We recently had the occasion to walk along two totally different trails on two succeeding days in Wall Springs State Park near Palm Harbor, Florida. The park got its name from Charles F. Wall who purchased the property in the 1880’s that eventually became an exclusive resort area with healing alkaline waters for visiting bathers. Much later in 2005 it became a State Park.
For us, the healing came from being in the natural world of the richly diverse forest and wetlands of central Florida. On day 1 we chose a dry land trail toward a distant shoreline peninsula. As we ambled past a grove of tall southern slash pines, we spotted a bare mound of white clay soil with a deep burrow that served as a home for a gopher tortoise, but he was nowhere to be seen. As we edged along a grove of shiny-leaved palmettos, we couldn’t help but notice several gigantic live oak trees draped with strands of Spanish moss. They loomed high above a grove of bamboo trees reminding me very much of…..