Guided Discovery: Edison Ford Museum - Day 108

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Edison Ford Museum - Day 108 - Captiva, FL

Our day started at 4:35 AM with a wake-up call from Becky. By 5:10, Diana, Becky, Steve, Dakota, Nathaniel, Kodi and I we were on our way to the Fort Myers airport for the Betts' 7:05 flight. Traffic was easy and we got there at 6:10 leaving them plenty of time.

The next order of business was finding a place to park Kodi for the day as we planned to visit the Edison & Ford Winter Estates. Using our Ipad we searched "Doggie Day Care" on Goggle and located Pampered Pooch Dog Boarding and Daycare just 5 minutes from the museum. Located in a private home it was PERFECT (i.e., we hate putting Kodi in a kennel). This was a family setting with few dogs and total supervision,

From there it was off to breakfast in downtown Fort Myers. The downtown turned out to be a disappointment as most merchants had left. Still, we were lucky with the help of the local Starbucks person to find a nice restaurant (The Oasis) just outside of town.

At 9:10, right on schedule we arrived at the museum and signed up for the 10:00 AM tour. This proved to be the the right strategy in light of the 90% forecast for rain and thunderstorms. By 11:00 we had finished touring the grounds just as it started to rain hard. We then adjourned to the museum.

Two inventors, Edison and Shapiro

Our docent pointing to an original light fixture

Edison purchased the land in 1885, had a home built in Maine and shipped it by boat to Fort Myers. Later he purchased the house next door as a guest house.

The Guest House

Ford purchased his home in 1916, providing him the opportunity to vacation with Edison who he had worked for as a plant supervisor. Edison had been a mentor to Ford.

The Ford Home

Edison, Ford, Harvey Firestone and naturalist John Burroughs, vacation together and used a special truck designed by Ford. They were known as the Four Vagabonds.

Ford had a special truck designed for the Vagabonds camping trips

One of the highlights of the museum, which contained both ford and Edision memorbelia was the opportunity to watch their A&E Biographies without commercials. We watched Ford's. It was 40 minutes and very informative.

Here is a sample of what we saw in the museum.