Myakka River State Park is at 13207 S.R. 72, Sarasota, FL 34241. Call it snobbery, or perversity, or crankiness, but I don't like resorts. Or even resort towns. Florida, which I visit every year to look in on family elders, often seems a statewide resort. The Florida I see is flat and artificial, overdeveloped, with hideous architecture.
Every interior is too brightly illuminated and overly air-conditioned.
And though one is never farther than a mile or two from an orange tree, the produce in the supermarkets is gagged and untouchable in plastic wrap and Styrofoam. Still, over the years, I've never quite given up, reasoning that there must be unsprayed grass somewhere. At long last, last spring in Sarasota on the Gulf Coast, I found two enclaves of flowers, trees, and harmony to soothe the cantankerous Northerner. Selby Gardens and Myakka River State Park are a kind of botanical yin and yang. Selby, on the grounds of the former home of Marie and William Selby, is in the heart of Sarasota.