Traveling in Florida means never being bored by what you might see next. You’ll find it easy to travel, just by renting a car and making some quick arrangements to to stay at very cool hotels. The state is stacked with unusual sights and attractions, such as the Coral Castle outside Miami, a 2.2 million pound rock structure built by a single man, a Latvian immigrant named Ed Leedskalin after being jilted by his 16-year-old fiance in the first half of the 20th Century, or Dinosaur World, a park filled with 150 dinosaur replicas, in Plant City. Two hours to the south of Miami, you may add to these, the final resting place of Flipper, the dolphin best known for its role in the 1960s television series about a park ranger, his two sons, and their dolphin. If you’ve never heard of the show, neither its two movies and eighty episodes, nor any subsequent remakes, you may want to know you’re living well outside American popular culture.
Flipper is a stage name and the dolphin was actually named Mitzi. She lived fourteen years, from 1958 to 1972, and is buried at the Dolphin Research Center, an organization dedicated to public awareness and education about dolphins, located about two hours to the south of Miami on US1 at Grassy Key, an island in the middle of the Florida Keys. On a regular basis, Mitzi would communicate with the ranger’s sons, disarm poachers, and laugh and walk backwards on the water on her tail; okay, the last bit she actually didn’t do. Like most of Hollywood, a few effects are best done by others. Mitzi had a stunt double, a male dolphin who performed the tail-walking. Apparently, it’s a trick not every dolphin can manage, although the show would give you the impression that it’s a common activity.
In the 1960s, the Dolphin Research Center existed under a different name: Santini’s Porpoise School. Here, Milton Santini, who pioneered dolphin training, was responsible for training Mitzi and was chosen to star in the original movie. You can visit the center, which is open daily from nine a.m. to five p.m. (although it’s a wise idea to call first to make certain: 305-289-1121), in order to take a tour of the facility and pay your respects. Just look for the dolphin statue at mile marker 59.