When I started my State Parking journey, I was doing it mostly to keep myself out of trouble. I had a tendency of making poor decisions in life when I had idle time on my hands. It only took a few weeks of visiting the parks before I felt a transformation in my sprit. Being in the parks has delivered much needed peace for my soul and sanctuary in my life. It gave me a mission to accomplish and then took on a life of its own. I started figuring out how to see parks every time I got in the car to go anywhere. That was not any different when I decided to go pay a visit to my friend Brian Scott who is staying in Jacksonville due to work. Brian worked until 5 pm on Saturday’s so I mapped out a route to hit a few parks ‘along the way’. I packed up the cooler and Casey and I hit the road!
Lake Griffin State Park was a little over an hour away, in Fruitland Park. The main attraction is this mammoth live oak tree that is guessed to be between 300 – 500 years old. They say it is the 2nd largest live oak in the state. I mean it could be true, I still can’t believe how big that tree was. There was no way I was going to get that whole thing in one picture. I put Casey right in the middle for a fun photo opt but she didn’t seem to be too impressed. I read the plaques and walked around, admiring its vast beauty. Casey & I enjoyed the nice bench for a bit, in pure awe.
After a while I decided to move on and see the rest of the park. We took a short hike on the nature trail but quickly discovered the rest of the beauty was to be discovered from the water. One thing you should know about me is that I am strictly a passenger on any type of water craft. Therefore, after the hike and a view of the Amphitheater, our visit to Lake Griffin had come to an end, leaving more to do on a future visit.
Before you visit, make sure you check out the parks website for all of the up-to-date park information: https://www.floridastateparks.org/parks-and-trails/lake-griffin-state-park
