Sometimes I feel like all of my travels have been an effort to find a place that I love more than my home: Florida. Visiting places like Wakullah Springs reminds me that there truly is no place like home. Somehow I forgot just how magical a place Florida is. The moment our flat-bottomed boat left the dock and entered this pristine, protected ecosystem I was immediately taken back to a time when the whole state looked like this place. Birds flying, alligators bathing on the banks and turtles perched on logs, basking in the warm rays of the sun. The crystal clear waters revealing long blades of grass and alligator gar.

I love my home. And I will never find another place like it. I wonder, is it possible to fully be oneself when so far from home for so long? There is a piece of me missing when I am away, so I think not.

“I come from where the rivers meet the sea. That’s part of why I’m so wild and fancy free. I was early in the crazy way. My folks said it’s just a phase. They were hoping for better days.”

Jimmy Buffet, Floridays

Magic 219/365, This Land is My Land, Wakullah Springs, Florida, July 2018