Sometimes when traveling, we love to do the opposite of what everyone else is doing. For example, instead of getting to museums just as the doors are opening, we arrive an hour before they close. As parents and children and tourists are filing out of the exits exhausted at the end of the day, we are full of energy and ready to get started. Often you can knock out in one hour what you struggle to do in three or four at the height of crowded halls or venues. Sometimes you can even have entire galleries to yourself-it’s wonderful!
The same can be said for seasonal travel. Ski resorts are excellent places to explore in the summer. Zoos are awesome to check out in the dead of winter. The contrarian approach can really pay off as it did for us when we visited the Thomas Edison and Henry Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers, Florida in the middle of summer.
Edison, Ford, and their families gathered each winter in Fort Myers and stayed for several months taking in the warm temperatures, fishing in the bountiful waters near their homes, and just relaxing from their hectic innovative and invention laden lives. They started gathering in this beautiful part of Florida in 1885 and continued right up until each died. Today, you can visit their estates 363 days of the year and if you go during the summer months, you may have the place to yourselves as we did.
Florida isn’t exactly a ghost town in the summer, but some people do avoid it because of the stifling heat, pesky mosquitos, and churning storms. The Florida swamp may be paved over, but its true nature wafts through the asphalt in summer, wet and clingy on the skin with something always buzzing nearby or slithering just out of view or rustling in the leaves. In the winter months, it drapes itself in warmth, hiding its murky origins in gentle breezes and fair skies. It doesn’t take a genius of Edison’s or Ford’s dimensions to figure out Florida is a great place to spend the winters.
We arrive early at the estates knowing that the air will be ablaze on this summer day by 10 in the morning and with it our skin and our demeanor which will burn as fiery as the day itself if we aren’t in the water or the AC by lunchtime. The sunshine is relentless, everything shines in gemstone colors on the estate. Flowers and waterways, painted furniture and blades of grass are all shimmering in their brightest hues. You would think the sun would burn it all and the colors would fade, draining objects of their vibrancy. Instead, the gardens are flourishing. I look for the shady paths near the water and the mangroves while keeping eyes out for swamp things.
Meanwhile, Chris and the kids head down to the sparkling water that borders the estates. It looks like any of the other coves or bays around Fort Myers but we are amazed to learn that it is in fact a river-the Caloosahatchee. What a name! We are even more amazed to learn the absolutely crazy diversity of fish the river has due to its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico. Its brackish waters contain huge tarpon (Edison’s grandson once caught a 100 pound one that was mounted on the wall), bull sharks, red drum, bass, and snook to name just a few.
Thinking about Edison and Ford walking right out of their homes and on to a dock they constructed to catch these huge fish, it’s easy to see why they would spend nearly 30 seasons here. Thinking about why we are always so interested in stepping out of our lives and homes and walking into the lives of powerful and influential Americans of the past isn’t as easy to see. Why are we so interested in how historic figures lived? What is it that draws us to these people and their homes? What can we learn about our own lives when we encounter people from the past?
Edison and Ford devoted their time to ideas and research with the goal to improve people’s lives through invention and innovation. They were tireless workers in their laboratories and in their quest to discover and create. Edison once said, “ I would like to live three hundred years. I think I have ideas enough to keep me busy that long.” Even as they came to Florida in the winters to relax, they still continued their work from their estates perhaps knowing the value of a scenery change to spark the mind or the truth that time spent outside in nature can energize and inspire.
I have a feeling Edison and Ford surely would have exhausted me with their belief in work and their worries that idleness “warps the mind.” These men weren’t laying about in the sun lazily watching the water’s tide come up and up then retreat and retreat so many times that the tide turned and the sun started to set.
Oh wait, that’s me on the beach everyday doing as little as possible. The only research on my agenda for the day? Looking for good food and an even better daiquiri. After a long walk through the past and the blazing sun at the estates simply thinking about how hard Edison and Ford worked, I need lunch and a cold beverage.
What did I learn from walking in their shoes for a few hours? Work can be a four letter word and I will not let it rule my life. I don’t have any innate unquenchable ambition to change the world but I do have an unending desire to enjoy life to the fullest. I’ll leave the inventing to others. Cheers!
Dammmmit!! We never Made it to see the vacation homes of Edison and Ford, I can’t believe we were literally staying three minutes away and didn’t make it. There were several storms and lots of buzzing creatures and my youngest gets tired everywhere we go lol. We did make it to Sanibel Island and Fort Myers Beach… so our next visit ,since we’re only 3 1/2 hours away will be to the Edison and Ford Estates!!!