Breaking! Thomas Edison turns 175!

Definition of Snowbird: one who travels to warm climates for winter.

As Florida is the warmest, most southern state in the lower 48, it is a huge attraction for snowbirds. (Typically they are 50+)

Snowbirding is not anything new though, even people living in the 1800s travelled miles and miles to escape their miserable winters.

In Fort Myers, where we stayed the 2nd week of February, two notable men had winter homes here. One was Thomas Edison, and the other Henry Ford.

They were next door neighbors, and Thomas Edison was one of the few to encourage Ford to build the first gasoline automobile (I guess you can partially thank Edison for cars as well as lightbulbs).

Ford actually worked for Edison for a long time, until he left the company to make cars. Edison had owned his house in Florida for a while, and later invited Ford to be his next door neighbor.

Currently the houses still stand, along with Edison’s laboratory, study, and swimming pool. Henry Ford‘s garage is also here, with a few of his cars.

Again, the grounds were beautiful. Tropical fruits like mango and starfruit were in abundance, and there were so many flowers!

Did I forget to mention we went on Edison’s birthday! We literally had no idea til we showed up and saw this sign:

(We arrived too late for cake 😢)

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Another cool thing we did was take a day trip to Sarasota, another chill, beachy city.

Specifically we came for the Rev Institute, an amazing car museum that has lots of info and no ropes! You can get as close to the cars as you want (without touching them) in other words.

They had a big Porsche collection (😌) and tons of old racing cars. Seen Ford v. Ferrari? They have that Ford GT there! Not the exact one that won Le Mans, but the backup (I believe).

Half of the museum was just the history of racing, which was really neat. This was probably in the top ten places we’ve seen so far.

Naples must definitely be a car town because later that day we just stumbled upon a Porsche show. Just a buncha beautiful Porsches parked down a street (😍)

A nice lady let me sit in her car ☺️ (ask and you shall receive!)

And that’s it for now. Tune in next time to see the real Everglades.

😘

-R.D.

PS

Aren’t we cute ☺️

PPS

For anyone who cares, Disney+ is doing it.

They’re making a Percy Jackson show.

😱

I seriously hope they make up for the terrible movie, and that it isn’t woke. Because if it is I will be so disappointed ☹️.

But let’s pretend it’ll be awesome! Yayyyy!!

Here’s Ricky’s announcement.