Some road trips begin with a carefully crafted itinerary. Others begin with free orange juice and a complete collapse of self-control. Our first dedicated trip to Milledgeville, Georgia, was supposed to be simple: leave Florida, make minimal stops, and get straight to the historic town that had been quietly calling us back ever since our … Read more
Florida doesn’t always reveal its history easily. Sometimes it hides it beneath pine needles, roadside traffic, and stretches of land that seem too quiet to have witnessed anything terrible at all. The road near Dade Battlefield Historic State Park looks ordinary now—just another patch of rural Florida where palmettos sway beneath the morning sun and … Read more
A Place Most People Would Never Choose Most people look at a Florida swamp and see something to avoid. A place of mud and still water.Of mosquitoes and shadows.Of things that move when you’re not looking. But once… this wasn’t a place people fled from. It was a place they disappeared into. And not just … Read more
The Stop I Should’ve Made Sooner There are places you pass so many times… they almost become invisible. For me, this was one of them. Along a stretch of U.S. 41 near Brooksville, there’s a small café with a historic marker out front. I must’ve driven past it dozens of times while living in the … Read more
Every place has two histories:the one you can see…and the one that’s been nearly erased. When I made my way to Webster, I wasn’t expecting a mystery. I was looking for a cemetery tied to Florida’s early pioneer families—trying to connect it back to the vanished community of Oriole Ghost Town, a place that faded … Read more
A Peaceful Place… With a Hidden Past At first glance, Fort Cooper State Park doesn’t feel like a place where anything terrible ever happened. The trails are quiet.The trees stretch high with Spanish moss swaying in the breeze.Lake Holathlikaha sits calm and still, reflecting the sky like nothing has ever disturbed it. It’s the kind … Read more
On a quiet stretch of pine forest in central Florida, history once erupted with shocking violence. Today, the trails at Dade Battlefield Historic State Park wind peacefully through tall pines and palmetto scrub. The breeze rustles through the branches, and the landscape feels almost serene. But on the morning of December 28, 1835, this same … Read more
Some stops give you sweeping trails, long hikes, and hours of wandering.Others give you a sign, some caution tape, and a quiet reminder that history doesn’t owe us access on demand. Our final stop of Alabama Road Trip #2 brought us to San Felasco Hammock Preserve State Park—a park we added for one simple reason: … Read more
Introduction: Where the River Still Waits There are places that vanish quietly, and then there are places like Ellaville—towns that don’t disappear so much as sink. Tucked along a bend of the Suwannee River, Ellaville was once one of Florida’s most prosperous lumber towns. In the late 1800s, steam whistles echoed through the trees, steamboats … Read more
Some places don’t announce themselves.They wait. Kingsley Plantation sits quietly on Fort George Island near Jacksonville, Florida—white walls softened by time, palm trees standing like sentinels, the river moving along as if nothing ever happened here. At first glance, it feels calm. Preserved. Almost peaceful. But peace can be deceptive. This stop came during my … Read more