Ft. Myers is a great place to winter

We arrived in Fort Myers on a sunny day on Sunday January 13 and stayed until Monday January 21, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Inauguration Day. We stayed here longer than almost any place except Chicago. However the time just flew. We got to know this town pretty well, at least to know where to find what we need. We did a lot of walking and a lot of visiting.

Historic downtown

People are very healthy here. Older people look younger, they are very active, eat well, and have lots of energy. Legacy Harbour Marina is filled with snowbirds from all over who bring their boats down for the winter and spend three to six months at a time here. Everyone was so friendly to us. We watched the Ravens/Patriots game in the tiki hut with a big screen tv and lots of snowbirds.

This houseboat is a salon catering to boaters

Docktails on Blew Grass from Cincinnati/Kentucky

I met a bunch of boaters from Chicago. This was funny. When I meet people who say they are from Chicago I always ask where in Chicago. Then the folks invariably say, “I’m from Palatine” or “I’m from Naperville” and I say that is not Chicago. I am really from Chicago. Third generation in the city limits. It is kind of a tradition for me. So someone said I needed to meet these folks from Chicago. I went over and said, “So, I hear you are from Chicago. I am from Chicago too.” And their answer? “Where in Chicago are you from?” and I answered, “the northwest side”. They were testing me!! If I said “Naperville” they would have pounced on me the same way I pounce on suburbanites who claim undeserved Chicago roots. HA! It was pretty funny. The one fellow was born in the Stockyards and still at Fullerton and Western. We had a lot of catching up to do. Such nice people.

Lots of partying boat snowbirds - most of these folks
are here for months in the winter

At the marina we met the folks who own Waterway Guides and Skipper Bobs – have 2 little dogs both 13 years old. One fell in the other day. They live in Stuart and visit here periodically. They used to live in Virginia near Judy and Mike’s house so they had a lot to catch up on. Such nice people.

Food went wild here. We usually cook in almost as often as we eat out. Until we got here. I think we ate out one or two  meals a day while we were here. Eating out is a good way to get to know people and the community but this was too much.

Four restaurants stand out. In the last blog I talked about the Firestone Restaurant with its Martini Skybar and floating tires. Another restaurant around the corner is called Ford’s Garage. It appears to be very popular. Other loopers went there but every time we tried to go there they had a long wait. Finally the third time we tried we were told there was a 30 minute wait but we saw at least 5 empty clean tables scattered around, so it seemed to us that the delay was designed to impress upon potential customers how important this restaurant is. We skipped it.

"Turf ate my surf" at Morgan House

We crossed the street and down the alley is Morgan House, a restaurant with a classy look that defies its 80 year history in that spot. The food was really good. We went there twice. The first time Kermit had butternut squash in a broth filled with vegetables. I had an fascinating plate called “Turf ate my surf”. I couldn’t resist that name. Start with a shrimp, stuffed with crab, wrapped in beef scraps, roasted with mashed potatoes and a mango salsa. Yum.

The second time we visited with Judy and Mike, and Jim and Peggy. They wanted to go to Ford’s Garage but we said it was not worth it. By this time Kermit and I were sick of eating out so we had salads.

Another time we skipped Ford’s Garage we went across the street to Los Cabos, a Mexican restaurant. We went there twice too. The first time we went alone. Kermit had chicken enchiladas and I had a unique salad – grilled tilapia on cole slaw. It was delicious. That was margarita Saturday so we indulged. The manager hung around our table and talked about how he developed the margarita they serve. 

We love margaritas and Kermit makes a really good one so this was interesting to us. He said most tequila hurts his stomach so he finally found a tequila at Publix that he liked. He arranged to purchase the tequila from his distributor. Then he wanted a special, natural juice because he didn’t like the usual sour mix. So he created his own from lime juice, natural sugar, and distilled water. They make it every day. Together the combination is wonderful.

The second time we visited we visited with Mike and Judy along with Roy, the fellow from Little Current in Canada who does the radio show featuring Loopers. He was delightful! I had a different salad and Kermit had fajitas. It was sangria Sunday so we indulged. We also had the nice girl prepare guacamole at the table. It was delicious. 

The last restaurant to mention is Bennetts. We also visited this restaurant twice. The first time with Tom White, a colleague from Norandex who lives in Bradenton. He came for lunch on 1/17. Bennetts is across the street from the marina. They specialize in donuts. Boy do they have donuts. They have bacon donuts. I forgot to get a picture so this is a stock photo from their website. Imagine a glazed donut with three pieces of quarter sized bacon.

Donuts are not usually on our diet. While we were there the first time a camera crew came in trying to find one person who was in favor of gun control. I am the lonely liberal in all of Fort Myers. Go figure. The second time we visited with Mike and Judy, Kermit and I had tasty breakfast sandwiches. And a donut. How could we resist? 

Friday night 1/18 was a big night in Ft. Myers. There was a blues festival in the park by the marina so we heard music all day and late in the night bouncing off the high rise behind us. Then downtown was a big music festival with little stages set up all around the downtown. There were people everywhere.

Evidently it was quite a controversy of whether people should be allowed to walk the streets with open containers. So in addition to the sidewalk beer stands, we spotted this reporting wandering around with a camera crew, lights, and a glass of wine in several places as we wandered. She was trying to make a point.

Rusty enjoying
the sculpture garden

Downtown Ft. Myers has a new water reclamation project that just opened recently. They dug up a bunch of the waterfront and installed filters and cleaners and fountains to clean water for drinking I think. It makes the waterfront very pretty.

They also have lots of statues. This is a big red statue that Rusty liked. 

Then there is the statue of Ford, Edison, and Firestone. And this one is a big open metal round thing (two of them) that has a light in the middle for night and cut into the metal are the names of the plants Edison used in his experiments while he was here.

The post office is decorated with a painting. At first it looks like a painting then when you look closer you can see it is a mosaic with tiny 1 inch tiles making all the shades. The mural is called, "Fort Myers: An Alternative History", completed in 1999 by "public artist and photography professor Barbara Jo Revelle encapsulates Fort Myers’ early history, a 46-year period denoted by conflict, struggle, and even abject shame." 

 Even the signs are funny:

The big attraction in Fort Myers is Thomas Edison who made Ft. Myers his summer home. He bought the property and built the first house in 1886 then returned when the children were a little older around 1901. The complex is only a few blocks away from our marina.


He lived in Ft. Myers in last half of life. He met Firestone, Ford and Burroughs while he was here and went on camping trips with them to commune with nature.

The museum has the original camper unit for cooking – built on a Model T fixed out with two extra gas tanks for fresh water and extra batteries installed on the running board. Edison took naps a lot – captions at museum said, here is Edison thinking about his next invention – pretty funny.

Edison brought the first electricity to south Florida. Some of the fixtures still work. This light switch still turns on the lights on the porch with the original fixtures and wiring.

The museum had working phonographs over 100 years old and other pieces of Edison’s inventions that still work well. Edison had lots of interests but he was not interested in learning new things. For example, he invented applications for electricity but had no interest in learning more about electricity. Kind of odd don’t you think? Even still he holds some sort of record for most patents including consecutive patents over a 60 year period. How cool is that?

The laboratory

Edison was very interested in plants. The place is filled with plants recreating his gardens and the plants he used for experiments in his onsite lab. He and Firestone and Ford were trying to find an inexpensive rubber so he experimented with up to 70,000 different plants to try to find the correct formula. Evidently the most promising was common old ragweed. Go figure.

The locked up cabinet where the alcohol for experiments
was kept during Prohibition

This banyon tree covers 1 acre. Harvey Firestone gave Edison this tree in 1925 as a little 2 inch thick stick. It really grew. 

Bromeliad - orchids

Orchid plant 

The working garden - you can buy plants here

The garden

A cinnamin tree

One of the gardens was designed by a woman

Bay rum tree

Bamboo

A rubber tree getting started

Huge bouganvilla planted in 1925

I have lots of pictures of plants on the complex. This bougainvillea planted in 1925 is huge now. There are bromeliads (orchids) everywhere. The Edison’s loved them so current staff had bromeliads everywhere. 

It was funny. Our tour convened outside the museum with about 30 people gathered around the nice young man. As we were standing there looking at a huge banyon tree that covers one acre, this little kid asked what that funny thing was. Out of the obscure reaches of my brain I said I think that is a bromeliad, an orchid. They live on air. Sure enough a few yards down was a sign that described how Edison loved bromeliads. You never know when that useless piece of info will pop out at just the right moment. 

The pool and diving boards

Another look at the pool

Edison had an interest in improving cement so invested in Portland Cement and made improvements in that product too. He had an above ground pool installed made entirely of Portland cement. It still works with an automated pool cleaning system. There are two diving boards that are just 2x12s without a spring. The higher board is about 10 feet above the water but the water is only 7 feet deep. How often and how safely do you think they dove?

Edison's living room

Edison's bedroom

The dock was here

 The long 1500 foot pier was built before railroad connected Fort Myers so all furniture and building materials shipped in by boat. Another fun fact: The Edison house was constructed  with wood from Maine – exotic to termites so much of the wood has been replaced.

Edison's sitting room

The 110 pound tarpon

 There is a story about Edison’s daughter and son who went fishing with only a little bait. Son went to fish for bait and daughter went fishing with the few bits of bait. Son was excited to catch a 10 pound tarpon. He returned to the main boat and discovered the daughter caught a 110 tarpon! Both are stuffed and mounted on the porch.

Henry Ford was a good friend so he purchased the property next door separated by a white picket fence. They called this an open door policy because they kept the gate open. Ford bought property for 20k and sold it for same amount after Edison died some years later. He said he didn’t want to profit from his friend’s death. The new people didn’t feel the same way when they eventually sold the property to Florida in the 1980s for a handsome profit.

The gate between Ford and Edison estates, looking at Edison

The Edison house has all the original furniture. Not so much in the Ford house when the subsequent owners sold the Ford family furniture for about $1 million.

Kermit fixed the front head finally while we were here. We have had trouble for a while. At Dog River Marina they tried to fix it, even installing some new parts but that didn’t fix it. Still didn’t flush. So Kermit did more work on it. Turns out the hose to the holding tank was clogged. The only way to fix it was to replace the hose – a gross and disgusting project. I left town. Kermit bathed himself and the boat in bleach but it is fixed now. Someday the smell will go away.

While Kermit was fixing the toilet, I had a business meeting in Sarasota. We were supposed to go together until it appeared the toilet would take more time than he thought. So I hopped in the rental car with the dog and off we went back to Sarasota.  

After the successful business meeting we went half an hour further north to St. Petersburg to see the Dali Museum. We skipped St. Petersburg completely because we went directly from Clearwater to Longboat Key to meet One September after Christmas. Everyone says this is a good museum so why not take a little detour.

I am glad I stopped. This is an awesome museum. It seems to be very popular with foreign tourists because I heard lots of languages including a tour given in French. I had lunch at the  museum. Everything on the menu is Spanish so I had a Spanish omelet with onions and potatoes. Yum. I ate a lot of these omelets when I visited Madrid a few years ago. It was inexpensive and familiar and delicious. True at the Dali Museum too.

The museum is right on the water, right next to the airport and the downtown marina. 

It has an unusual architecture looking like it bends around corners, just like a Dali painting. Dali was quite an odd fellow. My earlier impression of Dali was that watch that bends down the table. You’ve seen it I am sure. But actually his work is much more complex than I ever imagined.

This is the store - some of the real paintings are 20 feet high!

The museum offers tours by docents – trained art history folks who come prepared to talk for an hour with lots of stories. I took two tours because I had the time. The first one was the best. 

I have seen Dali paintings in books but in person they are huge – some as large as 20 feet tall. You can stand within a foot of the paintings and really appreciate the detail. For example in the Toreador painting the docent pointed out how what you think is in the painting is not really there. Dali wanted to demonstrate that your view of reality is skewed because you see what you want to see. 

He also inserted in his paintings comments about stuff that annoyed him. In one painting the docent pointed out a tiny woman laying on a raft in a pool of water. He said Dali included her as a comment about his annoying new neighbors, a Club Med. He painted in an army of black flies that he hopes will drive her away. In another part of that same painting he demonstrates that he can paint like Jackson Pollack or Andy Worhol but chooses not to. I guess he was kind of an asshole. Very smart, kind of an asshole, and very talented.

Just goofing around

Another funny sign

Historic downtown - it rained shortly
 after this photo was taken

 
All in all we liked Ft. Myers a lot. We can see why snowbirds come here. The weather is great. There is a lot to do. The people are very friendly. We even found a church in our denomination - the local Edison Congregational Church! We can see being back here next winter.