As the family, and I travel, one of my favorite things is to find places off the beaten path. I enjoy taking the long way, and seeing what we can see. I especially love to come across hidden gems. This is something that Chase, and I both enjoy; and most of the time, the boys enjoy it, too. I’m not sure if I would call this a hidden gem or not, but some people would. I’m talking about Spook Hill in Lake Wales, FL.
Chase, and I ran across this one evening while the kiddos were visiting friends in Naples. We didn’t know it existed until we saw a sign pointing us to Spook Hill. It was dusk on a Friday night, Spook Hill sounded intriguing, so we followed the sign. We got to the hill where a sign stood telling us that we had arrived. The sign also tells about “the legend” of Spook
Hill, and gives you directions to follow to experience the effect.
What is supposed to happen, is for your vehicle to defy the laws of science, and coast up hill. Chase, and I didn’t really get it. We tried a couple of times, and were still stumped. We didn’t feel like we were coasting up hill. Not one to give up, I went home, and researched. What I found was Spook Hill is a gravity hill, sometimes called a magnet hill, and not the only one. They are located in other countries, as well as in 23 states in the U.S. Now, all this information had me intrigued. I decided we had to go back, take the kids, and try again.
We had told the boys about it, and the two teens weren’t expecting much, but the youngest Nomad son, Trevor, was all about it. He thought it sounded awesome. I was fearing he had his hopes set a little too high, but I kept with the excitement hoping to jazz everyone up about it.
We made the drive over to Spook Hill as a family. The boys saw the sign, saw the hill, and the teens were unimpressed; faking enthusiasm for the benefit of their baby brother and their Mama though. Trevor was still excited; expecting something spooky to happen, I’m sure. We read the sign out loud, followed the directions, I threw in tips I had read about online to help everyone understand what was happening. This time, Chase, and I got it; kind of. We seemed to understand the effect this time, and see it. The boys all got it the first time, and we did it a second time, too.
All three boys were happy we took them to Spook Hill. Even though we didn’t know that it existed before this, it’s still pretty cool to say that we have experienced one of the gravity hills of the U.S. As we travel, I wouldn’t go out of my way to find another gravity hill. However, if we just happened upon it, I’d definitely take the time to experience it (as long as we didn’t have our trailer hooked to us).
