A nice place to visit, but...

My daughter Leslie and I took a hike yesterday on an island at the mouth of Tampa Bay.

It was a beautiful day, temperatures in the high 60s and not a cloud in the sky.

Leslie had taken a few days off from her job in Atlanta to join my wife and me in Florida. We had already done all the touristy things -- walked the beach, wasted a few dollars in the tacky shops, and eaten our fill of shrimp.

It was Leslie’s last day here and being a Montana girl she suggested the hike. I’d walked the same trails with both of my daughters when they were young and we were down here visiting my parents. Mom and Dad are gone now and the girls are grown, but what hasn’t changed is this little patch of palmetto scrub and mangrove swamp that is now part of a county park. It’s my favorite place in Florida.

The first time I visited here was with my grandparents and we arrived by boat. Now a series of bridges connect this little string of island, or keys, to the mainland. Pricey waterfront homes, sitting on sand dredged from the bottom of the bay, line the road to the park entrance.

Once there, however, the place is little changed.

The parking lot at the trailhead was empty when we arrived. Lizards skittered across the trail in front of us and egrets took flight at our approach, but we didn’t see anyone on the trail.

I found that remarkable. More people live in the Tampa Bay area than live in the entire state of Montana, yet here we were in the middle of the morning on a beautiful spring day, all alone in a spectacular natural setting.

I felt like a foreigner in a familiar place.

The park and its trails are certainly no secret, and I’m aware most folks are down here for the weather and the beaches, but finding ourselves alone in a tropical paradise was a bit unsettling. Apparently few people in these parts care about this sort of thing.

I’m glad my daughter does.

I’m glad I live in a place where the land and the critters that live there are important to much of the populace.

Florida. It’s a nice place to visit, but I sure wouldn’t want to live here.

Parker Heinlein is at

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