Sunrise to sunset in The Sunshine State

How coming up short on a coast-to-coast Florida adventure led to a profound perspective shift.

When I moved to Lakeland a few years ago, I was immediately struck by the unique beach vibe of the Central Florida city—despite its landlocked geography. As the name implies, Lakeland is in an area of inland Florida known for its freshwater lakes, the nearest beach at least an hour’s drive west to the St. Petersburg area on the Gulf of Mexico, where you’ll find white powder-sand shores and turquoise clear waters. Double your drive to the east and you’ll hit the Atlantic coast.

So, it’s certainly not a true beach town, at least not in the physical sense. But the culture of “life at the beach” and the saltwater experience is alive and well in this blackwater town. If residents aren’t flocking to one of the sunshine state’s shores for the weekend, they might still be making their own beach in town around Lake Hollingsworth—a mile-wide lake that anchors the town and welcomes walkers, beach-cruiser bikers, and longboard skateboarders along its perimeter path.

Life’s a beach in Lakeland.

All that’s to say, I’ve always wanted to prove the beach worth of this town with an epic Central Florida adventure, a single-day trip filled with surfing on the east coast and fishing on the gulf coast, all staged from Lakeland. I imagined the adventure vividly—Lakeland: the little land-locked beach town.

As the years went by and my ambitious journey remained still only a daydream, the details of that dream became more refined, grew more idealistic, and ultimately reached a point of unattainability. I didn’t realize I was cooking up a recipe for bread that could never be baked. In my mind, I just kept thinking of the perfect trip, and dreaming of the time when the stars would align so I could make it a memory of a lifetime.

That day finally came recently, when my friend, Jason Stephens, and I were able to commit to the effort. There was a hint of a swell on the east coast, conditions were good in Tampa Bay for some spring-time fishing, and we had both taken the day off from work. It was finally going to happen, my dream was going to become a reality, and my vision of that perfect day had never been clearer.

In my naïve optimism, the waves were going to be chest high and smooth (despite the short-period swell forecast and slightly onshore winds), rolling in systematically and patiently one after the other as the sun woke up for the day in the background. The fishing was going to be gangbusters with the spring bite in full swing and forecasted calm winds and clear skies. I was as excited as I’ve ever been.

Well, here’s the spoiler alert: the reality didn’t play out like my dream at all. In fact, the waves were pretty garbage and the fishing was slow. But none of that mattered. The day, the trip, the adventure was still an immense amount of fun, and it had completely altered my perspective.

What I realized is that things are never going to turn out the way that you’ve built them up in your head, but if you’re willing to let life happen and just enjoy the journey, you can relish in the beautiful world around you with another level of appreciation.

You might have to look at things through a different lens, but the view that will bring you fullness is always there. This isn’t a revolutionary philosophy—it’s really nothing new at all—but it’s something that I’ve never understood more clearly than I do now.

Jason is a photographer and video producer, and he shares my affinity for the waves and the waters that make Florida special, so he was eager join on the trip. Our adventure began in earnest when we packed up the boards and pulled away from his driveway at 4:31 am on a Friday morning.

Early bird gets the worm waves.

Our first obstacle to enjoying ourselves was the 80-mile stretch of I-4 that stood between us and New Smyrna Beach. If you’re not familiar with I-4, it’s the 135-mile-long interstate that connects the east coast of Florida to Orlando and eventually Tampa.

It’s also the worst road in the world. (It’s literally the deadliest road in America and for some reason when people are on it, they drive like they’re in a Mad Max video game.)

But we brave the terrible road nonetheless, willing to gamble in hopes of the reward at the end of the 6-lane rainbow. Fortunately, our early split through Orlando beats the morning rush, so our experience with bad traffic is limited to our own grumblings about how frustrating it usually is.

We complain about how often the bad drivers are texting and driving, unable to go more than a few minutes without checking their phones. About how the manufactured hurried pace of modern life is driving the world mad. We acknowledge our own shortcomings in that arena, and pledge to try harder to swap our abundance of screentime for more time watching the world beyond arm’s length.

Jason has a highly agreeable personality. He’s as friendly as a Publix cashier (where shopping is a pleasure), and we see eye to eye on just about everything: the importance of our families and children; a desire to create and share our artforms matched only by an absolute indifference to do so through today’s modern channels (social media); the absurdity of the new-age Jeep culture (trigger alert), with their aggressive color combos, wide-based wheels, Instagram @-handle bumper stickers, and “duck, duck, Jeep” collections rimming their dashboards.

We have a surprisingly similar taste in life. And as we drove into town and turned south on A1A, we could both feel the rush of life replaced by a calm and settled satisfaction. We ditched the truck at a friend’s house, crossed the street with the boards, and crested the dunes to get a first glimpse of the waves.

Bummer. It was a washing machine of jumbled-up whitewater coming in at every angle, poor-to-poor conditions by all standards. BUT, there were rideable waves, and the sunrise was beautiful, so we were beaming.

Poor to poor.

Both being lower-to-middle-aged men, we needed a healthy stretch before paddling out, so we had a good long moment to enjoy the sunrise. We didn’t have any cameras with us, so I made sure to get some good mental photos of the day’s awakening.

There were some significant cloud buildups on the horizon, so the big star’s actual breach into view came at a delay to the initial daylight that filled sky. The clouds in the distance—which I exaggerated in imagination to floating out above the Gulf Stream, where mahi and marlin hunted for pelagic meals—made for the perfect launch pad to the sun’s rise.

As the brim of the sun peaked the clouds, its mirage-like oranges and reds looked like lava boiling out of a volcano in slow motion. The shape of the cloud formation aided in this vision, with its matching sloped sides perfectly cradling the sun on either edge. The sun cleared the clouds fast, moving at an apparently accelerated rate as it does when lowest on either horizon.

We hit the water, a refreshing jolt with temps in the low 70’s and a stiff breeze. Time to make some lemonade out of the lemons that rolled in one by one.

We didn’t surf for long, just enough to catch a few waves, exercise our paddle-deprived arms, and enjoy the spiritual nourishment that only time in the water can provide. The waves weren’t great, but we had checked off our first box in this expedition. We still had a big day ahead—and potentially a breakfast back at the house.

We had parked our car at a friend’s house. Noah Schweizer is a pro surfer and an avid fly angler, both endeavors he can enjoy mere footsteps from his front door. His familial home (an architectural spectacle designed by his dad, who’s an architect of 30 years) backs up onto the northernmost waters of the famed Mosquito Lagoon and houses three generations of some of the nicest, most hospitable folks you’ll find anywhere.

The family had some significant landscaping chores on tap for the day, so Noah had skipped the surf, but we stopped by to say hey after our paddle and see if anything was hot on the stove. Not surprisingly, Noah’s mom, Missy, all too generously offered Jason and I breakfast sandwiches, as she always did. What could be better? How could we say no?

I spy something yellow and red and black.

As we shuffled our sandwiches out onto the back porch and prepared to enjoy our post-surf snack, something slithering and red and black caught our eyes in the palmetto scrub down by the water. It was a King Snake. Or was it a poisonous Coral Snake? “Yellow on black, friend of Jack.” Wait, no, it’s “Red on black, friend of Jack. Red on yellow, kill a fellow! Right?!

We debated the old jingle from a safe distance until someone pulled an old book from the shelf. “The Critters of Florida” would surely be able to help us. After a quick flip through the sun-faded pages, we found our answer as fast as a google search, yet with entirely more gratification. It was, as it turned out, a Coral Snake—poisonous but generally non-aggressive and utterly fun to observe in what was perfect Old Florida habitat for the small snake.

Eventually, we finished our sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits. When the time came for that yardwork, we were ready to lend a hand and pay back the hospitality. But to no avail, Missy insisted that we, as guests, wouldn’t lift a finger. We considered defying her insistence and helping anyways, but Noah reminded us with a laugh, “You should probably just accept the pass on this one. The only way you could maybe offend her more would be to turn down one of her breakfast sandwiches.” He was right, and we needed to hit the road anyway, the fish were calling.

After a couple more hours driving back to Lakeland, and an hour and a half growling at speedy racers on I-4—now buzzing with Friday commuters—we were hungry again. Good Thyme, a local craft-food joint, offers the perfect quick fix before we have to swap out the boards for the boat and trailer.

Tacos in town.

Without much deliberation, we both order the special: barbacoa tacos, one with chips and salsa and one with chips and black-bean hummus. The lunch hits the spot, but it also hits the snooze button on our energy levels. Dedicated to our mission, though, we quickly rally, link up the trailer, and head west to Tampa Bay.

Quick change.

We’re fishing the southern part of Tampa Bay, where there are generally more mangroves than man-made structures, a unique feature compared to some of the other more developed parts of the bay. There is, however, just as much boat traffic and just as much pressure on our target fish for today—redfish—making them, at times, a frustrating fish to chase.

When we get to the boat ramp, we recognize more challenging conditions than had been predicted. There’s a strong west wind (much stronger than forecasted) which has pushed water into the bay and created a higher-than-normal tide. That will make our mission doubly difficult: the wind makes it hard to maneuver, and the high tide will push the fish deep into the mangroves, where they’re harder to negotiate out.

We’re fishing shallow water, so I move us around quietly from atop a platform mounted over the outboard motor. I use a 21-foot graphite push-pole to press against the sand bottom and edge us along the mangrove shorelines. Jason casts at the shore, throwing lures in hopes that a redfish will take the bait.

We also keep our eyes peeled for any visual indicators of fish feeding about in the clear water. For several hours, we struggle with the wind, and we fail to convince any prospects that our lures are worth eating. We see several fish, but they either spook or disappear without a bite. Frustration begins to creep in, as does the idea that my perfect day might not pan out at all as I had envisioned. But I won’t be defeated, and I settle into finding a miracle.

We keep poling, we keep looking, we keep casting, as if under strict orders. The sun is going down. We’re running out of time. I scan the water for more signs of activity and refocus onto a narrow search for fish.

Then I open my eyes, I broaden my view, and I’m awakened to everything around me. I take a breath and wonder if I’ve been chasing the wrong thing.

Maybe all that’s good is already here, already right in front of me?

By looking for one thing, have I been missing out on everything? Maybe, maybe not, but I had certainly been taking it all for granted.

The patches of mangrove islands that looked like bushels of dark green broccoli beneath the building storm clouds in the distance, their white-pink cumulonimbus formation contrasting like cotton candy against the blue sky behind. The break of an oyster bed that the dropping tide had revealed, where a single Roseate Spoonbill stood out among the dozens of ducks, the pink in her feathers even more pronounced than the clouds above. The magic of the fading light.

It had all been there, but I had struggled to see it through the perfection I had created in my head. And when that serenity of the experience finally came into focus, I felt an immediate shift, a relief, a moment of letting go to the trip.

I had been seeking something that would never exist anywhere but in my own head—something I could never manifest it in the real world. As soon as I came to that realization, I could appreciate more deeply what the real world was actually presenting.

Just then, something struck my topwater lure. Then a jump. It was a snook, modest in size, but worth every mile that had gone into the effort. It was certainly not the fish we had set out for, but when we got it to the boat, unhooked it, and held it in the water to revive it from the fight, we couldn’t help but to admire its dark green and black sides, its gold edges that reflected the low sun setting behind the St. Pete skyline. Then, with a flick of the tail, the fish was gone.

As the fish swam away, I finally understood clearly what the trip had been about. It hadn’t been about catching the perfect waves or catching the perfect fish, although those were the pipedreams I had manufactured over time. The experience that would endure was all about the chase—and catching the trip’s subtle offerings along the way.