Legacy Trail

Sarasota began as a fishing village. As it grew, it became an important stop for shipping cattle. Florida is the top cattle producing state in the nation, isn’t that surprising? Even more than Texas or Oklahoma. So anyway, thus we have Cattlemans Road being the main north south road on the Sarasota side of the Interstate. The old cattle stockyards there have given way to the industrial and warehouse hub of the city. So what does all this have to do with the Legacy Trail, you ask? Well, where there are cattle stockyards, there are trains to transport the cattle in cattle cars. Thus there are train tracks running through Sarasota.

Unlike Fort Collins, however, the Sarasota trains have long since stopped running, now that it is not a cattle stockyard town anymore. So the city has been buying up the old track land from the railroad, and is working on converting them into bike and walking trails. Like Fort Collins, which is the inspiration for the nation to have all its parks linked by picturesque bike trails.

The Legacy Trail is the first such conversion finished. It stretches from Sarasota for eleven miles to Venice, one of the next towns south along the Gulf. So I was walking on Legacy Trail one day last week:

Nice, wide, paved trail.

With native palms (cabbage palms), trees (live oak and myrtle), and pines (slash pines) lining the trail.

Every so often, an access trail heads off of the main trail to parking.

The unpaved, grassy access trails are prettier than the main trail, as they wind through fields of wildflowers on their way to join up with the main trail.

The butterflies love them. Look carefully in the center of the photo to see a butterfly!

I discovered he is a white peacock butterfly, a member of the true brushfoot butterfly family (the same family as the common buckeye butterfly, whose picture I have recently posted). His habitat is open moist areas, such as the edges of ponds or streams, along shallow ditches, weedy fields, and parks! And the plant for his adult food is shepherd’s needle or spanish needle, a white wildflower that grows wild all over Florida. We have some growing in our yard. I think everyone has some growing in their yard, LOL. Anyway, I was happy to get a butterfly picture of my own!