Just before leaving our February home in Williston, FL, we drove south an hour to the fastest growing central Florida town. I have many mixed feelings about the Villages in Florida, but meeting good friends is always a great day!
The Villages
The Villages are a master planned 55 and over retirement community located about 20 miles south of Ocala. With a population over 128,000 it was the fastest growing city in the US for several years. LINK
Plenty of golf cart parking convenient to shops.
They have all the planned recreation, shopping and dining, and entertainment that you would ever want. All of this is focused around 3-4 large town squares that have a Disneyesque appearance. And everything is connected by cart paths. No need to fire up the car.
Sue and Pat 
This is one of the 3-4 town square districts.
From Wikipedia: In 2018, the median age for both sexes in The Villages metropolitan statistical area is 67.4, with this being 29 years older than a typical American, and five years older than the median age of residents in the next-oldest county in the United States, which is on the Hawaiian island of Molokai.
It most definitely is a retirement community! It has an extremely low crime rate and the largest percentage of veterans anywhere except on military bases.
Calvin, Sue, Pat, and Randy (me) 
The outside dining was very busy. All tables full. 
Some customized gold carts! 
Sailors adrift 
Pat and I talked about potentially owning a place here for the winter six months. It could be a possibility for sure. I like all of the daily activities, the hundreds of local restaurants, and the golf cart commuting to everything.
The only real downside that I observed was the auto traffic in and back out. It is quite congested with limited roads and a high population. The good news is that all golf cart traffic is an entirely separate road with a barrier in between. And there were carts zooming all over the place. There must be daily cart wrecks but we did not see any.
From a quick search, the new home prices are from $200k and up to $800k. LINK Something for every price range. My thoughts are most folks move here as their full time residence. But I did hear that winter crowds are much worse around the activities. So, that would indicate a number of snowbirds.
Friends Meet Up
Before we begin the migration to Up North, we scheduled one more lunch meeting with our good RV friends Calvin and Suzanne. Our only mistake was selecting a Saturday as the Lake Weir Tiki Bar was very busy having an hour and a half wait time.
Not wanting to wait that long we all headed just down the road to the Villages where there is any kind of dining imaginable! We strolled around for a bit checking some menus and looking for an outside dining that was not smoking. We finally settled on an inside place that was not crowded at all.
In the past few years, we would plan to cross paths somewhere with this couple who travels with the miniature pups. We have met them in Williamsburg, VA, Pennsylvania, Boston Massachusetts, Washington DC, Colorado, Virginia, and Florida. Always some fun times as we have many things in common.
Now that we are only part time RV travelers, our Florida and Virginia meetings are our annual opportunities. So long friends until the next time!
Wrap Up
In the next few updates, I would show you a new hobby and skill that I picked up at the Williston wood shop, a quick review of the Williston Crossing RV Resort, and our relocation to Cedar Key, FL. Thanks for following along, take care, and God Bless.