St. John’s River

Black Bear Wilderness Area

reweidman50 Florida Black Bear, Florida Wildlife, Uncategorized , , , ,


With urban sprawl threatening preservation efforts everywhere throughout Central Florida, 1,600-acre Black Bear Wilderness Area in Sanford provides a welcome glimpse of wilderness amid a nightmarish sea of cul-de-sacs, strip malls and office parks. When I arrived around 10 AM last Sunday morning, the parking lot was already full, so I had to park along the street outside. The trail itself is an often rugged 7.1-mile loop (part of which runs near the St. Johns River) and features 14 numbered boardwalks, but I only had time to do a brief sampler. So I first ventured out counterclockwise for about a mile and then hiked about a mile the other way. The trail is simply amazing and I saw two alligators sunning. Florida Black Bear sighting are apparently common here, but I had no such luck. I will be back soon to hike the entire loop at Black Bear Wilderness Area!

 

 

Shady Oak Restaurant & Tavern

reweidman50 Florida Bars, Florida Restaurants, Uncategorized , , ,

As a student at Stetson University during the mid-1980s, I would often join a ritual mass exodus off campus each Friday afternoon after classes to a somewhat rundown but lively fish camp overlooking the St. John’s River just off State Road 44 that we called Otis’s and the locals referred to as Sloan’s (both names derived from then-owner Otis Sloan). There we would spend hours hanging out on the dock drinking cheap beer and watching the boats slowly drift by – great memories! According to a September 2, 1998, Orlando Sentinel article, Sloan and his wife Myrtle opened the Shady Oak Fish Camp in 1957. I passed through DeLand in 2015 and took the above photos of Otis’s and it looked pretty much the same as I had remembered it. The Shady Oak Restaurant, which is located at 2984 West New York Avenue just west of downtown DeLand, reportedly suffered a fire in 2017 but has fortunately reopened.