Meeting up with friends

We had contacted friends that we met at Virginia Landing a year ago October -- they have now moved into a home in Florida not too far from where we're staying, and they invited us to meet them for a meal halfway between where we are staying and their home.

We remembered to bring the selfie stick and got a good picture in front of the restaurant near Ocala with Sandy and Jim.

Visiting with friends is always fun! It was great to catch up with all the things God has done in our lives in the past year!

Bike riding at The Villages

After visiting the farmers' market on Saturday, we checked with one of the security folks that we saw onsite to determine if we would be allowed to ride our bikes on the golf cart trails, and he indicated that it would be fine! Since the bikes were in the back of the Jeep, we decided to go ahead and bike ride right then!

There are golf cart trails all over The Villages - there is really no reason to use a car for most daily activities - even going to the grocery store or doctor's office can be accomplished via a golf cart (link to google map bicycle layer view: https://www.google.com/maps/@28.8236329,-82.0101404,14z/data=!5m1!1e3)

We crossed over County Road 44...

... and then headed along Meggison Road.

When we were on the trolley tour on Friday, Mike had mentioned the "Water Lily Golf Cart Bridge" over Florida's turnpike, so we decided to try biking over it...

Approaching the Water Lily Bridge

Crossing the Water Lily Bridge

Tollway down below

Now on the west side of the turnpike, we decided to continue south and cross back over using Warm Springs Avenue that was indicated as "bike friendly".

Along the way, we came across Hogeye Pathway (https://www.thevillages.com/whatsnew/recreation/hogeye-preserve-path) -- which Mike had also told us about on the trolley ride.

We studied the information...

...it seemed that golf carts were not allowed, but walking and biking were, so we decided to ride through the preserve.

It was really beautiful -- some of these houses have really great views!

Very quiet and peaceful.

When we eventually got down to Warm Springs Avenue, we found that it was not particularly bike friendly, but we managed to use it to cross the toll road and then got back onto golf paths on the east side of the tollway.

As we got back up to the area where the Water Lily Golf Cart Bridge was located, we stopped to take a picture of one of the golf cart traffic circles. There are a lot of traffic circles within The Villages for cars - and a few for golf carts too!

We ended up biking a little over 10 miles - it was enjoyable, though the golf carts go pretty fast (we'd be going 15-16MPH and they would power past us).

There are musical groups performing at 3-4 different locations within The Villages every night. We decided to return on Friday night to see "Think Big Band"...

At the stop light to turn into the Brownwood area, a little further down County Road 44, you can see the golf cart bridge that we crossed at the beginning of our bike ride earlier in the day.

We were thinking that "Think Big Band" would possibly do big band music, but they did 60s and early 70s rock music. Some people were line dancing in the area in front of the band. We only stayed about 45 minutes -- the skies were threatening rain, so we headed home, encountering rain soon after we got back in the Jeep.

We are enjoying this area of Florida!

Farmers' Market at The Villages

We had seen that there was a Farmers' Market at Brownwood Center in The Villages on Saturdays, so Saturday morning, we headed back over to Brownwood to check out what they had.

It was a large market, lots of different vendors...

... located all the way around the the square.

One of the vendors was selling mushrooms...

... all different kinds of mushrooms...

... many were displayed on their growing medium...

... many different options.

The name of the mushroom vendor -- on their website the different varieties are identified: https://www.zephyrgills.com/our-varieties

We got avocados from this vendor -- they were *huge*!

One of the vegetable vendors

A vendor with raw goat milk products

Tower Garden by Juice Plus (https://www.towergarden.com/)

The farmers' market had lots of choices and the prices seemed reasonable to us!

Visiting The Villages!

We are staying in Wildwood, Florida, very close to The Villages, a 55+ community in central Florida. Carl had heard about The Villages several years ago, and had told me about it, so we decided that we should take the opportunity to visit while we are here. We contacted the community a couple of weeks ago and arranged to take a tour on Friday. The sales representative arranged to meet us in the Brownwood center -- it is quite a large community -- so she picked the sales office location that would be closest to where we are staying.

Entry into The Villages near Brownwood center.

Looking ahead of us on the highway, we could see one of the golf cart bridges over the road.

The Brownwood center has what we would call a "western" theme, but we understood that the designers were told to capture a look for central Florida in the 1930s (? we think they said 1930s) when this area was primarily involved in raising cattle.

An old typewriter and bison desk lamp in the sales office.

A view inside the sales office

Our salesperson had arranged for us to take a trolley ride to introduce us to a couple of sections in The Villages. Our driver, Dean, and narrator, Mike, were very informative!

The trolley on which we rode, letting us off back at the sales center.

One of the raised relief maps in the sales center with layouts of some of the neighborhoods where new home sales are currently active.

Some pictures around the square at Brownwood...

"Paddock Square"

There are 3 main squares spaced out through the Villages - each has shopping, dining locations, and a stage where nightly entertainment is provided. There is also a 4th smaller square with an entertainment venue in the newest area where most of the new building is currently taking place.

I'm not sure what we were thinking we would find at The Villages, but we were very impressed. The grounds are beautiful, and the amount of activities is massive. There are 100+ pools, 100+ recreation centers, 1400+ clubs. It is hard to imagine that you couldn't find *something* of interest here!

Unfortunately, there are no RV parks within the community; almost all of the housing is single-family homes, with a small number of apartments.

We're glad we had this opportunity to become acquainted with The Villages!

Finally to Florida!

On Wednesday, we finally entered Florida:

"Florida Welcomes You!"

We made our way to Three Flags RV Campground...

... one of the Thousand Trails properties near Wildwood, Florida.

Decorations at the entrance and the office where we checked in.

We got the last available 50A full hookup site that was available on Wednesday -- the campground is about half 50A and half 30A, all full hookups. We had resigned ourselves that we would end up with 30A and were contemplating cooking Christmas dinner with limited electric power, but now there are no concerns (on that account, anyway!). 

We are at Three Flags for two weeks, through Christmas.

Another stop in Georgia and a Cousin visit!

On Tuesday, we continued southward in Georgia, stopping at, I think, the most southeasternly town in Georgia, St Marys.

We stayed overnight in the parking lot of the Wheeler Street Church of God, a participant in the Harvest Hosts program, allowing RVers to park overnight in their lot in return for a contribution. Pastor Griffin greeted and welcomed us - it was a nice quiet location for the night! (http://www.wheelerstreetcog.org/)

We had arranged to get together with cousins Marty and Irene - we had such a nice visit, catching up on our lives since we last saw them in 2020. Irene made a delicious dinner of lasagna, Greek salad, garlic bread, and pumpkin pie with ice cream! Yum!

One of the things we enjoy most about our traveling life is the ability to see friends and family along the way!

Jekyll Island Self-Guided Lights Tour

On Monday, we stayed on Jekyll Island until after sunset to be able to view the Christmas lights. We had seen many of the decorations on the trees and along the roads during the daytime, so wanted to view them lit up in the evening...

Since we were coming up from the southern end of the island, we joined the "Holly Jolly Jekyll" (https://www.jekyllisland.com/signature-events/holly-jolly-jekyll/) route about midway through the "Entry Trees"...

... heading toward the roundabout.

The "Roundabout Tree"

Beach Village Lights

Some of the Oceanfrout Light Displays

More of the Oceanfront displays

Along Shell Road (we adopted this one as an image of Carl and me!).

Then started the 12 Days of Christmas - The partridge in the pear tree in the foreground, two turtledoves on the left, and 3 french hens near the center further down the road...

... five gold rings followed by 6 geese a-laying,

... some of the maids a-milking...

... and finishing up with the drummers drumming!

An huge assortment of designs hanging from trees over the streets...

... and displayed on the green.

The large live oaks not only had their trunks and branches encircled with lights, but they also had lit-up icicles along the branches!

"The Great Tree" (the website says that there are 45,000+ lights on the Great Tree)

The Jekyll Island Club Resort

Another view of lit up live oak trees...

... and ornaments hanging from the trees over the roads.

It was quite a display! (The lady at the visitor center characterized it as "over the top".) The website indicates that there are over 1,000,000 total light bulbs. We figure that there must be someone on staff who crafts all the individually designed ornaments and decorations -- and they must have a lot of space dedicated to storing it all during the off-season!

We enjoyed our visit to Jekyll Island!