Torreya State Park in Florida

February 6, 2024

On Saturday (February 3), we rode the motorcycle to a nearby Florida state park, Torreya State Park.

As we rode into the park, we passed a trailhead warning the pay station was ahead. So we continued to the pay station. They had pull offs for vehicles to stop at to be out of the way when filling out the entrance fee envelope. Notice the bottom of the sign mentions the park is in the Eastern Time Zone.

I was surprised at how sparse the forest looked. You can see the sparse forest behind the sign in the above picture. To me, it looked like a clear cut forest or a recovering forest due to a forest fire.

After dropping the payment into the pipe, we rode the motorcycle to the Gregory House and parked in the parking lot there.

We noticed this sign when we started walking towards the house and the Torreya trees.

We were too late to take a tour of Gregory house.

We decided to take the nature trail that was to the side of Gregory house yard along the ridge.

The trail started off flat, then became somewhat steep as it headed to the river. When we got to the bottom of the trail, the creek ran around the foot bridge.

We saw violets growing alongside the path, as if they had sprinkled beside it. There were white lilies blooming beside parts of the trail.

We did not take the trail down to the river. We hike the trail as it looped backed to the road. We ended up at the picnic area.

At the picnic area, we discovered why the forest looked clear cut. Hurricane Michael did clear out the trees.

We did ride the motorcycle through the campground at the park. It is a small campground, with a few yurts, tent camping, RV spots, and even some RV spots that could take a larger RV.

On the way out of the park, we stopped at the trailhead near the entrance and took another hike.

This land reminded me of my parents farm in south Mississippi. It had the same red clay, the sandstone rocks and gullies. It had the long leaf pine trees on it as well.

The Apalachicola River is the boarder between the Eastern and Central time zones in Florida. Since we were so close to the time zone border, our cell phones got confused and told us the wrong time.

We plan to go back and tour the Gregory house and try some other trails.