Everyone keeps rituals to celebrate life-changing occasions. Some make silly t-shirts for family reunions, or rent the same lake cabin for every summer vacation. Mine is lounging in an inflated pink tube while drifting down the Ichetucknee River to commemorate the day I became a true Floridian.

My baptism in Florida’s healing waters happened one late July afternoon when I was traveling with a fellow teacher to interview a paleontologist. I owe my transformative moment to my daughters, ages 6 and 12, who whined about spending a summer afternoon in a natural science lab. My friend, who taught middle school, quickly deployed a bribe. She suggested that we go tubing down the Ichetucknee River after the interview. I’d never tubed before, but I was game, except we hadn’t packed swimsuits. Not a problem, she said, we’ll all go down the river in our shorts and T-shirts. Bribe accepted!

Six-year-old Hilary bounced at the idea of swimming in her clothes. Twelve-year-old Katie envisioned me with black mascara running down my wet cheeks and decided the trip was worth it for that alone.

Once at the paleontology lab, I held out a palm-sized giant shark’s tooth for Katie’s appreciation. She shrugged, unimpressed by a bunch of old bones. The girls were interested in only one type of experiential learning — tubing.

We were the last customers to arrive at the tube rental concession stand and the last ones left to disturb the surface of the blue-green headwaters. As I stood on the dock, I could hardly detect the water over the limestone covered with a velvety green moss; it was that clear. I’m pretty close to being a native Floridian, but I had never seen real Florida!

The next thing I knew, Hilary jumped off the dock and plunged into the center of her tube. Her eyes opened wide as her butt hit the 72-degree water. Once she recovered, she turned her attention to a steady stream of bubbles emerging from the center of the lagoon. By contrast, I had inched my way into the chilly water and I was almost fully submerged; shivering just a little, the water was a perfect reprieve from the Florida July heat. Once I was acclimated, I dove down to see the source of the bubbles coming from the limestone below. The cold water gave me a brain freeze and I briefly panicked. But, the clear view of the effervescent bubbles pouring from the fountainhead was worth it. I surfaced with a child-like awe. It was as if I’d discovered the Fountain of Youth.

Meanwhile, Hilary was already spinning in her tube and drifting down the river on the undercurrent. As we entered the stream, we settled into our tubes and paddled along right behind her. “Eew!” Katie was first to feel the slimy river grass between her toes. I wondered what might lurk in those thick grasses? I whispered to my comfortable-as-an-otter friend, “Are gators in these waters?” Her answer was only somewhat reassuring – “probably not — the water is too cold for gators. But they may be sunbathing along the riverbank.” Yikes! Hilary would make a tasty McNugget for a gator. I searched my memory for gator-eats-child cautionary tales, and finding none, I dismissed the thought.

With our fear of swamp monsters quelled, we snuggled into our inner tubes to enjoy the water chilling our backs and the sun warming our faces. A dreamy feeling of calm washed over us as we became mesmerized with the sound of dry palm fronds rustling overhead and puffy white clouds drifting by. We floated past sleepy turtles napping on fallen trees stretched over the river, and birds chirping in the tropical canopy, otherwise it was quiet. Even the girls fell silent in the presence of actual awesomeness.

Here, not too far from the Magic Kingdom, pre-history and candy colored inner tubes collide. What could be more Florida than the juxtaposition of fake Utopia and actual Paradise? This river existed when prehistoric saber-toothed panthers lapped up fresh spring water and now it rejuvenates modern humans too. While I was carried gently along on the current, I had a chance to hold that thought, and on some level, my daughters did too.

My maiden voyage down the Ichetucknee was a spiritual awakening to the gifts of my adopted state. But, years later, I kept that epiphany to myself and just joined a group of families who started a tradition of taking the-weekend-before-school-starts-float down the river. Now, twenty years later, a couple of the original families have bonded over the Ichetucknee float. Time has slipped past, our children have grown up, and the cold Florida spring seems to run eternally and to remain unchanged for centuries. We come back because we expect the river to be there so we can recapture a happy memory from a time when we were all a lot younger. I hope the Ichetucknee can always be a part of everyone’s Florida experience for many generations to come.

Kyle Pierson is a writer living in Largo. She writes about Florida nature, art and architecture. When she isn’t traveling, she teaches at St. Petersburg College. Her husband, Dave, took the photographs here.