Everglades National Park

Leaving behind Thomas A. Edison Museum in Fort Myers, we headed for the Everglades National Park in south Florida.

Where is the best place to visit in Florida? It's very difficult to answer.

But, if you like the nature, the most I want to recommend you to visit is the Everglades National Park.

Disney Resorts, SeaWorld and Universal Studios are, of course, very nice and worth visiting.
But, to watch and feel the wildlife by yourself is quite different from those theme parks or museums.

I uploaded two videos taken in the Everglades National Park. One is featured with wild dolphins and the other is with wild birds and alligators on May 3 and April 26.

Today, I've uploaded pictures of alligators living just next to the route US41. Those alligators always hear the sound of traffic.

Marine Day

Today is Marine Day or Ocean Day in Japan. It is a national holiday celebrated on the third Monday in July.

I did not go to any beach nor place which commands the ocean view today. What did I do today? I went to the mountain area in northern Tochigi to play tennis with my friends yesterday and came back today.

I can't remember when was the last time for me to go on an overnight trip for tennis. I'm sure it must have been more than fifteen years ago.

I enjoyed playing tennis in a country area and staying in a beautiful place.

I took following two pictures from the balcony of my hotel room.


Flowers were blooming nearby the tennis court. I don't know the name of the flower, do you?

Thomas A. Edison Museum

We went to Fort Myers on our trip in Florida. We cooked waffle with honey by ourselves for breakfast at the hotel we stayed. Hot waffles were really delicious.

Do you know who invented an electric waffle iron?

...

Yes, Thomas A. Edison did in 1910.

We went to Edison Museum or “Edison and Ford Winter Estates” in Fort Myers after finishing our breakfast.

There are three tours. The lab tour is 15 minutes and the estate tour is an hour and a half, and the gardens ...

We took the lab tour. After the tour, we watched a video about Edison and looked exhibitions carefully in the museum.

The upper left picture shows an original electric waffle iron.

There was the first banyan tree in the U.S. planted by Edison. The tree, it is said, originally only 4 feet (1.2 m) tall, covers 400 feet (120 m) now.

Some say that it is an overpriced exhibition, 20$ per person but I really enjoyed staying at the Estates.

Dunlop Tennis Tournament

I took part in "Dunlop Tochigi Preliminary Tennis Tournament" today with my company colleague, Mr. Ikeda.
It was my third time to participate in tennis tournaments with him.

As competitors' tennis skills were quite high, we were defeated at the first round match. Then, after that, we joined a consolation match and barely won the match thanks to the opponent's repeated miss shots. lol

It's in the middle of rainy season now in Japan.

We've been having rainy days and cloudy days half-and-half recently in Tochigi. I'm satisfied with having been able to play tennis today.

We can enjoy seeing hydrangeas here and there these days in Utunomiya.
I took these two pictures in Isoyama shrine in Kanuma city.

:-)