Gary Clark

Tallahassee Area

• WAKULLA SPRINGS LODGE AND STATE PARK

The water beneath us looks so clear you could read the headline of a magazine article if I set it on the bottom. An osprey sails overhead with a mullet in its talons. Not far away a 6-foot-long alligator lounges on an island not much larger than he is. “We’re right in the middle of real Florida,” park ranger Bob Thompson says as he guides a boat tour down the Wakulla River.