Ohio.

Finally on my last 4 days of my two week stay I felt well enough to go on short hikes.   The first one I did was my favorite just in case I didn’t feel as well tomorrow.   I hiked the Cypress Swamp Trail which is a boardwalk through a glorious swamp.  I don’t look better than I feel here but I wanted to remember.

Ibis were feeding but they weren’t looking at me.

Not sure how I spotted this Anhinga in the veritable jungle that is this hike.  I love his webbed feet.  This is the kind of bird I’d like to be – able to swims and fly.

But the most numerous birds were the Ibis who came as a flock for lunch.

On David’s birthday, he should be alive and celebrating 76,  I did something I know he loved to do every time we visited this park.   I went to the CCC Museum.

There are 21 CCC Museums around the country and in our travels we visited all the ones we could.  This is the only one in Florida where the CCC created 8 parks in the 1930’s.

Both David and I think this program was brilliant and that it should be recreated.  There are so many things young women and men could do including help with the upkeep and restoration of the parks they created. 

There were 194 CCC Work Camps in 94 national parks and 697 camps in 881 state and local parks across the Country

The exhibits are very interesting and informative.  If you’ve never been to an exhibit or a full museum, I encourage you to see if there is one in your state or the states you visit and visit it.

Light was not my friend when I turned back to take this picture of the entry door and exhibits.

Each of the Florida State Parks that the CCC created is shown.  There are 8 in total which was the start of what became the Florida State Park Service.  Florida Caverns, Fort Clinch, Gold Head Branch, Highlands Hammock, Hillsborough River, Myakka River, O'Leno, and Torreya.  Beginning in 1931, by 1941 the CCC had created 99 buildings and other infrastructure in those 8 parks.

Here are the locations of those parks within the state.

The exhibits show things like the accommodations and the schedule they lived under.

You can click on this picture to make it easier to read.  Up at 6am, lights out at 10pm.  They were paid $30 a month and $25 of that was sent home to their families as this was a program designed to help during the depression.

I wish I could show all the exhibits.  They were so creative and the space used so cleverly.  This information was on clouds  hanging from the Ceiling.  Even blown up, it’s too hard to read but it says:

23,000 businesses failed in 1929.  32,000 more failed in 1932.
By 1933 one out of every 4 people in the United States was out of work.
Average family income dropped from $2300 to $1500.

The next day I hiked another short trail through the big Live Oaks some of which are hundreds of years old.

Most of you know how much David and I both love big trees.  There was no way to get my arms around many of these to give them a hug and no one to take my picture if I could.

A comparison of feet.

Hidden away in the woods, if you can recognize them, are wild orange trees.  Most of the low hanging fruit has been taken. David was a master at getting oranges and eating them as we hiked but they were way too bitter for me. 

This trail too had a boardwalk and on the other side down just a short way on the trail. . . .

I was lucky enough to spot this barred owl in the later afternoon.  I wonder why he wasn’t sleeping for his night time hunting.  His eyes definitely look sleepy.

He’s just fantastically gorgeous.  What patterns.  Nature is so amazing!

On my final hike I put 3 of their short trails together for a total of 3.2 miles.  It turned out to be a little much but I’m clearly feeling better.

I started out on the short Alexander Blair Big Oak Trail. 

Until its death a few years ago this tree was said to be 1000 years old, the oldest tree in the park.

Toppled by a major storm at least 10 years ago, the broken branches have revealed remnants of “repairs” done in the mid 1930’s.  The oak, with a girth of over 36 inches, was one of three trees in the park filled with concrete, reinforcement rods and brace cables by tree surgeons in an effort to preserve them.  This of course did not help it at all and added extra weight that destabilized the tree.  The picture below right shows cross crosses in concrete poured in the base.  A closer shot follows.   Also in the photo on the right is the shelf mushroom that has grown here since David and I visited. 

They are lovely aren’t they?

From there I went on to the Hickory Trail.

And across another one handed boardwalk where the vegetation is close on all sides.

And where I found another gnarly  elderly oak that they had not tried to fill with concrete.
It’s amazing that it is still alive given the bottom of the trunk.

Here is a picture from 2013 of David standing in front of this tree.  It’s difficult to tell from my recent picture just how big the tree is.  One of the many problems of not someone to hike with.

If you’d like to see more of our 2013 visit to Highland’s Hammock including the still living Alexander Blair Big Oak and some of the huge limbs which fell off due to their weight,  use this link.

Next up are two parks I haver never visited before.