As the day is winding down, we’re preparing for visitors tomorrow.  Peggy’s brother and one of his business associates will be arriving, so we have to share the house for the rest of our stay.  Not that big of a deal, we won’t really be at the house much except to sleep.  Tomorrow we will be on a dinner boat cruise to tour the Franklin Locks.  Sunday is church and perhaps the Corkscrew Swamp by Naples in the afternoon.  Monday right now looks open, so we may go visit another beach – a nice cheap way to spend the day.  Tuesday will be our last opportunity to see Disney.  We plan to leave early in the morning and get there by opening, spend the day, then drive up to Gainesville to spend the night before we head home.

So now a quick review of our last couple days’ activities, and some more pictures.

Yesterday we drove into downtown Ft Myers to visit the Edison and Ford Estates.  Personally, from a historical point of view, it was fascinating.  I never knew much about Thomas Edison, but I came away with a great appreciation for his genious.  The time that he lived in must have been very exciting.  Similar to how the Internet has sparked such amazing creativity, the dawn of harnessed electricity was a period of amazing discoveries and inventions that today we take completely for granted.

The laboratory below was used for the search for a domestic source of natural rubber.  It is in the exact condition it was left when the operation was shut down.  All of the equipment is original and untouched.  The pier was built by Edison to get building materials for the estate, since the river is so shallow, the pier originally was built to the center of the river.  Finally, the phonograph, Edison’s personal favorite of his inventions.

Today, we were treated to a boat ride on the Caloosahatchee river, by  a friend of Peggy’s parents who lives in Cape Coral.  Kieth took us down the river, out to the gulf, and back to a place we visited several days ago – Sanibel Island.  The kids got a chance to do some more fishing, and at one point we came across a good-sized school of dolphins.  Peggy got a chance to do some more shelling at Sanibel.

We spent the day today on Sanibel Island.  It’s just off the coast from Ft Myers, and just north of Ft Myers Beach.  It reminded me of Door County on an island instead of a peninsula, on the gulf instead of a lake.

We saw some interesting wildlife:

The kids did some fishing, we got some shrimp and minnows and just let them cast them off of the beach for awhile.  They didn’t catch anything, but had a lot of fun.

The brochures tell you that the entire island is formed from sea shells.  Looking at the picture below, it’s not hard to believe.

Peggy and the kids spent all day picking through the billions of small sea shells washed up all along the beach.  At the end of the day, they looked like lobsters, but happy little lobsters.  We’re going to spend the day tomorrow in the house recovering and healing.

We departed Green Bay at about 7:30pm on Thursday in a very crowded Chevy Cavalier.  It was a short, uncomfortable drive, though, as we stopped in Germantown to switch vehicles.  After moving all of our gear to my in-law’s Toyota RAV4, we were back on the road by about 10:30pm.  I drove through the night, and Peggy took over around 4am, I think.  Our first stop on Friday was Mammoth Caves, KY.  We took the historical tour of the cave which lasted about 2 hours.  We ate lunch and then departed again around 1:30pm.  Next stop, Macon, GA, where we pulled into the Red Roof Inn around 10:30pm to spend the night.

After a much needed sleep in a real bed, and a hot cup of coffee, we departed Macon about 8am.  We drove straight through, with stretching and refeuling breaks, and arrived in Lehigh Acres, FL by about 5:30pm.

It was a great trip, the kids were really well-behaved.  The RAV4 was a very comfortable vehicle for the four of us.

On Sunday, we found a nice LCMS church in Lehigh, spent the early afternoon swimming in the pool at the house, and then in the late afternoon packed up the car for a short swim at Fort Myer’s Beach.  The beach was about a half-hour away, so not real close, but not a terrible drive either.  The traffic was horrible on the beach, but being Sunday, we’re hoping it will be a little lighter for the rest of the week.  We’ll see.

It sounds like today we are going to drive out to Sanibel Island where there will be lots of stuff for the kids to do – shelling, fishing, swimming.

Here’s some pictures from the trip.  We forgot to take the camera to the beach yesterday, so no Gulf pictures.  We’ll get some this afternoon, though.

I’ve been listening to classical radio on last.fm a lot lately because, frankly, classical music is the best programming background noise. One song that really gets played too frequently is Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copeland.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s an awesome song — I’m not complaining.

Having heard this song so many times over the past weeks or months, I had convinced myself that I remembered it as the theme song from the Star Trek Voyager TV series.  Well, today I heard the song again and curiosity or nostalgia overcame me, so I jumped on over to YouTube to watch the theme. WRONG!!  Not the same song at all.  In fact, after suppressing my disappointment (embarrassment) in my own poor memory, I discovered that the composer is actually Jerry Goldmith, who has composed songs and scores for many memorable television shows and movies.  If you’re done listening to “Fanfare”, you can listen to the Voyager Theme if you want: