I was starting my ninth day in my Florida, and it had been 12 days since I left home. So it was time to change direction. I left Homestead in the morning and began heading north and west, taking the Tamiami (Tampa-Miami) Trail, (Route 41 West) toward Florida’s Gulf Coast. The highway cuts through Big Cypress National Preserve, which sits north of the Everglades. While it is not the east-west Florida highway referred to as Alligator Alley (that’s I-75 where I’ve never seen any gators), it offers wonderful proximity to alligators that laze about in the water along the edge of the highway. My first stop was at the Visitor’s Center, and then I made a number of stops along the route to film the alligators and various birds.
I whizzed past a tiny post office along the Tamiami Trail, and thinking it was an old school house, I looped back around to take a look. We had an ongoing family joke, back in the days before satellite navigation at our fingertips, that my father–a career postal official–could find the post office in any location, no matter how small the town. So I stopped to visit the Ochopee Post Office that describes itself as the country’s smallest post office. It was midday, and they were closed for lunch, so I mailed nothing. But I was glad I stopped.
I arrived at the Gulf Coast and headed up to Ft. Myers to look around. I was early enough in the day to visit the Edison Ford Winter Estates. Even with the headache I was battling, I found this site to be one of the best house museums I have visited in the US. In 1886, Thomas Edison overpaid (at $2500) for a house and land in Ft. Myers, which was then still largely farmland selling for $25 an acre. He and his new wife made it their winter retreat. They later purchased a guest home, and their guests included Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone and Herbert Hoover. They designed and built a number of other buildings on the property, and grew beautiful gardens that included experiments with rubber trees (to help out Firestone) and palm trees, which were an innovation at the time. Henry Ford eventually purchased a winter home adjacent to the Edisons, and the two continued their friendship for a number of years. In time, the Fords sold to others, and that house was privately owned until the late 1980s. The Edison home remained in the hands of his widow until 1947, when it was deeded to the City of Ft. Myers. So most of the furniture and belongings in the museum are original.
On the day I visited, the house was decorated for Christmas, which was welcoming and festive. There are a number of ways to tour the estate, between guided tours and audio tours. I used the audio so I could stop and start, taking in the stunning gardens and lovely Craftsman-style buildings. Thomas Edison collaborated with his wife, a gardener, on the landscape design, and Edison and Ford created the lily pond on the grounds. The bougainvillea was incredible. In a piece of irony, the Ford family did not have a big enough garage and used the Edison place for parking. Edison, middle aged when he moved there, once said that he invented himself out of necessity and did all his significant work before he was 40. I was just over 40 at the time and it put my life in perspective.
From there, Tamu and I headed to Sanibel Island to play for a bit on the beach before sunset. Sanibel has prevented development along the coastline, so there is room to play in the sand. It was a beautiful introduction to the Gulf Coast. We wandered along the beach as the waves kicked up and Tamu tried to snack on the fish and snakes left behind. He loved this beach, but still did not get in the water. I picked a sandwich up in Sanibel for dinner as I was too tired to attempt to eat at a restaurant. The beach, food, and some Tylenol revived me from my headache. I tried to take in Captiva but it was turning too dark to find my way around. The day and my belly were full, so I headed to a hotel for the night.
