Ortona South

This is the Okeechobee Waterway by the campground, looking east to the Ortona Locks. There are 3 sets of locks between Fort Myers and Lake Okeechobee. You can completely traverse Florida from Fort Myers to Port St. Lucie thru this canal system and the lake, and the canal on toward Port St. Lucie.

This sailboat is headed up the canal to Lake Okeechobee

Henry Ford bought the house next door to his friend Thomas Edison. He spent 2 weeks a year here in February to celebrate Edison's birthday.

Notice the benches on either side of the fireplace. These were added by Ford to provide seating when all the furniture was moved onto the porch for one of Ford's favorite pastimes... Square Dancing.

I hope that cord is going to the lamp on the stove shelf. ;-))

Ford extended the porches from 7 feet to 14 feet to take advantage of the additional shade.

This view is across the front of Edison's Guest House and his personal home

The pier was the first struction built on Edison't property, as all the supplies for building and furnishing his homes were brought in by ship. The original pier was 1500 feet long to reach deep water.

Henry Ford had this 1918 Model T "Chuck Wagon" built for the Camping Adventures that he, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone and John Burroughs were famous for going on.

There is a pair of these building a nest in the tree on our site

This 35 foot high levy completely circles Lake Okeechobee. There is a path at the top of the levy which is 110 miles long. What you see here is the canal around the south end of the lake. We never actually saw any "Lake". We stopped at two locations along the south and East side, but saw nothing. The Lake is listed as having an average depth of 10 feet, and it is currently 4 feet low.

This canal, which is inside the Herber Hoover Levy, provides access to the lake from the canals

Well, I should say looking out where Lake Okeechobee should be. We couldn't see anything from this vantage point. There is an island on the southern part of the Lake. We don't know if the Lake would be visible if it weren't so low.

This picture was taken across the canal from our campsite. It was a leisurely 22 mile ride to get back (a few hundred feet) to the campsite from this park across the canal.

Okeechobee Waterway