March 10, 2013

02/24/2013

We only have a few days left here at Anastasia State Park and then we'll be hooking up the rig and heading up to NAS Jacksonville where we'll spend a couple of weeks.  Of those we'll be on a cruise out of San Juan, PR.

Yesterday we drove over to The Villages to visit our friends Tony and Brenda Falduto.  Brenda and Tony have a crafts business and were at The Villages for a show.  After taking a wrong turn (wrong address in the GPS) we finally made it to the Lake Sumter Landing village and found their booth.

If you have never been to The Villages, you have really missed something.  The retirement community is huge, spanning 45 square miles and presently having over 92,000 residents.  According to one of the sales folks we talked to, they are selling about 250 homes a month and that doesn't include preowned houses.

The primary mode of transportation in The Villages is buy golf cart.  The planning commission of the community have included cart only roads, turn lanes and even tunnels that go under major thoroughfares.  Some folks have really gone all-out in the customization of their carts:

If you get bored at The Villages, it's your fault.  There are 468 holes of golf (nine executive and 11 championship courses), free music in the town squares each night, dancing, night clubs, movie theaters and over 1900 activities each week.  They even have their own newspaper that is delivered to your home every morning that has a section listing everything going on so you can plan your day.

Living in The Villages isn't for everyone that's for sure.  Along with living in this community comes rules, and a lot of them.  Most are just common sense things like only using certain colors for painting and such.

All of this comes at a price of course.  However, Joyce and I were very surprised at how affordable living there is compared to a lot of places we have seen throughout the country.

I could go on and on about this place but suffice it to say, The Villages is an amazing place.

02/24/2013

Yesterday we went to see the movie Zero Dark Thirty.  The film is very long and slow to get started but it did get progressively more intense, the last twenty minutes being very powerful.

03/01/2013

Yesterday we hooked up the rig and headed up to NAS Jacksonville where we're staying until March 18th.

The above sentence sounds simple enough but our day was anything but that.  In fact, the day was pretty much one hassle after another.  First, when getting ready to hookup the trailer, the leveling jacks and stabilizers would not operate.  Finally got that fixed.

We then drove over to a tire shop to have our trailer tires rotated.  When told where to park our Swivel Wheel had a minor altercation with a recently painted Corvette.  Got that taken care of, the tires rotated and then headed up I-95.

Got to the Famcamp here at NAS Jacksonville, backed into our site, leveled and all setup.  Then I got a call from the office telling us we had to move because the folks that were in the site had power problems the night before and the maintenance guys wouldn't work on the problem if someone was there.

To add insult to injury, our brand new, super-duper, do everything GPS started locking up.  After calling tech support we hopefully have that fixed.

So, to help make it all better, Joyce got a lobster and crab at the Commissary.  Then she got me a six'er of Shiner Bock to wash it all down.

We're going down to Orlando today and then getting on a flight to San Juan tomorrow.

03/10/2013

We got back to NAS Jacksonville yesterday after our seven-day cruise.  And what a cruise it was!

After spending the night at the Embasy Suites Hotel in Orlando we then flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico where we boarded the Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas.

Our first stop was a St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Island.  Here we rode a gondola to the top of Paradise Point Hill where we had spectacular views of Charlotte Amalie and the harbor.  We then walked about a mile ad half to the town, had a some chips and salsa and then walked back to the ship.

St. Thomas

 There were some beautiful yachts parked docked in St. Thomas

At the next stops at St. Lucia and Guadeloupe we didn't even get off the ship.  Sometimes it is really nice to have the ship almost to yourself.

St. Lucia

Guadalupe

I thought this was a really cool looking building.

Our next port-of-call was Antigua where we took a short tour of St. Johns and then drove across the island to English Harbor.  Here we were treated to a glass of the local very strong rum punch.

Antigua

The home on top of the point is owned by Eric Clapton.

 English Harbor

 I told James to leave this big one at home!

Our last stop was at St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.  Here we just got off and walked around the port for a short time.

St. Croix

This looked like a lot of fun!

All-in-all it was a good cruise.  Brilliance is is one of RC's older ships and is scheduled to go into dry-dock in April.  It needs it.

Until next time!

Barry & Joyce