Enjoying Lake Kissimmee State Park

Thu. Feb. 24-Sun. Feb. 27: The reasons we decided to come to Lake Kissimmee were two. We had hoped to go to the Everglades on this trip but we found that there were no nearby State Parks at which we could camp and the one nearby KOA we found cost over $80 a night! We just couldn’t justify that. The other reason was that, through Facebook, we had heard from Jackie Himelright and Ed Smith that they were staying at a condo on the Atlantic just south of Cocoa Beach. They wondered if we wanted to come spend Thursday with them to watch the Space Shuttle Discovery blast-off for the last time. That sounded like a different and historic thing to do. We decided to leave the Everglades and perhaps the Keys to another year when we would make reservations months ahead of time, and find a State Park closer to Cocoa Beach. Lake Kissimmee seemed like a good choice, because it is about 55 miles west of Cocoa Beach as the crow flies. We soon figured out, however, that “you can’t get there from here” and would have to go north and then southeast or southeast and then north to get there. Either way it looked like at least a two hour drive. But we designated Thursday to do just that. We left about 9:30 and opted to go south first because it appeared to have few little towns to go through and it was a good choice. We had no delays and arrived at the condo just as Ed was walking in from getting some groceries. We made turkey sandwiches and caught up on what we all had been doing since East Lansing. They encouraged us to go for a walk on the beach while they returned to their nearby fresh fish market to get some grouper to go with the scallops (Marv is allergic to shell fish). We walked north for a while and then stopped to watch some surfers enjoying the waves. When we walked back we got out beach chairs and Ed and Jackie joined us on the sand. It had been mostly clear and all the media had been remarking on what perfect weather there would be for the launch. But half an hour before the 4:40 lift-off time, clouds began rolling in and the view north up the beach was looking foggier and foggier. Just minutes before the launch a man came out of the next door Taco City and said that the launch had been scrubbed because of a computer glitch. We were SO disappointed as we thought of all the driving and the change of plans we had done just to see the launch. As we were bemoaning our luck, the man got at phone call from someone telling him the launch was back on. We found out later that they came within seconds of canceling and then worked out the problem. We talked for a few more minutes and then, whoooooosh! In the distance, farther to the left than expected, we saw the flaming streak of Discovery taking off. We could see if for ten seconds or so before it disappeared into the clouds. We continued studying the sky and saw it again through a break in the clouds for a second or two and then it was gone. We could hear a rumble of noise from the space craft and after it disappeared we could hear the distant rumble of the take-off as we watched the plume of smoke grow and very slowly dissipate. The whole experience took only a few minutes but, after thinking we wouldn’t see anything at all, we all felt it was well worth the effort. Jackie made a delicious dinner of asparagus, sautéed squash, tomatoes, and spinach, and backed scallops and grouper, all with LOTS of onion and garlic. We finished with Key Lime Pie. It had been a really good day with old friends in a very different setting and we were well satisfied as we made the two hour trip back to Lake Kissimmee. The only glitch in the day was that Marv realized that at some point he had lost his gold chain with the precious gold cross Shari made for him for doing their Blessing Ceremony. Despite contacting both State Parks and searching the camper and the truck, it is apparently lost forever. Very sad… Friday we got up and had eggs for breakfast. In the days before I had seemed to be getting sicker and sicker again with a loose bronchial cough and runny eyes and nose. A park volunteer had mentioned that the Live Oak pollen is the worse this year that they had seen. So we bought a Claritan knock off and OTC cough medicine. I was thrilled that they seemed to make a big difference for me. We had to go 15 miles into town to have enough connection to use our phones and ended up at McDonald’s so we could use the internet to extend our mail hold and for Marv to call the last park about his necklace. By the time we got back we wanted to get a chance to use our kayak and this seemed like a good opportunity. We packed a lunch and drove over to the boat launch on the Zipprer Canal that connects Lake Kissimmee and Lake Rosalie. A person at the front gate had told us that, if they had treated the canal for vegetation, it would be possible to take the canal to Lake Rosalie and paddle around in it, where there are no motors allowed. Once we had our inflatable Sea Eagle ready to go and launched we headed that way only to find that, not only is the canal not treated, there is a dam down making it impossible to access! Instead we took the canal the other way out to Tiger Cove at the edge of Lake Kissimmee. The canal is a bit low so one can’t see much from it but it is a no wake zone and only about 10 yards across with no current, so it is easy to paddle. At Tiger Cove it opens up to a marshy area with a cleared channel that was all we could see but we know opens to the rest of the lake. The bay was teaming with water birds, particularly what we took to be the same Moorhens that we had seen in Louisiana marshes. We lodged ourselves in the weeds and enjoyed our picnic floating in the water surrounded by nature. Afterwards we paddled back to the launch because the stiff breeze we were fighting seemed like it was going to be a challenge. We deflated the kayak, returned to the campsite for it to dry and read for a while in the unseasonably hot sunshine. About 4:30 we decided to take one of the hiking/biking trails called the Buster Island loop. It would probably be designated a Beginner biking trail by Dennis and Ken because it has no hills, Moderate by Marv, and too Advanced for the sorry likes of me! There were too many roots, some loose sand through which we had to walk, and, at just over 8 miles, was about a mile or two longer than I would have preferred. But it’s also one of those trails that I was proud to have managed to finish without having to call in the Mounties to rescue me. It varied between Live Oak groves, pine flat wood hammock, and scrub prairies. We saw several armadillos and much evidence of feral pigs, such as large areas with deep rooting, what we took to be “pig pies”, and, at one point, a big ruckus in the scrub right next to the trail of something big scurrying away. With about a mile left in our journey and the sun beginning to set, we stopped to rest for a few minutes. As we caught our breath a small herd of cracker or scrub cattle trotted into the clearing about 30 yards away. There were 3 or 4 cows and 4 or 5 calves, which stopped and looked at us with curiosity. We took no time for photos or anything else as we left them to enjoy the grove alone! Just before the end of the trail two white tailed deer leaped across in front of us and we saw more armadillos. As we crossed the bridge over the canal back to the main road we stopped to watch a Great Blue Heron and four deer feeding in the twilight. Back at camp I was totally exhausted but Marv was still going strong. A deer wandered slowly through the campsite as twilight fell. We made a delicious chicken-grapes-cashews salad to have on lettuce and watched Oprah interview Diana Ross while we played dominoes. I was asleep as my head hit the pillow that night! Saturday the park was hosting a big Volunteer Recognition Bar-B-Q for several parks in the area. That meant there were a lot of people around to enjoy the park. We rode our bikes to the Cow Camp that is part of the State Park and where one is invited to step back in time to 1875. The “Cow Hunter” present had no knowledge of 20^th or 21^st century happenings; he was a Yankee hater living and working in 1875. He showed us around the camp and talked about what his life was like and how they wrangled the feral Cracker cattle left four hundred years earlier by the Spanish. It was a pretty convincing presentation. We went back and made a picnic and rode over with it to the picnic area to see if there would be music for the volunteers on the stage that had been set up, but that turned out not to be the case. So after we ate we went back to the canal bank to read and watch a pack of Cub Scouts learning how to fish. We thought we might bike the Gobbler Rise trail that takes off from the picnic area, but they had tall swamp buggies on giant tires giving the volunteers rides on the trail that had chewed up the sand to the point that it would have been too difficult to bike. So instead we came back to camp once again, having ridden 5 miles already that day. When it was about 4:00 we decided to hike the “blue blaze” connector trail from the campground to the Gobbler Rise trail. The trail runs out to and then along Lake Kissimmee so we had our best look at the lake from it. The “Rise” is about three feet and appears to be the old shoreline. We were surprised to see no development along the shore, partly, we suppose, because the entire shoreline is very marshy and bog-like. There were several fishing boats and some of them were the very noisy airboats, but for the most part it was very peaceful. We saw the ubiquitous armadillo and lots of birds, including what seemed to be an eagle soaring over and then diving down to the water. The whole hike we saw only three people who had come from the Youth Camping area. It was probably a three mile hike and I was happy I had remembered to take my sotol walking stick to help. In the distance we could see where a big wild fire was burning, and the smoke rising from it looked like a giant tornado which began to obscure the sun. Back at our campsite as we sat and rested a bit there was fine ash falling on everything. The rest of the evening we smelled smoke. This evening’s visitor was a browsing armadillo who paid us no attention whatsoever as she passed within 5 yards of us. Tonight we had ground beef stroganoff and did several meals’ dishes as we prepared to leave tomorrow.