After a tasty lunch of empanadas and Cuban coffee, my wife Maura and I headed for the Wayne-Boyce Salt Springs State Park (not far from Port Richey) with our granddaughter Catherine and her family. We soon entered a dense and pleasantly cool forest of tall pines and palms with occasional palmettos. A large bald eagle soared above an area of open grasslands just beyond.

            On the other side of the grasslands, we ambled past a burnt zone with dark palm stumps and blackened branches along with a brand new growth of knee-high palmettos, the first vegetation to establish itself after a forest fire much like aspens do high in the Rocky Mountains.

            We soon approached our first salt spring over a hundred feet deep nestled in a cove of tall Florida palms. Its very clear and cool waters looked inviting on this hot day late in March. Clear as the waters are, they contain a high percentage of valuable salt deep within. While standing there ever so pensively, we heard the colorful chirpings of a sedge wren fairly close by.

            It was easy to imagine the ancient Tocobago Indians dipping their clay pots into this spring to then place them over an open fire and watch the water boil away leaving a salt residue at the bottom. They used this salt to flavor edible plants like wild onions or native trout caught in nearby streams. This rich source of salt was used much later by the Confederate troops during the Civil War.

            The hunting and gathering Tocobago tribe inhabited this Tampa Bay region from as early as 700 AD to the 1600’s before they encountered the Spanish. Unfortunately most of the tribe later died off from a lack of resistance to European diseases. Perhaps some of the survivors were absorbed by the healthier Creek tribe whose descendants live to this day.

            We continued our walk past other numerous deep springs until we arrived along the tidal shores of one of several tidal inlets where, as the tide recedes, a waterfall develops with churning and splashing that echoes throughout the nearby palm/pine forest, home to foxes, tortoises and other reptiles. Fortunately, we did not encounter any slithering alligators along the shoreline.

            Crossing over a bridge, we noticed in the distance a small group of kayakers gently paddling upstream. Whether you walk or paddle through this wonderful state park, you are in for a restful and timeless retreat in the midst of a world too busy with itself.