I thought about entitling a series of articles this week “In Search of Weird Florida.” But there is already a book titled WEIRD FLORIDA and I don’t want to seem derivative. Suffice it to say that, this last week, I was traveling through the Sunshine State, and, as I always do when I have some free time, I sought out anything and everything odd, weird, or unusual. Such is MY idea of a true vacation. One of the places I made sure to visit was Spook Hill, in Lake Wales, Florida.
There are spook hills or gravity hills all over the place. Those are the locations where the laws of physics don’t seem to work. Cars will roll UPhill. But unlike most of those places, where the locals do not cotton to a tourist stopping to try it for himself, and where said tourist is taking the risk of getting rear-ended (or possibly ticketed) if he does, Lake Wales embraces its Spook Hill. There’s a big sign encouraging visitors to try it—with instructions and a white line on the road from which one is to proceed, no less—located across the street from the school named after it!
Did it work when I tried it? It sure did. I pulled up to the line and took my foot off the accelerator. My Kia Soul then proceeded to roll UP the hill for several yards. I circled around to try it again, then I backed up to it to see if my vehicle would roll BACKWARDS up the hill, which it did!
Some say such places are optical illusions, and that the cars are actually rolling DOWN a hill. I have to call hogwash to that one. I was clearly rolling UP a hill. Others claim that they are vortexes where natural laws are negated. I prefer the version of the story peculiar to the Spook Hill of Lake Charles, however. A great Indian warrior once fought to the death on the site with a gigantic alligator, and the ghost of one of them—take your pick—is encouraging visitors to move along. For whatever reason, though, ghost gators, vortexes, or improbably optical illusions, I can tell you for a fact that IT WORKS.