Edison and Ford Winter Estates

Our last stop on the vacation was the Edison and Ford Winter Estates. I was keen to see the botanical laboratories and such, not so much the big houses of two rich men I don't particularly admire. Edison was a ruthless capitalist and elephant electrocutor and Ford was a noted anti-Semite. We saw some cool stuff there though--check out the tree behind this statue of Edison.

I made sure to show my dad the Oatmeal strip about Tesla, after we got back, just so you know.
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3:00 snapshot #1493: Estero Bay Preserve State Park

After getting run out of the Edison/Ford house (It was xmas eve, and the staff probably wanted to get to see their families) we poked a finger at the map and found this state park. We hiked blindly, deeper and deeper into sandy soil, palmettos and scattered pines. I kept expecting to find the bay, but we headed in exactly the wrong direction. We'll have to take another whack at it next time we're in the area. Not that it was totally wasted, we saw...

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3:00 snapshot #1494

Look how happy we are to be back. Logan Airport, Christmas day.

On that note, I should probably record this evening's weather. A 2-day snowstorm is peaking right now, promising to dump a little more than a foot of very light fluffy snow on Boston before it's all done sometime tomorrow. Light and fluffy is easy to shovel, but comes that way because the temperature is down in the single digits Fahrenheit. I was sent home early today and won't go in at all tomorrow. There are heroic zookeepers spending the night at both zoos making sure the place doesn't fall down, and feeding the animals tomorrow that might otherwise wait for staff to fight the slick roads to get in. I only have the one hippo in quarantine to take care of at the moment, so that's easily covered. Alexis and I are about to take an unusually late night down in the basement to watch the Hobbit. It's not Florida, but it's nice to be home.