Monday, February 25, 2013 – Ft. Myers:

            The cat decided that we needed to get up a little earlier this morning, but we had a lot to do, so we got up to find beautiful sunshine streaming into the boat.  Then after a light breakfast I decided to try and beat the crush for the washing machines and do some laundry.  Surprisingly, I had all the machines to myself and never saw another soul in the Laundromat.

            The water was dead calm, and I remarked to the dock manager that I wished it was like that all the time, and he said that it was always calm in the summer, and that the tide was always high, and you could take your boat almost anywhere.  I asked him if the temperature wasn’t awful, and he replied that he didn’t think so.  I guess it’s not that much worse than in Maryland.  I wonder if he was telling me the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

            After I finished the laundry, it was almost 11:00 and time to call Enterprise and get the car.  We were given a fire engine red Kia Forte – well, at least it’s easy to spot in a parking lot. 

            Bob was looking around on the internet for a spot for lunch, and he discovered this little place relatively close to the marina called The Wisteria Tea Room, and lunch was lovely and delicious.  It was in a typical little Florida 1900’s bungalow that the owner and her husband purchased and fixed up a year ago.  It was painted in bright pastel colors, and there were white tablecloths on the tables.  They served any kind of tea you could think of, and had a delicious little menu.  There was a gift shop with all kinds of interesting little “notions” you could purchase to make your meal even more memorable.

            After lunch we had plans to tour the Edison and Ford Winter Estates, which was just a short drive away.  This was a great tour, and we didn’t have enough time to do all the exhibits justice.  Thomas Edison purchased his property in 1885, and built Seminole Lodge in 1886-87.  There was a guesthouse and a caretaker’s house on the property in addition to gardens and his botanical research laboratory.  In 1914 Thomas Edison invited Henry Ford for a visit, and in 1916 Ford purchased the property and home next to Seminole Lodge.  In 1947 Edison’s wife, Mina deeded the Edison estate to the city, and in 1988 the city acquired the Ford estate.  We spent about two hours poking around and finally decided we had put off grocery shopping long enough, and left houses and gardens for Publix.

Thomas Edison's house

Henry Ford's house

            Back at the boat around 5:00 p.m., we called it quits for the day.  The cat was certainly happy as we brought two cases of cat food back, and she seems to have returned to completely normal – here’s hoping there are no more psychotic cat episodes!  We decided to have an easy dinner and bought a rotisserie chicken for ourselves.  Here’s hoping we won’t have to go to the grocery story for a while now.

            Tomorrow Bob wants to find a Verizon store as his phone still insists of having a mind of its own, then who knows where we’ll go or what we’ll wind up doing on our last day in Ft. Myers.  I think I have some more laundry to tackle, though.

Part of a garden at the Edison House

Fig tree with these fantastic roots

Moonlight Garden