Oscar Scherer State Park

Oscar Scherer State Park, located in Osprey Florida

http://www.floridastateparks.org/oscarscherer/  (this is a good link to read in detail about what the park has to offer)

Kevin and I decided to take 4 days and go camping before he starts his new job. And since it was a holiday weekend the pickings were slim for a camp site. We found a site at Oscar Scherer and had heard from others that this was a nice place to camp. So after changing around my PTO time from work and all packed, down the road we went; off for a new adventure.

We got to our site and all set up by 2p on Wednesday.  The only complaint I have of the entire time we spent at this charming campground, was our site was way too narrow.  But that is my only complaint. Right away we were welcome by the campground hostess, Julie.  Extremely nice lady and she keep the place in tip top shape. She was also the last person we spoke to when she stop by to bid us goodbye.

On the way in we saw an outfitter called Silent Sports Outfitters. We decided to pay them a visit and see where the good paddling spots were.  Wow, these folks have lots and lots of kayak and paddle boards.  Kevin even found a great deal on a neoprene skirt.  Nice folks, we enjoyed talking to them and got directions to Tuttle beach. Then I asked the most important question of the day, “where is the closes Ice Cream shop”.  This question drew lots of laughter, but we got direction to 3 different Ice Cream shops and decided to try Bob’s, a new shop.  Well let’s just say we fell in love with Bob’s homemade Ice Cream…Yum in our Tums.  We made a visit to Bob’s everyday….of course we tried to work off the calories with all the biking and kayaking we were doing. But I have a feeling that I gained back a few of those pesky 20 lbs that I just lost….(good news, no weight gain…yeah)

Thanks to Hurricane Earl, Wednesday, Thursday and early Friday were nice and dry with very little humidity, the weather was beautiful.  After our visit to the outfitter and Bob’s we got on our bikes and went exploring. We found the nature center, the small lake, called the Osprey Lake. You can swim at this lake, but all around is warning of alligators….yikes. But over the weekend it was a popular spot.  We ran into a fellow who told us about the Legacy Trail, similar to the Pinellas Trail or Rails to Trail. The paved trail takes you to Sarasota or Venice, about 10 miles of trail. We took a short bike ride down the trail and vow to come back on Friday morning for a nice bike ride.

On the way back to camp, we decided to take a short bike ride down the Green Trail as we still had close to an hour of daylight left.  Wow what a good choose on our behalf. We got to see a gopher tortoise, several dragonflies and the beautiful Florida Scrub Jay. This inquisitive little bird is only found in Florida Scrub habitat and the Oscar Scherer State Park has set aside some acres just for these birds. There were two of them and they put on quite a show for us. One had a little twig in her mouth, which gave us the thought that they were getting a nest together. We really enjoyed watching these busy birds and took lots of pictures.  Needless to say we enjoyed this trail so much we vowed to come back Friday and forget about the Legacy trial. And so we did, three miles of Green Trail and several spots where the path was heavily sandy, Peggy does not bike well on sand…lol. And we got started too late so we did not see much wild life, but we enjoyed ourselves.

Thursday morning we hit the waterways. This location is great, you have several waterways to paddle on, creeks, rivers, Intercoastal and the Gulf.  We put our boats in at the boat launch by the ranger station and we were off to Turtle Beach, we had gotten directions from the outfitter the day before.  We headed right and down South Creek. Once we got under the Hwy 41 Bridge, Kevin announced that he forgot the GPS.  Knowing that Kevin sense of direction is not the greatest, I now have to pay attention.  When we came out from under the bridge we notice Channel Markers…great, we can easily find our way back. Our first marker number as 11, we paddled down the creek until we hit the Intercoastal. We immediately saw our next marker 27, we took a right and head 3 miles towards Turtle Beach.  Now we are not positive as to where the beach is, he just told us to look for a beach area, can’t miss it. These are usual the “famous last words”….lol. But we didn’t care; it was a great morning for a paddle.  We had a nice head wind and decent current to paddle against and we loved every stroke.  We paddle past several beautiful homes…I mean expensive beautiful homes.  We finally paddle up around some small mangrove island and saw some folks out paddle boarding, so we thought we catch up to them and ask if they heard of Turtle Beach. We lost sight of them, but looked to our left and saw an area with some boats hanging out.  Hmmm we wonder could this be our beach. Then we saw the paddle boarder, and guess who, the guide for the Outfitter we visited yesterday…lol. So here we all were paddle up to Turtle Beach. 

This was a beautiful beach looking over the Gulf and not that bad of a walk from where we left our yaks on the Intercoastal side.  The water was inviting and I did not hesitate taking a swim, even Kevin waded in.   We hung out enjoying a nice walk on the beach, had a snack and water. We even had a friend join us, a big green beautiful dragonfly. He hung on to Kevin’s finger and we had to coax him to leave go so we could get in our boats…lol. Turtle Beach was beautiful and definitely worth the paddle.  As we started to head back, we realized we had no idea what Channel Marker we were at…so we paddle out and Kevin took a picture so we would be able to find our way back…marker 41.

Our friend Sean and his 15 year son Torin joined us Friday evening and spent the rest for the weekend with us. Dean and Sammie come Saturday morning and spent the day. On Saturday evening we took a paddle before the sun set and saw two horn owl off in the distance sitting in a dead tree and the tree in by them had a big nest. They were just hooting away, but we did not have a camera with a zoom, so no good picture of them.  Sunday morning I got everyone up early and off on the trails before breakfast in order to see the wildlife. Sean and Torran were off looking for the Florida Scrub Jay and I just took a nice hike with hopes of seeing anything. Kev stayed at camp. While on my hike I was heading back towards camp and knew if I found the tree with the big nest then I would find the path back. Well there was the tree with the nest and two big beautiful bald eagles…I was ecstatic.  I just started snapping pictures and I got some great shots. What a wonderful morning.

All in all we had a wonderful time at this park and cannot wait to come back. Here is the list of critters we saw, in no particular order. Florida Scrub Jay, Golpher Tortoise, Rabbits, Armadillo, Sandpiper, Tree Frogs…heard them more than saw them, Horn Owls, Bald Eagles, Flounder, Dragon flies, Woodpeckers, Cardinals, several different types of herrons, white egrets and I cannot forget the bugs, Walking Sticks and the Orb Spider…yikes. These are harmless spiders, but if you now me, I hate spiders. So on Thursday morning we discovered that an Orb Spider spin a web and was hanging around of f our trailer. I promised Kevin I would not kill it and allow it to stay until Sean and his son showed up on Friday.  We knew they would get a kick out of it and move it to a safer area. We named him Bob and left him be. But when we woke up on Friday morning Bob was no longer…not sure if he became breakfast for someone or if he packed up and left.  Needless to say, I was happy to see him gone.

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Hillsborough River State Park

This park is less than an hour from our house, but for some reason we had never camped there. So when we were at the poker run, Reed and Sandy said that they were camping at HRSP at the end of July. So we thought hey it was time to check this place out. With reservation made, Kevin, I and Sammie headed out July 30^th, just a weekend trial. My Dad decided to get a site and join us.

 We were a little surprise on the short sites, but happy that they were wide. The only problem with our site was that the utility posts were almost in the middle of the back of the lot…the trailer could not hide them. I ended up putting our trash can there to try to hide the ugly site, it help some. But we were only there for the weekend, so we can put with it.

 We just about got all set up when Reed, Sandy and their friend stopped by for a quick visit and stated that they were heading to the pool if we wanted to join. But we wanted to get the site set up on passed on the offer…good thing they later told us that the water was like bath water and did not stay long. They threw their boats in for a before dinner paddle instead.

 Kevin and I got the site set up and took off on our bikes for a long bike ride, checking out the campgrounds. It was a nice bike ride and when got back we were a soaking wet from the sweat. The one thing we did not give consideration of was the heat…and dang it was hot. Once we got back from the bike ride, I collected Sammie from Grandpa’s trailer and we headed for the air conditioned trailer and took a little nap.

Around 6pm, I decided the already cooked ribs I brought for dinner could be heated up over the fire. Kevin and Dean got a fire going while I started to prepare dinner. Dinner was wonderful and the evening was beautiful. We did have busy and noisy neighbors…lots of kids…but they settled in early. We had a nice fire, but keep moving our seats away as it was too hot to even enjoy one. Reed, Sandy and Donna stopped by, and Donna sat on the picnic bench right on top of a mosquito coil that I had moved from the ground after dinner.  She did not see it but boy did she feel it. So needless to say this became a joke for the rest of the weekend. I am glad to report there was no injury. We all made plans to meet up for a morning paddle, except Sammie and Grandpa they were going to stay behind.

There are two places to put in you boat, one a couple spots down from where we camp and the main one by the pool. The one by the pool was closer for the other group to put in. Kev and I put in by our campsite and there was a big gator hanging around in the general area, about 20’ feet or so from where we put in. So I grabbed my camera and took aim, snap…huh, no battery, no disk…hmmm. Setting back on my computer desk at home was the battery and disk; so no picture of the kayak trip. So we paddled up to meet the group and that is where we met Paul. Paul was waiting to meet up with a group, Big D, or Don Thompson. We had just talked to Don and he said that he had cancelled the trip since no-one signed up. We told Paul this and he went and called Don who felt terrible that he missed Paul sign up for this trip. So we invited Paul to join us on our paddle. Paul was very new at kayaking and very appreciative of the offer. So with our new friend off we went.

The Hillsborough River is a beautiful river to paddle; with lots of wild life to enjoy and the water was so cool. The water level was up due to lots of rain we have been having and we had a nice current that made the paddle easy but we had to account for the fact that we had to paddle against the current going back. Everyone in the group was newbie at kayaking, except Kev and me so we keep on eye on the rest of the group. We paddled about an hour when we decided we needed to land somewhere take a break and head back. The river was not providing many spots to stop so I paddled a little ahead looking for a landing spot. I looked to my left, about 11o’clock from the bow of my boat was big gator…he was about 10’ away from me and swimming the same direction. He realized that I was there and quickly took off under water, then came back up about 5’ later, swimming in a straight line, so he was still 10’ feet off my bow and to the left, again he realized I was there and shot back down in the water, just to emerge again, he did this about 4 times. I finally hollered over to him to swim elsewhere as he was making me quite nervous. He must have understood me as he did not pop back up…lol. I finally found a decent place to land and we all took about a 40 minute break and stretch. Back to our landing spot, we got out of the yaks and waded knee deep in the cool water, splashing the cold water on our hot bodies to cool down…did I mention how hot it was…dang. On the water we had a nice breeze, but once we stopped the heat hit us.

 All in all we really enjoyed this park and will be back again. The park offers a beautiful river to paddle, a huge pool to swim, lots of trails to hike and bike.

 Did I mention it was hot…how hot was it?  Sammie was begging to go back inside the trailer with the air conditioning!!

Sammie