– Haven’t Been Around Much –

I haven’t been around much lately. Doing some “lurking and some noting” but no writing. I really didn’t have much of anything to write about.

Now I have.

The Wife-Unit and I were invited to the Fiftieth Anniversary Party for our Middle Son’s In-Laws.

IN FLORIDA!

Wife-Unit says – WE’RE GOING!

AND she continued –

“You are going to visit some of the places on your Bucket List.”

We flew to Fort Myers on June 6th.

On the 7th the Wife-Unit went to a Flea Market with Middle DIL and her parents. Middle Son, the two Grandsons and I went to the Ringling Museums and Mansion in Sarasota.

It was fantastic!

I find it sad that the era of the “Big Top”, the circus under a tent, is gone and replaced by indoor venues.

It is however alive and well in the circus museum.

You have to see it to believe it.

Reportedly one man spent fifty years recreating an entire circus in miniature and then an entire year setting it up in the museum.

The anniversary party was June 8th.

The Monday after the party the Wife-Unit and I drove to Fort Myers and visited the winter home of Henry Ford as well as the winter home and laboratory of Thomas Edison.

The Edison Home Museum and laboratory was reportedly sold by Edison’s widow to Fort Myers for one dollar.

The museum contains many of Edison’s inventions including a number phonographs and “slide and movie” projectors.

Leaving the Ford and Edison Winter Homes we went to Fort Myers Beach where we joined Middle Son, his family, his in-laws and a cousin of our DIL.

I walked out to the end of the pier where I found this bird waiting for food.

I was waiting to see if someone would toss him a fish. A young teen caught a fish about eight inches in length and as he took it off the hook he dropped in on the deck. The pelican pounced on it and someone stepped between me and the pelican.

I missed getting a photo of the bird grabbing the fish but I got a couple of photos of it lining it up in its pouch so it could slide down its throat.

The following day we drove to Lake Wales and the “Bok Singing Tower” and gardens. The tower is constructed on the highest point in Florida. There are sixty bells in the carillon.

We then drove from Lake Wales to St. Augustine; the oldest city in the United States.

The city gates have been partially preserved.

One of the “Tourist Traps” we visited was the “Fountain of Youth”. We saw and heard an ancient cannon being fired. We were told it was one of the first breech loading cannons.

From St. Augustine we went to NAS Pensacola and the National Museum of Naval Aviation.

Then on to Mobile, Alabama and Battleship Park

We turned in the rental car at the Mobile Airport and flew home.

The flight from Mobile to Atlanta where we changed planes was the smoothest flight I have ever been on. The flight from Atlanta to Chicago was almost as smooth. We had just as few slight bumps coming down through cloud layers

I will be following this up with more photos in coming entries.