Gasparilla Lighthouse & Port Boca Grande Lighthouse
Gasparilla Island has two lighthouses on it: Gasparilla Lighthouse & Port Boca Grande Lighthouse. I have visited the island twice now and I have yet to enter either one. Although Mother Nature is to blame, I feel there could have been an exception made on my last...
Silver Springs – Monkey Boat
Most of my life I heard stories of the wild herpes monkeys that run free at Silver Springs and I have always wanted to see them. Legend has it that the movie Tarzan was filmed at Silver Springs in the 60’s and they brought in monkeys for the film. The thought was that...
Hontoon Island State Park
Hontoon Island State Park is the closest state park to my house, about 10 minutes away. My goal was since I started my year journey was to I finished my goal at that park, on my actual birthday, July 25th, one year after I started my State Parking journey. I dreamt of...
Indian Key Historic State Park
It took me two attempts to go to Indian Key Historic State Park before I had success. The first time I tried to go to the park I did not realize it was accessible only by boat. The GPS kept trying to take me there but I could not find the road. Finally it dawned on me...
Climbing the Cape Florida Lighthouse
Quin is from Coral Gables and he wanted to show me his old stomping grounds. I asked him while we were down there if we could go to Bill Baggs and climb the lighthouse because I was unable to do so the last time I was there. We arrived pretty early for the tour so we...
Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park
I had been to Miami a few times in my life for various reasons and I never really liked any of my experiences there. I felt it was so busy and the people, in general, were not very friendly. Driving there was a nightmare. Growing up in Orlando, I thought I had a...
Caladesi Island
To get to Caladesi Island State Park you must go to Honeymoon Island State Park and then take a ferry over to Caladesi Island. My ticket was $14 round trip and it was good for about a four hour stay on the island which was plenty of time for me. I arrived on the...
Don Pedro Island State Park
I found out pretty soon into my State Parking journey that some of the parks were only accessible by boat. It still did not occur to me to figure out which ones were on that list until the GPS kept trying to take me to them because my car does not transform into a...
Atlantic Ridge Preserve State Park
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...
Haw Creek Preserve State Park
Haw Creek Preserve State Park was only about 40 minutes from the house so after I got off of work, Quin and I headed over to our friend Bobby's and found the truck loaded up with kayaks. There was also another Bobby waiting in the truck, he was visiting from New York....
Egmont Key State Park
I love lighthouses so I was pretty excited to visit Egmont Key State Park. You can only get to the park by your own personal boat or a ferry. I went to Fort De Soto and purchased a ticket for a ferry ride to the key. I arrived a little early because I wasn't sure what...
Primitive Camping on Anclote Key
Quin and I had been talking about camping on Anclote Key for over a year and we finally made a date to do it. We decided to make this a group event for many reasons. One, we were not in the best place in our relationship so company was needed and two, we wanted to...
