Enjoying a little music in the Square

One of the things that living in The Villages offers for its residents is daily entertainment at each of the three Towne Squares – that’s 365 days/year! 

Mark & Janie have become friends with one of the entertainers who is a regular at The Villages, and on Thursday night, he was performing at the Sumter Town Square.  They were going for a couple hours, before heading over to Trivia Night, and invited us to join them.

Arriving home after our full day of touring last Saturday, Tom was starting to feel the effects of a cold or flu coming on, and he spent the next several days sleeping around the clock, and trying to battle the flu symptoms.  I spent those days working and trying to stay far enough away from him to avoid getting sick, too!  I think I was pretty successful, but I did suddenly get hit by the effects of warming temperatures driving up the amount of yellow pollen in the air.

By Thursday, we were finally feeling up to going out, so we grabbed a quick dinner at Steak n Shake, and met them at the Square.  It was a beautiful, warm evening, and a perfect night for music in the Square.

We enjoyed the music, and watching the dancers . . .

 

this guy in the white fedora was particularly fun to watch!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mark & Janie left to go to Trivia Night, but Tom and I  passed on that this week, and stuck around to listen to the music a little longer. 

There were also some vendor booths around the square, so we took a walk around to check out what was on sale.  I found a pretty watch that I bought for myself – something a little nicer than my Casio digital!

There was a huge truck parked on the street, and next to it was a matching golf cart . . . so cute!

It was a really fun evening, and we were glad we went.

On Friday, we stuck around the RV park and rested some more after taking a walk in the morning.  After lunch, we went to the pool for a couple hours and soaked up some sun. 

Ahhh, that felt really good . . . we were rejuvenated for an adventure on Saturday!

Touring the Villages

After Trivia Night on Thursday, we made plans to meet up again with Mark & Janie on Saturday afternoon for a tour of the Villages, and then dinner.

We arrived at their house after lunch,

and climbed onto one of their golf carts for our tour – golf carts are definitely the vehicle of choice around here!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mark & Janie live in the Sanibel Neighborhood, one of the newest Villages, at the southern boundary of the community.  Each individual neighborhood has a Recreation Center – theirs is the Captiva Recreation Center, and it’s right around the corner from their house.

Neighborhood Recreation Centers have tennis and pickleball courts, as well as a pool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The building includes a large banquet room, small party room and kitchen, and a billiards room.  Each Recreation Center has a theme – the theme here is the beach – seashells, sand dollars, soft colors.

In addition to the Recreation Center, each neighborhood also has a smaller pool at the mail center.  These pools are “adults only – 30 & over”.

Then, if that’s not enough, there are also Regional Recreation Centers that include even more recreation opportunities, a “sports pool” where there are fitness classes, pool volleyball, and lap lanes, and larger clubhouses that have even more banquet facilities as well as art rooms and fitness centers.

We stopped in at the Cottage Recreation Area.

It was very “cottagey” inside – more soft colors and lots of knick knacks all over . . . I wouldn’t want to be the person responsible for dusting in here (and there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere)!

There’s a quilt on the wall in the large banquet room, and Janie & Mark know I quilt, so they took us to see it.

 

It’s a beautiful day in the Villages!

 

 

Then there are the Golf Courses . . . I don’t even know how many there are, but it’s a LOT.  As we drove around the community, there were golf courses all around us – Executive Courses and Country Clubs!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next part of our tour was some of the new neighborhoods under construction,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

including a few houses that are priced well over 1 million dollars!

There is a lot of effort put into the design of the back of the house – the lanai,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and other outdoor entertaining spaces.

Nice houses, but we’re really not in that market anymore – don’t need that much space!

The last one we went to was really over the top – the “birdcage”, as they call the screened lanai, was bigger than the house itself! 

Looks like a nice, simple house from the front . . .

but when you go around back . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and the one next door is going to be even bigger!

The next stop on our tour was one of the Town Squares --

where there is shopping, restaurants, and an entertainment venue that offers live music every evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Towne Square in particular is home to the Villages Visitor Center, where people who are renting check in for their stays.

The facility is modeled after the Grand Hotel, which we are very familiar with.

There are several waiting areas, and all of them are beautiful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back outside, we spotted a cute golf cart right in front of the Visitor Center.

With our tour complete, we headed back to Mark & Janie’s house to rest a little before meeting Mark’s mom for dinner at her home.  She lives in one of the Independent Living Apartments within the Villages. We enjoyed a delicious prime rib buffet, and toured her building, which is really nice.  She’s got a 1-bedroom apartment that opens to an enclosed courtyard in the center of the building. 

Pretty nice – I could be happy there when I’m in my 90s!  They have their own pool, too!

We had a really enjoyable day, and I must say, I’m more impressed by the Villages than I thought I would be . . . it looks like a pretty nice place to settle down . . . if you want to settle down! 

For now, we’ll keep travelling!

Back to Civilization

March 1st was moving day for us, and we had about 225 miles to travel, straight through the middle of the state.  We anticipated a slow travel day, since we were on 2-lane roads, rather than interstates, and once we got up near Winter Haven, we knew traffic would pick up.

We were right, and it took us about 5-1/2 hours to get to our destination at Southern Oaks RV Resort in Summerfield, FL.  With the exception of the hair-raising U-turn we needed to make to get to the southbound side of the divided highway and the resort’s driveway, it was a fairly easy drive up US-27.

We got checked in and set up just the basics at the site, and then headed down the road to get some dinner at Sweet Tomatoes (Ash Wednesday, so no meat for us) and pick up groceries at Walmart.  We were definitely in need of replenishing the pantry and refrigerator after our stay in the Everglades – we had used up pretty much everything!

We were both pretty tired after the long travel day, so back home with groceries, we just settled in and relaxed for the evening.

While I worked on Thursday, Tom finished setting up outside the RV.

Now we’re settled in for the month!

We selected this resort because it was just a few miles up the road from The Villages, where our friends, Mark & Janie, relocated to from Michigan a couple of years ago.  Mark is a college friend of Tom’s, who reached out to him on facebook last year, encouraging us to visit them this winter.

After setting up, Tom contacted Mark to let him know we had arrived. We made arrangements to meet for dinner and they invited us to go with them to “Trivia Night” at a local Ice Cream Shop.

Mystic Ice Cream is quite a place – hippie atmosphere, with plenty of retro paraphernalia and decorations.

 

Album Art

Another interesting corner

Mark & Janie have a regular team that meets every Thursday for Trivia Night, and they were gracious enough to let Tom & I join their them – even though we didn’t anticipate being able to contribute much!

It’s definitely a popular activity – this place was packed!

The ice cream is really good, too!  It’s all homemade, and half of the flavors are made with alcohol – hence the “Adult” Frozen Dessert!  Well, who can pass up ice cream?  Tom and I had to try some . . . he had Grand Marinier, and I had White Mystic (vanilla ice cream with Kahlua, Amaretto and Ghirardelli white chocolate) . . . YUM!!

The trivia contest was fun, although some of the “correct” answers were debatable, and our team managed to win one rounds and send a player to the finals. 

We didn’t win, but it was fun, and we’ll probably go again.

On Friday afternoon, we needed to mail a couple things at the Post Office, so we took a drive down to Leesburg afterwards, where we had seen a Rural King on the way to the RV Resort on Wednesday.  Before leaving Big Cypress, we bought a case of tomatoes (for $6!), and although we managed to give quite a few away, we still have way more than we can eat.  I decided I’d make some freezer salsa, and Rural King is a great place to pick up canning supplies . . . and our favorite potato chips!

Walking around the store, we spotted the baby chicks, and had to stop for a peek . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

they had bunnies, too . . . so pretty with their pink ears!

 

It’s kindof nice to be back in civilization again, and have easy access to stores and activities!I think it’s going to be another enjoyable month!