February 22 (Saturday)
Ft. Myers, our newest, current home.
We are scheduled to stay here for a couple weeks. Plans for a friend to come visit us here fell through, and Amanda bought a plane ticket to Nashville for a visit with Abigail, from here. I will stay close and let the girls have their time, and take care of some things on the boat. We also have a crew scheduled to come detail the boat and repair some of the bright-work.
February 23 (Sunday)
We looked up a church online and walked to it Sunday morning. First Christian Church feels more like our church than any, since we left home. Just a mile from the boat, we were welcomed to a rather large congregation.
We sang music similar to Compassion Christian, enjoyed Communion, and was encouraged by one of the associate pastor’s sermon. I will go back again next weekend while Amanda is in Nashville.
Sunday evening, we had a covered dish on the picnic tables with boaters Vitamin Sea, Salty Dog (our friends Greg and Pam who we had traveled with down much of the river), and Bagus (Bill and Anette), whom we had met in Stuart last year right after buying the boat. They had just bought their boat, which is identical to ours, a 39 foot Kadey Krogen.
Banyan Trees on the grounds of the Edison Ford homes 
One of two trees survived the last hurricane. They were planted during the construction of Edison’s & Ford’s homes. 
No fire sprinklers in original home, but they did have a standpipe connection. 
Sculptures like this are scattered through downtown. I was reminded of our family reunions when, as a kid, the old men would sit under the cypress trees playing dominoes. 
Sunset from the marina
Feb 24 (Monday)
We joined Ed and Kathy today and toured the Edison Ford Winter estate. Fort Myers was Thomas Edison’s winter home for a number of years, until his death. We learned much about his all his inventions and patents. He absolutely was a genius. Interestingly, he was a strong influence in Henry Ford’s life, offering him much encouragement when Ford was trying to get the car manufacturing business off the ground. We enjoyed seeing the gardens, their homes, the lab where they did research for an alternative product to the rubber tree, for tires on the cars.