We’ve had a great time seeing so many friends since we arrived in The Villages seven weeks ago. With only a little over five weeks to go until we leave, we hope to see more friends and, if possible, make new friends while we’re here. We anticipated it would be easy to meet people when we go out to dinner on our own, but we’ve found it’s not as easy as you’d think.
Using Jabula Lodge and Restaurant as a reference for meeting people hasn’t served us well. There, it’s so easy to approach and be approached by other guests at bars and restaurants to engage in lively conversation. The commonality of loving nature and wildlife is an easy segue to initiate conversation and lively banter.
But, here, many locals are part of well-established groups and don’t seem to initiate or respond to communication from strangers like us. This was the same when we lived in the US almost 12 years ago. We could go out for years and never meet new people.
If we ask a question in an attempt to initiate a conversation, the response is usually a one-sentence answer, and the respondent goes back to what they were doing or otherwise private conversation.
We still have many people we could contact to get together, but time is going by so quickly we may not get to everyone. Plus, we are enjoying free time for just the two of us with the easy pace of daily life. In the last two weeks, before we leave on July 28, we’ll be busy sorting and packing since we’re sending a suitcase to Minnesota to lighten our load for upcoming domestic flights we’ll be on in the next few months.
Once the two cruises are over, with the final cruise disembarking in Boston, we’ll see my cousin Phyllis for dinner one night, and then we’ll fly to Nevada and Minnesota. Tom is checking costs for baggage right now as I write this to determine if shipping the bag makes financial sense.
As it turns out, the excess baggage fee for multiple flights is $374. If we ship one bag to our upcoming hotel in Minnesota by a company called “Luggage Free,” we can save $186.
We brought one extra bag to accommodate the almost one year we’ll spend in South America, including warm weather clothes and safari clothes we’ll need for our various wildlife adventures.
Also, we needed to bring warm clothes for our time in Norway, Greenland, Iceland, and Canada, where it will be cold even in the summer months. Then, when we get to Nevada, it will be sweltering in the summer months, as high as 110F, 43C. Most of the time, we’ll be indoors at the Green Valley Ranch Spa and Casino in air-conditioned comfort, but we’ll be heading out to dinner with son Richard, and to the DMV to renew our driver’s license.
Fortunately, we could now book appointments for our driver’s license renewals. Several years ago, we couldn’t do that, and we had to get in a long queue outdoors for over an hour. This time, with an appointment, we should be able to enter the building upon arrival.
Tonight, we’re staying in for dinner and a quiet evening of streaming our new fantastic binge-worthy drama series on Apple TV, The Morning Show. If you haven’t seen this series, I assure you, it’s well worth watching.
Have a great day, and be well.
Photo from ten years ago today, June 20, 2013:
I miss you already! 😢. We talked all the way home about how much we enjoyed our visit! Until next time my friend! 😘
Lea Ann, we miss you too! We had a wonderful time with the two of you! Can’t wait to see you again somewhere out there in the world!
Much love,
Jess & Tom