Febr. 11, 2014 Tuesday Bimini Basin Anchorage, Cape Coral Florida

Judy picked us up mid morning, went to the Edison/Ford Winter Estate Properties at Ft. Myer.  Amazed at all the Patents and so many things Edison and his group had made.  He developed the think tank, had others come into the lab and be muckers, mucking around to come up with new ideas to further the experiments.  Very interesting. Had a yummy lunch at McGregor's Cafe ate outside, so nice and warm.  Then picked up Billy and went to the Six Mile Slough.   Fun to walk the above ground walkway, they asked to have cell phones off, not use unless emergency so you could listen for all the animals and I suppose not frighten them away..  Had a first Cuban Restaurant meal, was very good.  Sorry to have missed our good friend Darlene as she stopped by on the way to Key West:)  What a fun day, thanks Judy and Billy.

 Edison's bedroom, with Mina's dress on it, most everything was original in the homes, quilt on the bed

 His light fixtures and phonograph

 Nice patchwork quilt on the chair

 Interesting architecture of the porch with a view Caloosahatchee River across the gardens

 View of  Lodge across from his house where guests would stay, Hubert Hoover was one of his guests

 Curt and Judy starting across the garden area to the lodge

 Nice quilt on the chair, his living room of the lodge

 Dining room with Mina's favorite dishes

 Grand Piano in the study

 O

 The dinner bells to the left of the table

 Kumquat tree, he had tons of vegetable trees, his garden yard was plants from all over

 Henry Ford's first vehicles,Think Dad had the Model A in 1927, I remember Dad saying he bought it when he was 18 years old.  Amazing to think Dad had 4 Ford vehicles his whole life of 86 years.

 This Banyon tree from the Ficus Family he experiment on the sap to make rubber.

 Placard by the kitchen and pantry

 Nice quilts on the servants beds

 Guest lodge dining room

 He had several trails out to the road designed to come in different areas of his estate

 We had a hand held audio recording piece that we could punch in the number where we were and it would tell about what we were looking at, just put it up to your ear and listen

 Believe it or not he was heavily experimenting on Golden Rod, Nebraska state flower, or a member of that family to extract Latex to use in the making of rubber in his lab, he had huge garden's of it to see if it would be a viable product to replace the rubber from Southeast Asia if there were a war and they couldn't get it from there.

 His lab with many people experimenting on different plants trying to find one that would produce good rubber

 Developing area

 The light bulb, so many, so many techniques.  He had a glass blower living on the property to make what he wanted.  The bamboo on the property was one of the main reasons Edison bought there.  He thought it would make a good filament for the light bulbs.

 Six Mile Slough, the Alligator sunning himself.  Below the top of his head to the right looking at us

 Hard to see but there was a turtle under the water feeding.

 Billy, Judy, Marilyn and Curt at one of the pond areas

 Judy said there was more water than usual on the ground, smelled like green forest not stagnant water

 Good conversation while watching the squirrels and listening to the birds

 Feral pigs and piglets, they didn't seem to mind us watching

 Below Ibis up in the tree getting ready for the night.