Key Vista Nature Park – Anclote River Park – Fred Howard Park, Holiday
It was one of those mornings when you can’t decide what to do, but you just need to do something; get out of the house. Get. Out. So I set to making plans for a grand day out. Since we know what becomes of best-laid plans, you’d think I’d expect that things would go dreadfully awry. Considering that these plans were poorly laid off the cuff while I sipped my morning coffee, we should have expected that they would shit the damned bed.
I thought it would be a fine time to visit the area known as New Port Richey. We had considered moving there back when we were researching places to live in Florida. The house rental rates were fantastic compared to neighboring regions and it was close to the Gulf coast. We could get more house and gain greater proximity to the beach.
However, friends that had some experience in the area advised us against it due to crime rates and economic depression—Hey, those lower rents don’t come without a tradeoff. More importantly, part of the reason we were moving here was to spend time with my grandfather and living in New Port Richey would put more space between us and him.
Since settling on the other side of Tampa we had been wanting to visit New Port Richey to see what we were missing. Were our friends right to warn us away? Was the proximity to the beach as nice as Google Maps led me to believe? Would one visit instantly make us regret having scratched it from our list? Why not find out that day?
I suggested to my wife that we take a drive out to New Port Richey, check out the neighborhood and maybe check out the coastal scenes of Werner-Boyce or Robert K. Reese parks to see what we would have been viewing each evening when we brought our blankets or chairs out to the sandy beach to enjoy the setting sun and surf. She was game.
So, with no real plan, we hopped in the sporty little runabout and hit the road. The loose scheme was to take I-75 north to FL 54 to head west to Port Richey. However, once we hit I-75 the traffic was backed up solid, so we decided to take US 301 until we saw I-75 had cleared. Things were speeding along fine. The day was bright and sunny and the sky was clear. Circle-K hot dogs were settling nicely into our tums. A perfect start to a pleasant day trip.
Then we got rear-ended at a red light.
Breathe. Breathe. Why am I not breathing? Everything looks red. No, I’m not injured—must be anger. Yep, it’s definetely anger. Ooooohm. I’m in my happy place. I’m in my happy place.
After awaiting the no-show cops who apparently don’t respond to injury free fender-benders in Florida, we got back on the road.
Thirty minutes later I realized I had overshot our exit by twenty minutes. “Ooooohm.” I had a few silent words with myself and Christa began guiding us to Port Richey with her phone map.
We were driving west through Brooksville on Rt. 98 when I spotted it: Coney Island Drive-Inn. If anything could cure the blues of a damaged car and wasted time, it would be more hot dogs loaded with fixins’.
The mere sight of Coney island Drive-Inn lifted my spirits and returned the mood to classic road trip. I whipped a u-turn and pulled in, fully acknowledging we had eaten hot dogs not three hours prior.
Christa got a plain dog, I got one with Coney Sauce & Onions and a Norm’s Big Dog: Dog with Loose Meat, Chili, Cheese, Slaw & Topped with Onion Rings, and we introduced new friends to the ones in our tums before setting out for Port Richey.
This was therapy and I didn’t take much time to note enough details for a full review. I’ll return sometime to do a proper visit and review, but know that this place is a gem of a stop for tip-top vittles.
We rolled in on Rt. 52 and discussed what to do first. I suggested Werner-Boyce, but with the lost time and WB’s lack of sandy beaches, Christa rejected it. I remembered Key Vista Nature Park, Anclote River Park, and some other names and looked them up quickly on the phone. We decided to just ride south through Port Richey on Rt. 19 to get a superficial feel for the place, then visit the coast of Anclote Anchorage.
So we got the Rt.19 view of Port Richey with all its empty strip mall glory and turned off some distance south to follow Straub Memorial Highway along the coast to Baillies Bluff Road to Key Vista Nature Park.
We parked in the lot under a shady tree and wandered aimlessly down the sandy path. We had no idea where it went or what to expect. Birds sang us over a sandy hill to see a beach on the gentle gulf thickly hedged with mangroves. The view was pleasant and serene, though Christa decided it was not her idea of a beach beach and had we lived here, we’d have to find something with an unobstructed view of the horizon with a little more wave action. Phew, dodged that bullet.
Anclote Key stretched directly across our view a couple miles offshore. We walked through the grasses of the crystal water as it lapped the sandy shore. The calm serene scene fueled my desire to kayak through mangroves, soon. This would be a fantastic spot to put in for a paddle, take pics and enjoy a picnic lunch. We shall return.
After snapping some pics and casually strolling the sands, we turned back and followed the trail further to an observation tower perched a hop, skip, and jump south on the shore. We didn’t climb it, as we were a hop and skip short of time and still wanted to check out more potential beach spots along the coast.
A look at the map showed that Fred Howard Park might be the only chance in this stretch of coast of finding a sandy beach with a view of the horizon, but we’d still see Anclote Key to our right, and now Three Rooker Island to the left. It was the best we could do today, so we sped off.
We got back to Baillies Bluff Road and continued, past Anclote Gulf Park, to Anclote River Park. (Anclote Gulf Park looked to be more mangroves but with zero beaches. Web pictures showed a nice nature boardwalk, but we wanted some more sand.) Together, both spots stand guard of the uncannily symmetrical delta-shaped tab of land chained to the mainland by a narrow strip of an access road to Anclote Power Plant.
Anclote River Park sits at Sting Ray Cove where the Anclote River empties into the Anclote Anchorage, a piece of shoreline protected by the Anclote Key. That’s a lot of Anclote, whatever it is. The cove itself is protected by almost two dozen smaller keys. The Gulf horizon is completely obscured by Anclote Key, but this makes for some very calm waters lapping at the sandy micro-beach.
We sat at a picnic table under a large pavilion and watched fishing boats chug in and tour boats chug out while little speedboats and jet skis buzzed around them. Families ate picnic lunches at picnic tables while others soaked in the sun on the blanketed sand. More others played in the roped off section of the gulf waters. We took it all in and I scoped out the small islands with the camera zoom and snapped pics of gulls circling overhead and pelicans standing guard on weathered pilings.
I hadn’t even considered swimming. Being March, it seemed too early. I was still in a northerner’s mindset. We’ll have to plan a beach bathing trip soon. And of course, we left our beach chairs at home. What a day.
We then made our way back to Rt. 19 and crossed into Tarpon. We had visited here in November when we were scouting homes and jobs. It’s a great town, but today we were hunting something new. Though I could always eat more baklava and Australian black licorice.
Christa navigated us through the bayous to Fred Howard Park and further out to Howard Park Beach–a crescent of sand on a tiny key anchored to the mainland by the Howard Park Causeway. This was more like it. I don’t know who Fred Howard was, other than a guy in need of a surname, but his namesakes were beautiful little gems with sandy beach, unobscured views, and palm trees. The sunsets must be gorgeous.
It was a very scenic spot and we made a note to head straight here the next time we wanted to enjoy the sights and tastes of Tarpon Springs as well as the sand and sun of a nice Gulf beach.
A bonus was that Anclote Key and Three Rooker Island were just over two miles out, so, at sea level, they were nearly out of sight, baby—a partially unobstructed view of the Gulf of Mexico and its horizon. We’d return for sunsets some other time.
We had decided we had had our fill of sun and surf as our bellies were grumbling that the mid-morning hot dogs and the follow-up mid-day hot dogs were no longer keeping them company. We made our way over the causeway to Tarpon Springs and caught sight of a few spots that looked intriguing, but Christa’s response was meh.
I decided to look for something outside of Tarpon Springs, as I wanted to plan an overnight there soon and pick some prime eateries then. I checked my phone for a good source of vittles along our way home, though my hopes were thin that there’d be anything worthwhile hiding amidst the strip malls. To my surprise, a German place in Holiday caught my eye. The Yelp reviews had it looking promising, so I kept mum to make it a surprise.
Up Rt. 19 we rolled from red light to red light until I spotted the sign for The German Restaurant just ahead, past a few used car lots and an adult toy shop. Holiday seemed like a nice place to visit, but….
There it was: The German Restaurant. First, we saw the red, yellow, and black flag flapping in the breeze, then the red, yellow, and black striped roof on the left side of the building, finally a mural of a waiter attending to a table of guests dining in a pine forest decorated the gable. It was a strange amalgamation of architecture. So what, we weren’t eating the building. You can read my review of The German Restaurant here.
After our delicious meal, we eased our fatted tums into the sporty little runabout and struck out for home. Nothing had gone as planned. I had forgotten all about the fender bender. We didn’t check out the neighborhoods we considered for a home. We discovered a great little hot dog stand. We didn’t visit Werner-Boyce or Robert K. Reese parks. We wound up in Tarpon Springs, again. We found a nice beach where we weren’t planning to be. And we found a delectable spot for German food.
The best-laid schemes of mice and men often go awry, and for me they usually do. You’d think I’d be used to it by know, but my eternal optimism–or my flawed brain–always leads me to expect things to go perfectly. I’d have to admit that often the plans simply shift toward a different realm of satisfaction than I intended.
Awry doesn’t necessarily mean wrong, it simply means other than expected. Some of my most joyful and memorable experiences were other than expected. This little road trip was certainly such, but we found some scenic places to bring the kayaks, a nice beach, and a fantastic source for German cuisine. Awry turned out pretty alright.
Thanks for reading!