We arrived at the RV park in Fort Meyers yesterday in the late afternoon. It was stressed to us by our Wagon Master to be real careful getting into our sites since the park was built years ago when RV's were less than 20 feet in length. And so between the Wagon Master and the Tail Gunner, the parking was accomplished without any mishaps. Shannon parked our motor home, and the Wagon Master had to yell at her only once to follow his direction. And, I thought it was only me she ignores.
Earlier in the day, we all made a stop at the Edison & Ford Estates in Fort Meyers. In 1885, Edison visited the area, fell in love with it, built a home and a lab, and would visit the area during the winter. This is the lab that is preserved in the condition it was when Edison died. He was doing research to develop a domestic source of rubber and determined that a variety of goldenrod was his best bet. It became a moot point after Firestone developed rubber from petroleum. We had a tour guide that took us through the gardens, told us about the buildings on the property, and regaled us with many stories about Edison and Ford.
Today was a free day except that we had a staff prepared cook out tonight. During the day Shannon and I went to Sanibel Island and spent most of the day at the J.N. "Ding" Darling NWR. The visitor's center was a beehive of activity. We learned the NWR has 1,500 volunteers and almost all are from the island and surrounding mainland. The person we talked to thought there were some RV resident volunteers; however, this is a place that we have never seen any ads for volunteers. I'm sure the waiting list is very long. It was a beautiful day to be on Sanibel Island and neighboring Captiva Island. It was in the 70's and not a cloud in the sky. Now this is why we came to Florida!
Since I last posted a blog, we had made our way to Tampa, and had a full day on Saturday with another motor coach tour of the area. We spent time in Ybor City being immersed in Cuban culture and food, and then toured around Tampa. This building is part of the University of Tampa. It was built in the late 1800's as a grand hotel, and the university took it over in 1891.
We traveled to Tarpon Springs to learn about the sponge business. When sponges were first discovered in the area, they were harvested with a long pole and hook while looking through a bucket with a glass bottom. However, someone came up with the idea to go to Greece and hire sponge divers to see if the sponge business could be even more profitable. Today Tarpon Springs has a large population of Greek inhabitants, and the sponge business is still going strong. Who buys real sponges? Anyway, some one must. We watched the diver get into his outfit, enter the water, watched his bubbles come to the surface while he methodically searched for sponges as described by the narrator, and then watched him get pulled back onto the boat with a sponge in hand. I'm still not sure if he actually harvested the sponge or had it hidden in his suit to show as part of the demo. But we got the idea...
The sponge trip on the boat was not without pain. Does this picture look like we are in sunny, warm Florida or someplace on Mille Lacs Lake heading out to our ice fishing shacks? It was cold. Fortunately the boat came with a supply of blankets which were thankfully and quickly gobbled up. We looked like something out of an old photograph of a football crowd at the old Met Stadium. We did recover by going to a Greek restaurant for lots of food and drink.
In Tampa we stayed in a huge kick-ass RV park. Lazy Days RV Park. It also had a Camping World, a Flying J gas station, a Cracker Barrel, and acres and acres of new and used RV's of all makes, shapes, and colors. One of our members traded in their old RV and got a newer, larger one during the three days we were there. It was a happening place. There were at least 3 others in our group that had bought RV's at Lazy Days sometime in the past.
Tomorrow we move to Homestead, FL which is outside of Miami. Enroute, we have a stop which will include an alligator show and a ride on an air boat. Oh, boy! Someone from Minnesota just doesn't deserve this much fun.
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