J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge

After our cold cereal breakfast with morning beverages and doing our morning language lessons, we packed the truck and left by 8:00 AM. The J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge specializes in bird viewing. The visitor center had been nearly destroyed by Hurricane Milton two years earlier but was in the process of rebuilding. Most of the roads and trails had reopened.

Great Blue Heron

The drive from our AirB&B in Bonita Springs to Ding Darling Preserve on Sanibel Island took less than 30 minutes. The National Park pass got us into the area at no charge. Our first stop in the wildlife refuge was at a bridge where many birds were wading in the shallow water. A helpful volunteer told us that we should be able to see rosette spoonbills, night herons and many other wading birds. We saw several yellow crowned night herons and many of the usual herons and egrets in the warm shallow water. We were disappointed that the trail to the shell midden was closed due to hurricane damage, but we continued to make our way through the preserve. We stopped at the visitor center on the way out of the preserve then drove to the Edison and Ford Winter Estates in Fort. Myers.

Statue of Edison across from his winter home

When we pulled into the lot for the Edison and Ford homes the attendants directed us to a lot adjacent to an elementary school where we found a parking space in the shade. We had a quick lunch of rice cakes with peanut butter and mixed nuts. As we left the truck, we noticed that we would be unable to leave the lot between 2:45 and 3:45 because of dismissal of the adjacent school. We were concerned since that would have been about the time we might be leaving the area. Mary spotted a shaded parking space in another lot, so we held the space while Mark moved the truck.

Edison's winter home

We purchased admission tickets for the gardens and homes, downloaded the app for the audio tour and admired the banyan tree that is believed to be the largest in North America. After walking across the road, we walked through the many gardens and structures on the property. The swimming pool is well over 100 years old and was constructed from a monolithic pour of concrete. Only the diving board was damaged by Hurricane Ian  in 2022 as was a 400,000-gallon cistern that provided fresh water to the Edison and Ford properties. Several of the plantings on the properties were trees that Ford and Edison hoped could cost effectively produce latex for the manufacture of car tires.

Mark in front of Ford's winter home

As one might expect, Edison’s home was very thoughtfully designed, although not especially grandiose. The house was purchased as a kit from Maine and assembled in Sarasota. Each board was cut to size and labeled for assembly. Adjacent to Edison’s winter home was a guest house of nearly equal size. Also nearby was the winter home of Henry Ford’s family. Like the Edison home, Ford’s house was very functional but not overly ostentatious. As we left the property, we stopped by the plant sale where Mary bought a pink canna that she will plant with the other cannas at our house.

Mary's seafood salad

We drove back to the AirBnB in Bonita Springs where we cleaned up and drove to the Fish House Restaurant. All the restaurants in the area were very busy and parking was difficult. We were fortunate to park at the auxiliary lot about a block from the Fish House. We got on the list for seating and were taken to our table after only about 20 minutes. Mark, Cindy and I had margaritas that were excellent as we waited for our meals. Mary had a Cobb salad with shrimp, and I had the grouper basket. Everyone enjoyed the meal.

Mark, Mary & Cindy on the beach at sunset

After dinner we drove a short distance to a beach where we watched the sunset, which was very nice. We went back to the B&B to watch the Winter Olympics until we turned in early.

Great Wall of China

We boarded the bus at the Beijing Ritz Carlton Financial Street at 7 am for our visit to the Badaling section of the Great Wall. We had gone to breakfast in the hotel dining room at 6 am. This breakfast was much more Western than our previous stays. Although most of the hotels offered eggs of some sort, the breakfast was largely Asian in influence. Here just the opposite was true. Most of the items on the buffet were to US and European tastes with some Chinese choices. We had some of the shrimp dumplings (bao), fresh fruit (melons, dragonfruit, pineapple) and Chinese noodles.

With traffic in Beijing it took nearly 90 minutes to arrive at the location to visit the Great Wall. The highway to access the visitor area is on the major route north from Beijing. That and the upcoming national holiday means that traffic was very heavy even at the time we left the hotel.

Mary at the Great Wall of China

We arrived at the Badaling section of the Great Wall around 8:30 and noticed immediately that the air temperature was much cooler. We were pleased that there didn’t appear to rain clouds in the sky but there was a slight breeze so we all took jackets. Patrick gave us tickets for the funicular rail up the mountain and we went up the incline. At an altitude of over 6000 feet we could feel a much cooler air temperature. The major issue was the wind. The howling wind made the air seem very much cooler. We were all bundled up to keep the wind from freezing us.

Our group at the Great Wall of China

We walked down the Great Wall in the steeper direction until we came to a section that we thought was too steep. Since we liked the view from that spot we decided to take a few snapshots then walk the other direction. We turned around and started walking the other way passing the point where we started. As we approached the end point for this section of wall several in our group told us that a Chinese couple was fighting up on the wall. As we approached we saw a Chinese lady really smacking a man around. He was making little attempt to defend himself. He was scratched and red from her smacks and scratches. Someone eventually got security to separate the two.

We took a number of snapshots of the wall and surrounding countryside then walked back to the interpretative trail just below the Great Wall. There was some signage indicating the UNESCO World Heritage Site status but there really wasn’t enough information that either of us would consider it an interpretative trail. We stayed bundled up as much as possible in the strong wind then made our way down the mountain on the funicular rail around 10:30.

Great Wall of China

We took the bus for a 40 minute ride to a company that makes jade, jadeite and nephrite carvings and jewelry. A speaker talked to us about the three materials and what each was best suited for. She also taught us how to recognize genuine materials from reproductions and how to determine one grade of jade from another. She discussed the art of carving jade and the various shapes of jade carvings and what each shape symbolizes. After a quick walk around the store we went upstairs to lunch which was the common family style lunch. Most items on the table were familiar from previous meals but we thought it was good. We went back to the sales area after lunch and bought some jade jewelry items for family and friends.

Statue of a Ming general along the Sacred Way

We finished our day by going to the Ming tombs which is the area where the emperors from the Ming Dynasty are buried. We walked along the Sacred Way admiring the stone statuary from the 1300s depicting generals, warriors and animals. Since the day was beautiful and sunny we enjoyed the walk. We took a lot of photos of some of the more interesting statues. On the way back to our hotel our bus passed by many of the sites from the 2008 Olympic Games. We got back to the Beijing Ritz Carlton in the Financial District around 4:30 to rest after our travels.

We elected to not have the optional Peking duck dinner with the group.  Instead we went into town with a group of about 30 from the group who made the same decision. We had eaten duck on several occasions over the past few weeks, and we just wanted a more low key evening. Because our guide, Patrick, took the 30 or so visitors to the duck dinner we got in David’s bus to ride into the restaurant.

Our bus let us off in an area of inner city Beijing where a lot of small shops and restaurants catering to local residents are located. We walked down an alley (Hutong) to the entrance of the small restaurant. We were in a room with the four of us as well as Keith and Krystal from Greenville, SC. We enjoyed chatting with Keith about some of their recent travels to Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean and the Yucatán. Krystal shared her enthusiasm for essential oils with us. Because she has a very limited diet she was unable to eat any of the plated dinners we were served but planned to eat some of the snacks in the hotel bar after we returned. The name of the restaurant cracked us up, Grandmas Kitchen! It was obviously for local Chinese despite the name.

The restaurant staff did not speak any English but David did a great job of communicating our needs to the waiters and cooks. We had a choice of meat loaf, chicken cordon bleu or a vegetable roll. The meal started with vegetable tomato soup followed by a garden salad with Thousand Island dressing. Everyone in our room had the chicken which was not a typical preparation for chicken cordon bleu but was really quite good. The chicken was pounded thin and stuffed with a mix of chopped ham, cheese and mashed potatoes. It was rolled in a light crumb coating and baked perfectly. There was broccoli and garlic bread on the side. Dessert was a very good slice of apple cake. We enjoyed our meal and chat with Keith and Krystal very much.

We returned to the Ritz Carlton after dinner. Mary and Cindy played cribbage while Mark and I read. We turned in early since had a busy day planned for tomorrow in Beijing.