That's the question we asked our friends John and Lisa one evening as we all headed out for dinner. As we do with all of our out-of-town guests, Paul and I wanted to impress our visitors with a glimpse of something increasingly rare in our "up for grabs" state: a small parcel of unspoiled, breathtaking natural wonder.

We headed up A1A, crossed High Bridge, and wound our way through the marshland. It was late in the day and the setting sun bathed the tidal marsh in rose-gold light, throwing pink-hued reflections off the water, casting stalking herons, people fishing, moss-draped trees in silhouette against a dreamy, uniquely Floridian background. We drove on, through the low spot on Walter Boardman Road, where the damp jungle crowds against the narrow roadbed, the sweet scent of the moist forest floor drifting into the car windows through the silence.

Then we turned onto Old Dixie Highway, and in moments we were under the remarkable canopy of oaks covering the road. Paul slowed the car to allow us to fully appreciate the deep shadow in the tunnel of forest canopy, along one of the most beautiful stretches of road any of us have ever seen, anywhere.

As a teenager, I spent many nights cruising with friends "through Tomoka," catching the swamp gas in headlights, swerving along the tight curves to get to the "cool, scary part" of that loop. I don't think I appreciated it then as I do now. Back then, there were many places in the state where you could turn a corner and find yourself thrown back into the early history of the region, imagining how it must have been for the earliest settlers here, and before them, for the indigenous peoples who lived and fished and hunted in the wild, quiet, mysterious woodland.

Not any more, though. Piece by piece, we have dismantled the very heart of the wondrous environment that has brought so many to our state over the last decades. We can talk about the benefits of eco-tourism until we're blue in the face, but where will the "eco" be in the future? Rows of high-rise condos, many of which sit empty the majority of the year, won't satisfy people's hunger for natural beauty, a factor that more and more determines vacationers' destination choices. How many golf courses will be enough? How many acres of rare, unspoiled wonder will we sacrifice before we decide that it's time to save something - anything - simply because it's worth having?

When Florida's last great places are given over to development, when a builder's dreams come true and a couple of thousand wealthy people inhabit a gated community on what was once a treasure that belonged to all of us - that, my friends, that is truly class warfare.

John and Lisa made a second trip to Volusia County, specifically to photograph the Loop. The visit was part of Lisa's continuing quest to document the last vestiges of a vanishing natural heritage that has come to us across hundreds of generations, to be once and forever destroyed in our own lifetimes.

Want to see something beautiful?

You'd better hurry. It's almost gone.