Fort Myers and Southwest Florida Historical Museum

I was a little sketchy when I was driving through downtown Fort Myers. I felt that everything look really run down and it was kind of the ghetto. When I first pulled into the parking lot of the history museum, my first impressions of it weren’t that great either. To me, it looked like something you would find in an old deserted area of Texas. It just didn’t remind me of Florida. I guess I’m just used to the beach bum theme with all of the palm trees and sandy beaches.

I was surprised to find what I did inside. I thought that the paleontology exhibit was pretty cool and informative. I like how certain sections had the recordings going that told you about everything. I wish that would have been around the entire exhibit. I some of the stuff had no information on it, so I wasn’t sure why it was even there. I guess you have to pay more to get the recorded information. My visit there was pretty nice, I walked around a saw all of the different areas. I was being followed by two ladies with six little ones yelling and screaming, so I think I probably walked through it fast then I normally would have. I would definitely like to go back and bring my boyfriend with me, I think that he would really enjoy the exhibit as well, especially the fisherman part! For the second time this term, this field trip reminded me of the book, A Land Remembered! I took a picture with the scrub cow and thought about the scene where Tobias is knocked off his horse when he was chasing a cow. I thought that was pretty comical.

Another cool thing that I really enjoyed about the museum was the police and firefighter part. The first thing that caught my eye was the Dalmatian sitting in the fire truck. I adopted a Dalmatian about a year ago it was a devil dog! He was very protective and aggressive. I later found out that Dalmatians were originally bread to run underneath the horses who pulled the fire carriages to protect them from predators and such. That’s what the Dalmatian is always associated with the fire dept. They are a one person dog, and they can get pretty mean to you if you aren’t that one person. I ended up having to get of the dog because it kept attacking me!
One thing that I didn’t like about the Museum was the King Tut exhibit. Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was cool, but it just seemed really out of place. I wasn’t even sure why it was there until I asked the guy at the front desk. I felt like an idiot when he answered, but it still doesn’t fit right. There weren’t any informational readings on it either, just the figurines and such. There wasn’t anything to read or find out about, which I really didn’t like. I also thought that the King Tut exhibit looked tacky. Everything looked fake and it just didn’t give off the vibe that the rest of the Museum did.

I think that a lot needs to be done to improve downtown Fort Myers. I don’t know if was in the right place or not, but it all looked run down and trashy. Not like old and historical, just plain old run down! I think that they should start some sort of restoration to make it a better (and safer) place to be. Maybe I really just was in the wrong place….

My grandpa used to fix cash registures and he had one like the one above!

Those are awesome hammers, I would have never have thought that those shells could be used like that. People back in the day were so innovated!