My amazing neighbor opens his house and boat to us almost every summer on the beautiful mountain lake Fontana. It’s another place that has captured my heart over the years. (Like I needed another reason to love North Carolina so dearly.)

Actually scratch that- I always need more reasons to love North Carolina. It’s my favorite place in the world, it’s the place that will always be my home… and it’s great because though I’m very settled in my little region of North Carolina- if I need something even slightly different, NC has it all. Mountains, lakes, pastures, islands, beaches, country sides, amazing cities. If there is a place for anything and everything, it is here, in my home state.

But more on that after a few more gorgeous lake views.

I honestly do have a problem, I’m obsessed with my home state. I had someone ask me recently if I would move out of North Carolina if I got offered my dream job, it felt silly to respond with the truth, which was “it wouldn’t be my dream job if it wasn’t in North Carolina.”

Surely I’m not the only one in complete love with their home state. Now more than ever I see people moving off an trekking across the country, or the globe even, and I just want to curl up in my city, and sometimes escape to the mountains or beach.

It’s hard to say it any other way. North Carolina is in me. It’s a huge part of who I am.