O'Leno State Park And Bouki’s Bakery
By Robin
We just spent a sweet few days at this quiet old park that lies along the Santa Fe River in north-central Florida. One of the nine original Florida State Parks, it is a pine forested with numerous packed-sand trails great for hiking, biking or running. In the center of the park, next to the river, are the remaining buildings of the town of O’Leno. We chuckled to read the town was originally named Keno (after the gambling game the town was known for), but the US government required a name change to Leno when they applied to have a Post Office. Later people called the town Old Leno…shortened to O’Leno. Similar to Petite Chat…shortened to T’Chat.
Ross ate up the trails every day on his bike and my legs loved the safe, soft terrain through giant saw palmettos along the river. It made us both feel like kids out there! We took evening hikes and learned more about the river, which dives underground within the park (River Sink) and runs in underwater caverns for three miles, then pops out again (River Rise) in another state park down the way. Numerous fresh water springs feed the Santa Fe which in turn emptied into the Suwannee. Florida does a lot of education about protecting this springs as a precious water source.
We enjoyed walking through the adjacent small town of High Springs. We found a pretty good coffee shop called the Talented Cookie Company. I was intrigued by their cookies, but they didn’t hold a candle to my sister-in-law’s delights. Robin (yes! we share a name!) runs the fabulous Bouki’s Bakery, where she is the designer and baker. Her cookies are available for order and shipping. You can find her on Instagram @boukisbaker (yes! this is a shameless plug!)
It was chilly our first day there!
The awesome trails…
Hamming it up during our workout.
Performing a stump inspection.
Mural and Man in downtown High Springs.