Lady Lake FL 11/03-11/06 2019

We continued our journey up the Gulf Coast of Florida and made our next stop in Lady Lake.  We planned this stop in order to see our Air Force friends, Gary and Cathy.  We picked the RV Park because it was close to their place and it turned out to be a real gem.  Grand Oaks Resort is really a 400 acre horse property, but they have added an RV Park that is truly everything we want.  Large, level spaces with full hookup, lots of grass, satellite friendly, and a huge dog park right across the lane from our site!  

Pablo's birthday was the day before we got here.  We were still down in Fort Myers, but I didn't blog about that place.  It was kind of a catch up and rest sort of stop.  We didn't really do anything interesting - just laundry and then a bit of relaxing.  Anyway, Pablo turned 7 years old!  We had a little party for him and both he and Priscilla got presents - liver flavored chews.  

We had a wonderful visit with Gary and Cathy.  Gary and I did not work together in the Air Force but we were both Chi-Lings at different times and places.  We know a lot of the same people and started talking on-line on one of our Air Force groups.  We discovered another common interest in Motor Coaches as we had similar rigs.  After much correspondence we finally met several years ago while he and Cathy still lived in California.  We have kept in touch and visit each other any time our paths cross.     

We had not seen them for more than 4 years when they were in Hot Springs Village Arkansas.  They have a beautiful home here and have adapted well to the retired lifestyle in Florida.  Their place is right next to an area called "The Villages", which is an enormous retirement community.  There are over 130,000 residents now and they are adding another village that will increase that by another 60,000.  It is a very unique place where you can go anywhere on a golf cart!  The grocery store, restaurants, even the hospital.  They have 3 large town squares and each one has a stage in the middle where they have live music 7 nights a week.  Around the squares are stores, restaurants and theaters.  

One of the town squares where there is music and dancing.

Next to the square where some of the golf carts are parked.  They are everywhere!

Gary and Cathy gave us a great tour of the area but we only really saw a small fraction of it in the 2 days we were there.  Tuesday was my birthday so they took us out to dinner at one of the 4 country clubs on the property and the special of the night was prime rib. That's what I had and Linda had some really good whitefish.  After that we visited one of the town squares and listened to the band and watched people dance.  No, we didn't dance as Linda tweaked her back and I had a sore knee!  We are falling apart!  Couldn't even keep up with all the dancing geezers!  Ha!  

I decided at the last minute that I really did want my traditional apple pie for my birthday.  Should have planned ahead.  Anyway, after our wonderful dinner and visiting the square, Gary and Cathy took us to 2 separate Winn-Dixie's looking for an apple pie!  We finally settled on some apple strudels and called it a night.  It was a short visit but a lot of fun visiting and catching up on everything.  Time always goes so fast with good friends and before we knew it we had to head off to continue our sojourn west.  I apologize again, as I, once again, forgot to get any pictures of people!  Argh!  I really need to get better at that!