Wanderung 1

Key West or Bust

Holts Take Time in Toyota Truck to Tramp Together in Tepid Temperatures!

January-February 2003

Wednesday, February 05, 2003
After finally finding a Wal Mart Supercenter on the west side of Tampa and doing some shopping, we went to Honeymoon Island State Park and Tarpon Springs for some Volksmarches, which we separated by a picnic lunch using some Subway sandwiches. It was about 11:00 and we were hungry, so we had the first lunch at Honeymoon Island before we began the walk.

The Honeymoon Island Volksmarch begins with the Osprey Trail, which is accurately named. During the 2 kilometers of this trail we saw at least ten ospreys perched in the trees and five nests, some with ospreys in them. The main attractions seemed to be the dead snags that gave nesting opportunities for the osprey and a nice, easily fishable inlet between two arms of Honeymoon Island. We came back down that arm of the island on the Pelican trail and for a fact saw at least five pelicans, some floating on the inlet and some flying low above the water in tight formation, almost like Canada geese.

The second half of the trail was along the other arm of Honeymoon Island that was on the Gulf of Mexico side. This was an in-and-out along the beach, ideal for people who like to look for shells. We found five completely intact sand dollars, which is relatively unusual, and two completely intact conch shells. However, one of them was still inhabited by the conch who didn’t seem to enjoy being picked up. Since I couldn’t take him along and wanted to give him at least a chance to live another day, I chucked him back into the ocean. This beach was rich in shells and about half the walk was along the beach, so this is great walk for beach lovers or osprey lovers.

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We drove north to Tarpon Springs and ate the second half of our sandwiches before beginning the walk there. The walk at Tarpon springs winds around a large bayou or inlet before passing some historical sponge docks. In the middle of town we found a rather pretty and quite large Greek Orthodox Church, probably because the early sponge divers were Greek, and the Greek influence is still quite apparent in the town. After the walk we were, as the Germans say, “dog-tired” and crawled back into the truck to drive back to the campground.

Copyright 2002 by Robert W. Holt
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