The Villages, FL
Its a short drive from Alachua to The Villages, so I arrived Friday morning anxious to see what this place was all about. The Villages is one of the largest retirement communities in the US, with a population of 130,000. That makes it bigger than Las Cruces, NM and Pueblo, CO. My housesit hosts were awesome and I met the pets & got a tour of the house.
They took me on a golf cart tour of the area. EVERYONE has one, and just like cars, there are good drivers, bad drivers, i dont give a shit drivers, rude drivers, slow drivers, speeding drivers and beginner drivers (like me)! I dont know if people are honking to say HI, or honking to say ‘Get the hell out of the way’. Kinda like being in Mexico, or Nepal, its a language I dont understand yet. They’re screaming around the corners at full speed. This place is HUGE, there are 56 golf courses, 12 of those are championship courses. I dont really know what that means, but I’m sure you golfers do. “Golf cars” are the main mode of transportation here and mine was freaking awesome. The golf car expressway was a little intimidating, but I did manage to navigate over to the pool. Its 90 degrees here!
The house sits right on the golf course, I think most of them do. There is a pond just out the back for bird watching, golfer watching, and gator watching! I’ve learned that if there is standing water anywhere in Florida, there is a gator. They are territorial, so its one gator per pond. At night, they go out gallivanting around to the other ponds to party & look for chicks. For this reason, the dogs must always be on leash, especially the small dogs I’m sitting for. I call them ‘gator snacks’.
Every single night there is live music at the village town centers, so I finally made my way out to one of them. Of course I drove the Harley cart. Have I mentioned that everyone drives them out there ? Its a beautiful spot, plenty of people on a Thursday night, plenty of alcohol flowing and plenty of fun food available!
I’m sure I could have stayed a month here and not even seen a fraction of the activities and events here. But it was a short week and I had other adventures to find…
Quick Note: I feel like I have to mention, before I got here, I watched the Netflix documentary “Some Kind of Heaven” . Its a sorta slice of life for some of the people who live here. There were some pretty “interesting” characters in there. I was a little concerned. Then my Dr told me it was the STD capital of the US. Then I was scared! I guess they were hiding out in another area, everyone I saw and met was very nice, and yeah, old. But I was still a little scared…
do you think shatner will want royalties?
Oh wait! I forgot… Shattner (Captain K) IS Royalty!!!