According to the booklet, this park was not open to the public and I could not locate it on the Florida State Parks website. I was not sure how finding this was going to work out for me. I talked to a few state park rangers that I knew from work and got the address to the park. After doing a little research I found out it was located near Jonathan Dickinson State Park, which worked out great because I was camping there with my dad for Father’s Day Weekend. When we checked in for our campsite we asked about Atlantic Ridge and got all the information we needed to check the park off my list.
When Dad and I arrived at the Atlantic Ridge we discovered a gate with a lock on it. We called the ranger station but the phone lines were down. I was so close to getting into the park but so far away! Now my dad is a resourceful man and he had an idea. He knew the coding system used by his favorite state park so he thought he would try that logic here and what do you know, it worked! We opened the gate and started driving, only we really didn’t know where we were going. The park was still very undeveloped and there didn’t seem to be a destination to head for.
We followed the driving path to the end where there was a fence and a dead-end. Although the park itself was very large, it was apparent it would best be explored on horseback. Even though I was with the only person I will travel horseback with, we were missing some key items for that type of mission, like horses. Maybe this will be one for us to revisit, traveling with proper equipment, of course.
