Downton Exhibition Day!

Today we headed to West Palm Beach to see the Downton Abbey Exhibition.  The contents were absolutely amazing!  If you are a fan and this come anywhere close to you, you need to check it out. After an introductory video we entered a room that gave details about each cast member as well as the overall story line with notes about how each cast member's role supported that story line.
The Dowager Countess has a special display (top right) with a video that told about her role and contained some of her more humorous lines.
Most of the downstairs sets had been moved to this exhibition, as you can see from the kitchen set depicted on the left.  The dining room table was set and ready for the family to gather for an evening meal.
There were many, many of the original dresses and other clothes included such as both of Mary and Edith's wedding gowns as well as what Mrs Hughes and Mr Carson wore for their wedding (Bottom left). 
At the end was a final video where four cast members talked and said good bye.  We spent over 1 1/2 hours viewing the entire exhibit, and we were so engrossed in it that at the end,  neither of us could believe we had been in there for that long.

 Later we drove to our hotel and after checking in, headed to the beach.  While it was cloudy, we could not pass up walking along the shore, smelling that wonderful sea air, and listening to the waves crash.

Now to get packed up so we're ready for our flight home tomorrow.  Its been a nice trip, but a little short...

Ft Myers

Our main event today was visiting the Edison and Ford Winter Estates.  This is where Thomas Edison (left) and Henry Ford (right) built houses next to each other right on the Caloosahatchee river. We did the self guided audio tour which had 20 pre-recorded messages to explain various places of interest of the property.  The bottom two pictures show the views from their respective porches. When Edison built his house in 1885 there was no railroad service to Ft Myers so he built a dock 1/4 mile into the river so supplies could be shipped in by boat. 
It warmed up into the 70's in the afternoon so we headed for Ft Myers beach. It was quite crowded so we drove around for a while, then grabbed some rays at our hotel pool.  It was a very nice relaxing, warm and sunny afternoon. 
Tomorrow we head east to West Palm Beach for Downton Abbey: The Exhibition, and then on to Fort Lauderdale to be close to the airport for our flight home Saturday.

Florida Day 3

Our main activity today was driving to Ft Myers where we will stay for 2 nights. On our way here we traveled down memory lane back to spring break 1972 when Mary and I took a trip to Florida with my parents. Back then we had visited friends of my parents on Bokeelia Island.  Since we had some time today, we decided to drive out to it before heading to our hotel.  Of course, it looked nothing like it did back then., very much built up in the past 40+ years.  After that we headed to our hotel and enjoyed some sun on the balcony. (view is on the right)

We had dinner this evening with a former DTE associate, Irene Chmura.   It was great seeing her again and catching up on news.  She lives north of here near Venice. 

Tomorrow we're doing some sightseeing around Ft Myers.  

Florida Day 2

Our main activity today was a Tiger Preseason game.  It took nearly 3 hours to drive there from Stuart, FL.  The drive was going quite well until the rain started, and kept getting harder and harder!  At one point we stopped to check the weather forecast, and fortunately the rain was supposed to stop by noon (for a 1:05 game) so we headed on to the ballpark.  We were expecting a nice warm day, but the rain dropped the temperature to the low 50's and we were dressed in t-shirts and shorts.  After a quick change to warmer clothes, we headed into the game.

The game got off to a rough start with 2 walks and a 3 run homer by the Blue Jays.  The Tigers did get a couple of runs but ended up losing 5-2.  So we headed to our hotel for the night.
Tomorrow we're going to Ft Myers where we're planning some sight-seeing and a dinner with a former DTE work friend.  

Off to Warm Florida!

I had some Southwest Airlines $$$ that had to be used by March 12th, so what better way to use them than fly to Florida?
Our trip consists of flying round trip to Fort Lauderdale, taking in a Detroit Tiger game at Joker-Marchant stadium in Lakeland, spending a couple of days in Fort Myers, them to West Palm beach for the Downton Abbey exhibit before heading home.

The picture of the day is of a nearly empty Port Everglades Cruise port.  All but one of the ships had already departed by the time we flew in after 6pm this evening.   It was 85 degrees warm when we landed and is still 73 here in Stuart, well after dark (which certainly is nicer than the 9 degrees at home when we left this morning).
After landing and getting our luggage and rental car, we headed north to Stuart, FL to stay the night before heading to Lakeland in the morning for the 1pm Tigers game.

More to come as we travel around southern Florida.