A couple of years ago I went on a road trip down to the Skunkape Headquarters in Ochopee, Florida. I had been thinking about something to do on my own for awhile, sometimes it is good for “Dad”to get out on his own and do something without the family. I opted on a “Dad Day trip” to drive down to the Skunkape headquarters and come back.
I left early in the morning, it’s a 4 hour or drive or so, so I wanted to get an early start. There something I really love about driving early in the morning on a road trip, there is a sort of a smell, I have a hard time explaining it, maybe it’s the dew? In any case, the smell,the crispness of the air, the lighting of the sun rise while you are on the road, all of those things trigger powerful memories of driving out with my dad, or road trips with my family as a kid. I don’t remember much from the drive down there other than that. I will say, if you are headed to Ochopee eventually you will come off of the big highways, and get onto roads that are smaller and smaller. The Landscape changes very slowly as well. It seems like most of Florida looks the same until the third hour of the drive or so when it feels like a switch gets flipped and the landscape changes from forest to scrubland to swamp.
My first stop was Everglades city and the small NPS visitor’s site there, which at the time of my visitation was still a trailer because the building had been destroyed by a hurricane a couple years prior. I got out and stretched my legs, and I realized I was closer to Havana, Cuba (only another 199 miles south) than I was to my home (255 miles north!) which while kind of silly, I found to be cool. I spoke briefly with a ranger, and drive around the wide spot in the road that is Everglade’s city before driving north back up to the Tamiami trail to find the Skunkape headquarters. The feeling that far south was sort of hard to describe, the air was thick and humid, it felt hotter, flatter and much different than the central Florida I am used to. I drove back to the main road and turned east, towards Miami and towards the Skunkape Headquarters. I visited a couple of visitors centers for Everglades National Park and Big Cyprus National Park as well. I spoke with rangers, got some eye rolls when I mentioned the Skunkape, though I can hardly blame them. When I worked at the Castillo as a Park Ranger I HATED getting asked about “ghosts”, I’d imagine these rangers feel the same way about the Skunkape. I did all the basic things, I walked some boardwalks, saw some alligators and birds, walked along a nature trail a bit, all the normal stuff. Once I had gotten my fill from my beloved National Parks I headed back to visit the main destination that started this all.
When pulling into the Skunkape Headquarters one is greeted with a lot of sights, specifically signage and statues of the creature. The HQ itself is actually little more than a glorified gift shop with a small (emphasis on small) museum attached. You can pay a small fee to see the museum and observe the footprint casts that David Shealy made of the Skunkape and see some other paraphernalia. Out back is a small menagerie of animals as well, including the most massive and fat python I have ever seen, as well as an alligator. I’m not sure why keep and alligator when the area pretty much crawls with them anyway, but I digress. The best part of visiting the Skunkape headquarters is not the venue itself, ill be honest, there just is not much to see frankly. But the people, listening to them and their stories. I talked with a couple who was traveling in a late RV who claimed that would be searching for the creature,and listened to the girl behind the counter recount stories she had been told by friends or Shealy himself.
After listening, looking and soaking in the atmosphere for a while I decided it was time to hit the road on my trek back north. I want to visit again someday, stay the night in the campground if I ever get myself a camper or convince my dad to let me borrow his RV ( I’m not hardy enough to do tent camping in Florida,especially that far south. No thank you!) Until then, I’ll be left imagining those vast swaths of swamp and scrub and what could be out there, lurking.
Comments
Post a Comment