Day at The Villages

Greeter in front of R.J. Gator's

Today we slept late, then drove north for our 1PM appointment for a tour of The Villages. This is very large 55+ community a half hour south of Ocala and about an hour and a half north of Disney World.  We expected large, but this place is amazing.  There are about 42,000 homes in this development, divided among over 40 neighborhoods, each with it's own recreation center.  There are 2 town square areas for shopping and restaurants and they are building a 3rd.  Weaving in and around the neighborhoods are numerous golf courses, ponds and lakes.
We were planning to stop for lunch before meeting the salesman, Norm, but we ran into construction traffic and arrived too late.  However, it all worked out.  The couple who were supposed to meet with Norm at noon must have been late because they seemed to be just getting started.  Norm asked if we would like to take a walk around the square or get a bite to eat and meet him a little later, an offer we gladly accepted.  We had a great lunch at R.J. Gator's restaurant on the lake, just off the square, and then came back to start the tour.
It's a good thing we had lunch because we spent the next 5 hours with Norm, seeing the shopping areas, recreation centers, pools, neighborhoods, and various model homes.  After all of that we sat down with Norm and priced out what our ideal house would cost.  We saw some really nice houses in our price range, but it is way too soon for us to make any decisions.  We came out with lots of papers to look through and even more to think about.