75 years of Florida parks

The Miami Herald reports on 75 years of Florida state parks.

[The] park service runs a remarkably varied collection of preserves. In one Florida park (Paynes Prairie), bisons run free along with descendants of horses brought to Florida by the Conquistadors. Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is completely underwater. Human "mermaids'' frolic in Weeki Wachee Springs. Koreshan State Historic Site in Estero preserves a complex settled in the late 1800s by people who believed they and the rest of the universe existed in a giant sphere inside the earth.

And then there's Torreya, on the un-Florida-like 150-foot-high banks of the Apalachicola River and home to the parks' only rentable yurt, a tent-like abode more common in Mongolia.

Read the full story: Mermaids & manatees: Florida state parks celebrate 75 years