January 25, 2004
Tom, Eva, Laurie and I went to Laudermilk Beach. It is a nice beach. Funny thing--no one goes in the water.
We all ate dinner at Margie and Charlie's.
January 26, 2004
Laurie and I started out running. We want to get in shape for some winter hiking we have planned. We ran about a mile. Everyone is out walking. It is a nice place to run/walk. It is pretty and no traffic. Not like home.
Today we drove to Sanibel Island. We thought Route 41 was a scenic road. Well, if you like stores, traffic, and stoplights, it is great. We realized we made a mistake, but we finally made it to the place. We went to the Ding Darling Nature Preserve. We did a nice little walk through there.
We were warned to get off the island by 4:00 because the traffic is horrible. It was horrible even before that. So we didn't get to tour much of Sanibel.
January 27, 2004
Tom, Eva, Laurie, Margie, and I took a ride to Fort Myers to the Edison house. I had been there in 1986 and I remembered it being nice. This was Thomas Edison's summer house. He had a lot of exotic plants imported. The gardens were great and the tour guide was great explaining about the different trees and also about Edison. He spent a lot of his time working on a rubber source. One source was Golden Rod. Edison had close to 1100 patents.
The place had changed since I was there last. They had a great museum but we didn't stay there long. The one thing I remember from my 1986 visit was the incredible Banyan tree. They are so massive and spread out with roots coming down off the limbs.
January 28, 2004
This morning was pretty chilly. Tom, Eva, Laurie, and I took a ride to Shark Valley in the Everglades National Park. We took a great two hour tram ride and the guide was terrific. We saw snowy egrets and great egrets, white ibis, blue heron, great blue heron, spoonbills, and other birds. Of course we saw lots of alligators. Some were about one year old and about 1 1/2-2 feet and older ones that were over 8 feet. They have a long life span, but I can't remember how long they live. They can lay up to 40 eggs, but most of them don't live.
It was very cold and I wish I had long pants and a heavy jacket. I couldn't believe how cold it was. I know it is much colder home and I will certainly have to get use to it.