I took a trip to Southwest and Central Florida. I flew to Fort Myers on Friday, December 24th. I left from Orlando on January 1st. I rented a car. The first place I went to after leaving the airport was San Carlos Bunche beach preserve. 3:12pm is the time I paid for parking, the time on my receipt for the cost of parking at the beach. Saturday I went to Audubon Corkscrew Preserve – It was fine but I could have been as happy if I had skipped it and went to parks closer to Fort Myers. Then I had time for Six Mile Cypress Slough preserve. Audubon Corkscrew had half the people as six mile Cypress preserve and is quiet because it is far from the main roads. Six mile Cypress preserve is close enough to main roads that you hear the distant roar of traffic and it wasn’t crowded but had 2x the people as Audubon Corkscrew. I saw more wildlife at Six mile Cypress Slough. Audubon Corkscrew is 2x bigger but wasn’t necessarily worth the trip. Sunday I went to the Edison and Ford winter estates. It is like a memorial to the two and a place where they preserve rare tropical and subtropical plants. It is underwhelming compared to the Henry Ford museum and Edison laboratory at Greenfield village. Monday I went to the Ringling museums is Sarasota – there are multiple buildings: a museum with his art collection – that was at least half my time there; the first floor of his house; a building with a model of a circus with thousands of piece and circus-related museum that looks mean for kids at first glance except that you could probably spend an hour there if you read all the descriptions; a 4th building has circus-related artifacts and artwork.
Tuesday was the Salvador Dali museum, the St Petersburg museum of fine art – it is probably 1/6 the size of the Detroit Institute of art; then the Dale Chihully collection – his works are big glass sculptures shaped like plants and random twisted and spiraled tubes. Wednesday was the Tampa art museum – they have a good collection of ancient Greek and Roman painted pottery, along with an unimpressive small collection of recent drawings. Then the Henry B. Plant museum – is it a museum about a former luxury hotel – I have no interest in amusement parks. Then the Florida museum of Photographic art – I didn’t even think I would have time for this but these are all small collections. Then I made a last minute decision to stop at Whedon Island Preserve in St. Petersburg – I walked on a boardwalk and went to the top of a 3-storey wood observation tower that overlooks some calm water and an expanse of plants and marsh with city skylines and a power plant in the distance.
Thursday I drove to Winter Park, my last of 4 stops. I had an apartment in part of a house that was converted into an apartment for travelers with a separate entrance; it was nicer that I expected or feared... before arriving at the apartment I had time for the Albin Polasek House and Statue garden, and the boat tour. Friday I had time for the Charles Hosner Morse museum of American Art – the place features glass lamps and stained glass windows made by Louis Comfort Tiffany’s studio; other sorts of works his studio made; other random drawings and watercolors by various artists. Then the Cornell Fine Art museum at Rolling college – it only occupied me for a half hour; then a park called Meade Botanical garden, then walked along streets in the downtown shopping district and past a city park, in Winter park. I thought there would be a 10% chance of buying a souvenir (s). I didn’t buy anything. Saturday were my flights and taxi ride home. All my flights boarded, took off, and arrived on time. The weather was perfect. There was no rain. High temperatures were about 77 to 82.