Journal 5 (Estero Island Historic Cottage)

           Our last trip for colloquium was to the Estero Island Historic Cottage. There we met a nice lady named Jo who talked about her childhood while on the island and how much the island changed over the span of her lifetime. We also walked the Matanzas Pass Preserve .
           We were told to think of a spot from our childhood that we really enjoyed and how it has changed since our parents childhood to ours. A spot that I really enjoyed as a child was a little pond at Tod Park, in my hometown. The pond was also there when my mom was a child and it changed quite a bit over the years. When my mother was younger new developments called Seneca Woods and Sqaw Creek were developed behind the park and they had their pipes routed to where it would dump waste into the pond. After years and years of wastes being dumped into the water it made the pond become contaminated and so no one was allowed to swim in it. Although the pond became contaminated before my time and I never got to swim in the water, I still enjoyed standing on the banks of the pond with a little fishing pole in my hand trying to catch a fish during my family reunions. Eventually the city decided that the pond was a hazard to the community and so they drained out all the water and filled the pond in with dirt and covered it with grass. Still to this day in the grass covered field you can see the shape of the pond, a mere ghost of its glory days.



Photos from the trip:

Journal 4 (Downtown Fort Myers)

           For the latest field trip in colloquium we went to downtown Fort Myers and visited the historic district of the downtown area and the Southwest Florida Museum of History. We got to learn about the history of how southwest Florida was developed and about the development of Fort Myers. Based on Chapter 6 in Plan B I would consider Fort Myers to be a livable city. In Chapter 6 it mentions reducing urban water use and how toxic wastes are being discharged into rivers and lakes. Fort Myers has the fountains in downtown right off the Caloosahatchee River that aerates the water collected that comes down from storm water and buildings in order to have toxins settle down to the bottom and then they can control the amount of water that flows from the fountain into the river. I had been to downtown once before the trip but it was at night so I did not really get to see a lot of the area. I was surprised to see how historic the downtown area looked like because normally downtown areas in big cities are modernized. I loved the Arcade Theater and the shops around it.

            My least favorite part of the trip was the inside of the Southwest Florida Museum of History. I am normally a person who is interested in history but I found the tour extremely boring other than the cracker house and being able to look in the train. My favorite part of the trip was being able to see the Arcade Theater and the farmers market. I also enjoyed going through the Hotel Indigo. The trip in general was really fun and probably my favorite one so far. The only improvements I would consider in making to the trip would be to cut out the tour of the museum.

Some photos of the trip: