Last week we visited Tiger Bay State Forest for our Adventure Friday trip. It was a chaotic sort of day for us. Beginning with a late start, enduring a search for a lost wallet, and then leaving behind a special water bottle, left me feeling wrung out. However, it was a very beautiful area, with a well maintained trail that the kids all want to try again.
Tiger Bay State Forest is located near Deland, Florida, and was about a 2 hour drive there, and a 2 hour and 35 minute drive home due to much heavier traffic. We finished up listening to "Little Town on the Prairie" on the way so the drive time didn't bother us at all. Once we arrived we drove around the forest a little bit before heading to our trail for the day. One neat fact about the state forest is that a 100 year old brick road is still present along and can be driven on. This is the Old Pershing Highway, named for General Pershing who became commander of all the American Expeditionary Forces during WWI and was later promoted to the highest office in the military - General of the Armies.
Eventually, we worked our way over the the Indian Lake Recreation area to hike the Buncombe Hill Trail. It is a lovely trail starting out through scrub mixed with slash pine forest. There we discovered a new to us tree, a subspecies of live oak, the sand live oak. They love sandy soil and also grow in slash pine forest. The have more prominent veining than live oak leaves, and tend to grow as broad as they do tall. For more information on this tree you can check out a favorite reference website of ours Florida Hikes. We also found some air plants and pinecones that the kids took samples of to check out this week under the microscope. Will helped Kate with collecting her items.
We found the hike to be an easy walk to Balcombe Hill. However on the way there, just past the half way point, Britt realized he had dropped his wallet out of his pocket, and he went back to look for it. After waiting a while for him, we decided to start back to find him, and met him about half way back down the trail. He had dropped his wallet nearly at the beginning of the trail, but he found it. So we only walked a little over half the trail, before walking back down the same half to our starting point, rather than taking the loop all the way around.
When we got back to the car we got out our picnic lunch and ate under the pavilion next to the lake. It was a nice view, but the phone had died, so we didn't get any pictures, except one with Rebecca's iPad. They also allow fishing there off the pier, so if we get a chance to visit again, when Gary is with us, we'll be sure and carry our fishing stuff, so Daddy and the kids who want to can fish. We packed up and headed out just past 1:30 so that we could be home by 3:30 and have plenty of time to change for Church that night. About halfway home we realized that Kate who had borrowed Rebecca's water bottle from Christmas, left it at the picnic table. We thought about turning around and going after it, but it wasn't worth the gas and more importantly it would have made us late for our Church meeting Friday night. As it was traffic was much worse than anticipated and we didn't get home till just after 4:15, so we were nearly late as it was.
All in all we liked this area, and would like to try to come back sometime to fish and walk the entire trail. If you'd like to make a trip the address to the recreation site at Indian Lake in Tiger Bay State Forest is 638 Indian Lake Road, Daytona Beach, Florida, while the address to the old brick Pershing Highway is 4316 W. International Speedway Boulevard, Daytona Beach, Florida. The state forest is open from sunrise to sunset, everyday. Entrance to the Park is $2 for a car load of up to 6 people over the age of six.
Comments