T Day Stands for Our Last Day in Florida

Hi everyone. Happy T Day.

We're in the snow zone - a big snow zone. The big Nor'easter is going to snow on us Monday night through Tuesday. Hopefully not into Wednesday either. I don't think spring is ever going to come to New Hampshire. 😩

Last week I was busy with appointments and a couple of fun adventures, but I never managed to get any photos of drinks to share over at   Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog for T this week. 😕

Since I don’t have anything new to share, and since March the lion is roaring at us in New England right now, let me write another post about my Florida trip which I took back at the end of January. 

The final stop on our Florida road trip  was to the Gulf Coast city of Fort Meyers. One place we  wanted to visit was the Thomas Edison and Henry Ford Winter Estates. For those of you who may not recognize the names, Thomas Edison was a prolific inventor who developed the incandescent light bulb and worked on more user friendly versions of phonographs and motion pictures, as well as a few other items.  Henry Ford started the Ford motor company with his model A car, and he also developed the assembly line which dropped the price of cars to make them affordable to the general public.

These 2 men became good friends and  had winter homes next door to each other. These homes were built when Fort Meyers was just a cattle town with no paved roads and no major development. Actually Edison owned his home first, and when the owners of the next door estate put their property up for sale, Henry Ford bought it so he could spend some time with Edison. (Although Edison spent more time overall in Fort Meyers than Ford ever did.)

 These historic homes and gardens were really lucky to have so little damage during Hurricane Ian  last September. Hurricane Ian hit Fort Meyers basically dead on, and it was a  category 4 storm, which means winds reached 130-156 mph/ 209-251 kph.

Edison and Ford's Winter Homes are located on a tidal river and since the river flooded because of the storm surge, these buildings could have had a lot of damage. We saw photos that showed how the flooding and debris came right up to the porches on the houses, but the water spared the houses and the rest of the property. Our tour guide said what helped is that the houses are built back quite away from the river and also they are built a few feet up off the ground, which makes sense when you think about flooding.

Here's an exhibit the museum put up  near the river about the hurricane. You can see some of the items that washed ashore during the storm surge.

Here's a view of the homes. Edison's is the one closest on the left. (It also has the porch that connects  its 2 separate sides.) 

There's lots of palm trees in this photo for our lovely hostess Elizabeth too.

Where I stood to take this photo would have been under water during the hurricane, but as you can see the damage there was minimal. (Sadly, this is not true  for Fort Meyers Beach which is still a mess from when the hurricane came ashore. I can share some photos if people are interested.)

After we finished our morning at the Edison and Ford Winter Estates, we decided a good place for lunch would be at a nearby restaurant called Ford's Garage. We might as well keep some of the morning's theme going a little bit longer.

I love the door handle.

I had a yummy sandwich and two drinks which you can see in my next photo. 

The right hand drink with the straw is some unsweetened ice tea which I first ordered because I was thirsty. Then just before my sandwich arrived I ordered a Magners apple cider. Magners cider is from Ireland, and I like their hard cider because it is a bit tart. I'm not really a fan of sweet ciders.

I liked how this restaurant really had a garage feel including the napkin rings and the (clean) shop rags they used for napkins.

And  I took a photo in the bathroom because look at these cool sinks. Not that I want a tire sink at home, but they work great for this themed restaurant. 

It was a fun place to eat. This was just about the end of our trip. The next morning we were flying home. The last days of trips are always weird for me because it is always sad to be ending an adventure but also exciting to be heading home. 

If you're interested, I'm sharing some more photos of these 2 estates in a post tomorrow/Wednesday. 

Thanks for visiting my blog. I hope you have a great T day and week ahead.