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For Christmas this year, I gifted Barry a few experience-oriented things, including the Florida Bucket List Adventure scratch-off pack.

Watching so many people lost everything — or almost everything — because of Hurricane Helene galvanized the idea that, as the saying goes, “the best things in life aren’t things.” Both of us already enjoy travel and Florida and doing things (as opposed to buying things), so when the mighty algorithm kept floating an ad for the Florida Adventure Bucket List on my Instagram feed, I acquiesced and bought a pack.

I’d never heard of this company and, honestly, I wasn’t sure these adventures would show me anything I hadn’t seen before. But we had a long stretch this year, after we traded our travel trailer for a larger one, but before the truck that would tow the larger one arrived. During that stretch we’d grown complacent; instead of camping and exploring, we’d spent more time than I’d like to admit eating dinner in front of the television. Even if it led us to things we’d done before, I reasoned, at least we’d be doing something.

And so, this past weekend, Barry chose a card for Sarasota and scratched it off.

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I didn’t expect to see a QR code there — I guess I thought we’d have a printed task — but in retrospect, it made sense. It allows the company to update things — and allows the user to let them know if something is right.

Florida Bucket List Adventure: Myakka River State Park

This QR code led to a page about Myakka River State Park, one of the first state parks in Florida. Barry and I camped there a few years ago, and I also led a grown-up field trip there, but I’d never climbed up the wood stairs to the canopy walkway.

On the drive down, I felt a flutter of nerves — I don’t love heights, and I wasn’t thrilled about climbing multiple flights of exposed stairs.  I also felt a flutter of annoyance — since my last trip to the park, in 2021, developers had clearly been hard at work, building housing developments named, as Carl Hiaasen once wrote, after what they destroyed. The one called The Forest Hi Hat Ranch smacked of irony.

But then we closed in on the park, one of the largest in the state with 58 square miles. We were closing in on a canopy walkway and, if time allowed, the bonus activity on the card: A boat ride on Upper Myakka. While excited to see the treeline from the canopy walkway, I still had visions of losing my footing and somehow crashing to my death or, at the least, fumbling my phone or camera and seeing either or both crash into pieces on the ground below me.

My nerves were for naught.

While the card linked to the “experiences” page for the park, it didn’t link to the main page. I probably should have checked there, because if I had, I would have learned that both experiences on the card are currently unavailable. The canopy walkway sustained damage during either Hurricane Helene or Milton, and the water levels are too low for a boat ride.

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However, the hike near the walkway was lovely, and there are other things to do. We hiked the non-elevated Boylston Nature trail, where we saw an astounding amount of deadfall and downed trees, which I’m assuming happened during Milton.

Winter in Florida is not typically as depressing as it can be in states north, where trees lose their leaves and the ground goes bare, but this short hike — maybe a mile — drove home the totality of what a hurricane can do. It looks severe along the trail, with not as much green as there should be, and far more downed limbs and uprooted trees than is typical.

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We drove the length of the park. We saw a small herd of deer leap across the road to reach the prairie; as always, we found plenty of alligators basking in the sun.

Myakka, even after a devastating hurricane and in the middle of winter, is a Florida treasure. The prairie is subtly colorful, with shades of lemon, lime, and ochre. The vastness of this wilderness is total; no cars parked by a trailhead or throngs of short-clad tourists pointing at the gators by the road detracts from this.

What Can You Do Right Now at Myakka River State Park?

 

In a few months, I’m sure resurrection ferns and new plants will push their way through the soil (that deadfall will make excellent fertilizer).  The ranger couldn’t tell us when the canopy walkway would reopen. The boats may resume operation once the water levels rise.

But Myakka is still lovely. There are trails for all levels; you can hike into the backwoods and camp, or you can take the short trail Barry and I did.

Take time, too, to learn about the park’s history. In the 1930s, it was the main work camp for Black me who participated in the Civilian Conservation Corps. And, nearby, a wealthy Chicago woman moved to Florida and worked with cattle (Bertha Honoré Palmer is worth a deep dive on her own; check out her life in this tale, researched and written by my Florida Studies chum Hope Black.)

Someone more negative than me would say this first Florida Adventure Bucket List was a bust. I don’t see it that way. The way I see it, that first adventure sent us out into the world. We ventured into a wild place that remains untouched in the face of Florida’s appetite for development. It gave us an afternoon together. We talked about evidence of wild hogs. Looking up, we noted epiphytes so thick,  the oaks appeared to have a fringed coat on. We watched as deer bounded into the prairie. We walked, holding hands, in the sunshine.

That’s a pretty great day, in my book.

Join Friends of Myakka River State Park.

Read more about things to do in Sarasota you may not know about.