South of Sebring “Lake” Land gradually gives way to waving oceans of grass and water as Florida reaches south towards Cuba.
Before the advent of the interstate highway system Hwy 27 was a primary route down central Florida to Miami and early motorists occasionally interrupted their travels to visit local attractions. In 1957 B.D. (Before Disney) one of the iconic stops along the way south was (and is) Gatorama, founded in the middle of dense forests and swamps by Cecil Clemons, a local swamp dweller and allegedly husband to 14 wives. Not much has changed over the ensuing years and Gatorama continues to be a brief respite from the unending forest and swamp.
Once through the somewhat surprisingly meager gift shop a boardwalk extends over a large pond which has alligators on the left and crocodiles on the right.
One can buy bags of “gator crunch” and feed the alligators from the boardwalk. Clearly the alligators know how to play the game as they beg for goodies from below!
Once across the pond a series of enclosures hold a variety of reptiles in surroundings that don’t seem to have changed much since 1957.
Gatorama also operates as an alligator “farm” and the young are separated from the adults in order to help increase their chances of surviving to adulthood.
Elena and sister Rosa are Cuban crocodiles, a species that is more adapted to land rather than water. Cuban crocodiles are an endangered species and the few remaining crocodiles in the wild are found in a wildlife reserve in the south of Cuba.
Other crocodile species are also on display, including the Orinoco crocodile and the Saltwater crocodile.
In addition to the $20 admission fee there are multiple opportunities to spend more money. This family forked over an additional $10 per child for their kids to hold a baby alligator.
About halfway down the corridor of enclosures there is an opportunity to take a break from the oppressive heat and humidity. At various times throughout the day presentations are also made in this area.
Beyond the snack area alligators and crocodiles give way to other residents of southern Florida. Cats of the wild are represented by a lynx and a Florida panther.
The prize of the reptile collection is Goliath, a crocodile who came to the park in 1968 and spent the next 25 years in the front pond with the other alligators and crocodiles. He gradually established his dominance over the rest of the pack, in the process killing many other alligators and crocodiles. The owners decided that he needed to be isolated and so he occupies an enclosure at the very end of the complex. Goliath is so big that I couldn’t get all of him in the picture.
South of Hwy 27 the land opens up and forests now frame large expanses of scrub and grass. This is a continuation of Florida cattle country, a swath of land that occupies the interior of the Florida peninsula.
Outside of Immokalee, a small town with few services, a gleaming Seminole Indian casino helps the local economy.
Here on the western side of the peninsula the land dries out some and grows mostly brush and grass. This far south a few citrus groves struggle to grow.
Ave Maria
The story of Ave Maria actually begins in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where in 2003 when Tom Monaghan, founder of the Domino’s Pizza Company, decided to create a new Catholic university. The original campus couldn’t accommodate growth and Mr. Monaghan eventually settled on southwestern Florida as the location for his university. At the same time the Barron Collier Company, owner of huge tracts of land east of the town of Naples, FL, was looking to develop their land and the two entities became partners in the creation of a massive planned community. Initially Mr. Monaghan wanted a town dedicated and governed according to Catholic principles. The town officially opened in 2007 and today is home to approximately 30,000 residents. Originally planned as a Catholic community the only church that I saw during my visit was the centerpiece of the planned town center, the Catholic Oratory. I can tell that another interesting experience is about to unfold…
Pope John Paul II Boulevard is the primary entrance into the town from the east. Lush landscaping on both sides as well as the median lead one west while views of the surroundings contain block after block of tastefully pastel homes.
The very small town center focuses on the Oratory, the Catholic cathedral dedicated in 2008.
The cathedral rises from a plaza surrounded on three sides by a horse-shoe shaped street, Annunciation Circle, bordered by buildings with shops and businesses on the ground floor and apartments above.
The cathedral faces west and across Ave Maria Avenue is a large plaza and fountain. Buildings of Ave Maria University run along the west side of the avenue across from the cathedral.
Most residents of Ave Maria are either retired or commute to work 45 minutes west in Naples. The small town center is surrounded by vast residential enclaves, each sponsored by a particular builder, and all immaculately manicured and maintained. Wandering around pristine residential areas I actually got lost…
Streets are swept clean and I swerve around workers blowing leaves for pick up. I strongly suspect that the source of employment for the minorities I saw 8 miles north in Immokalee are the service companies of Ave Maria. Fortunately I emerge from a neighborhood and see the cathedral rising across a lake, guiding me back to the city center.
Back in the town center I drive past the local grocery store, a Publix that fills a block west of the cathedral in a unique combination of grocery store on the south side of the large building and small businesses on the north side of the same building.
Leaving Ave Maria I see another new neighborhood rising from the grass and scrub.
South of Ave Maria I strike south across the swamps and dense forests of southwestern Florida. Mile after mile of highway cuts through the thick vegetation, much of it lined by chain link fence. Turns out that the fence is an attempt to keep the wildlife off the highway, especially Florida panthers and bears.
The land is virtually flat but I do have an opportunity to take in a broader view from atop the overpass as I cross Interstate 75 as it heads east to Miami and I continue south.
Nearing the coast more and more water appears as we enter Florida’s land of “Ten Thousand Islands”, so named because southwest Florida meets the Gulf of Mexico in a maze of mangrove islands and water. Rivers, creeks, bayous and small inlets blur the boundary between land and ocean as immense stands of mangrove trees take over the landscape.
Everglades City strings out along a languid finger of water that pierces north from Chokoloskee Bay. Tourism and fishing support the local economy.
Two buildings of distinction anchor the area. The Old Collier Count Courthouse was completed in 1928 and served as the county courthouse until 1962 when the county seat was moved to Naples. The building is now the Everglades City Hall.
The second is the Everglades Community Church, established in 1926 and now housed in a building constructed in 1940.
Everglades City is not quite the end of the road and we continue south a couple of miles across a narrow causeway to Chokoloskee Island. Here, at this turn-around, we are close to the end of the road. Just beyond is a parking lot in front of the Smallwood’s Store, the true “end of the road.”
The “end of the road” is Smallwood’s Store, built on Chokoloskee Island in 1906 by Ted Smallwood. The building served as store, post office and Indian trading post. Situated in the heart of the “Ten Thousand Islands” and on the western edge of the Everglades, Smallwood’s was the center of trade for early settlers and Seminole Indians, able to be reached only by boat until the causeway to Everglades City was constructed in 1955. The store operated until 1982 and when it closed still contained many goods accumulated over the years. The store was reopened by Ted Smallwood’s granddaughter in 1990 as a museum.
Untold treasures lay everywhere. An unobtrusive wooden chest sits on the floor, once the storehouse of money and other valuables of the Seminole Indians that they trusted Ted Smallwood to keep. Seminoles did not like to use paper money and preferred to use silver coin. They would arrive with buckets of coins to be kept in the “wooden bank.”
The first refrigerator was installed in the store in 1930. It was powered by kerosene and ammonia-coolant.
The store had the first electricity on the island, arriving in 1945 and created by a gasoline-powered generator until line electricity came with the completion of the causeway in 1955. One of the first items powered was a Coke machine, manufactured by Westinghouse in 1945. This 1945 model is still operating, having been restored by the Root Company of Daytona Beach (which also happens to have been the company that holds the patent on the original Coke bottle.) Those of us a certain age still remember bottles of soda cooled in a pool of cold water…
The variety of available product is amazing. Doctors were not easily found in the Ten Thousand Islands so Smallwood’s carried the only assistance to be found, a wall full of various medicinal items.
Out back a walkway gives views looking into the Ten Thousand Islands.
A last view at the end of the road.
Heading back to the mainland, the causeway is lined with the vehicles of fishermen.
The next step of our journey takes us east across the Everglades, the huge expanse of wilderness and water that dominates southern Florida. Our route is the famed “Tamiami Trail”, more mundanely known as US Hwy 41. The route was first proposed in 1915 as a way of addressing growing concerns of how to connect the west and east coasts of Florida for auto traffic. Up to that time the only way to travel from Tampa to Miami was by boat via Key West, which then was the largest city in Florida. “Tamiami” is a combination of Tampa and Miami. The Tamiami Trail officially opened on April 26, 1928 (also the date of the first automobile accident on the road!) The western stretch of the road is a combination of woodlands and grassy marsh.
The Everglades is a vast river of water, seeping south from Lake Okeechobee in a slow moving drift of water towards the Bay of Florida. It is rare to actually see open water except where it gathers along the highway as the rest is submerged under sawgrass, scrub and forest. I take a couple of quick pictures out the window while driving and imagine my surprise when during editing for the journal I discover that by chance I caught an alligator basking in the sun (look lower center.)
This is Seminole Indian country and a number of times grasslands are interrupted with walled enclaves denoting an Indian village. These are not tourist stops, all that can be seen is the steep-pitched thatch roofs above the surrounding fences.
The eastern half of the trip across southern Florida is not as heavily forested as the west. Trees, when present, have retreated to small hills (called hammocks), islands of green in a sea of golden sawgrass.
Eventually even those small dots of green disappear and it’s a world of rippling grass rising above the water.
About 20 miles from the east coast of Florida and the Miami metropolitan area evidence of water management begin to appear. This is a heavily managed section of the Everglades as water for the millions who live along the coast as well as the belt of agriculture surrounding them is “mined” from the Everglades.
The edge of the metropolitan area is denoted by a casino rising into the sky at the intersection of the Tamiami Trail and Hwy 997, a north/south highway that seems to mark the boundary between the Everglades and the populated area.
Next up: The “Real” End of the Road
Post a Comment