Late yesterday afternoon, Karen and Rich headed to her mom’s home, a 15-minute drive from here. I have known Donna for many years as Karen’s loving mom, and we plan to visit her in the next few weeks. On Tuesday, we’re taking Karen and Rich to the Orlando Airport as they take off for Karen’ts son Jack’s wedding in Minnesota.

They offered to leave their car with us during the two weeks they are away rather than leave the car in the parking lot at the airport. This works well for us. On Tuesday afternoon, they’ll return and pick us up while we drop them off at the airport, an hour’s drive from here. When they return at the end of the month, we’ll pick them up, and they’ll drop us back at our house. Geographically, this all works out well.

We plan to see Karen and Rich during our remaining time in Florida. They’ve offered to pick us up on another date to spend a few night’s at their fabulous new home in Bradenton, another two-hour drive. Otherwise, they may return and spend a few more days with us here, whichever works well logistically with everyone’s schedule.

The longer we are in The Villages, the more research we do to determine what appeals to us the most. We’ve gone through the list of daily activities, and many don’t appeal to us. We don’t play tennis or pickleball, and although that sounds fun, my weak legs prevent either of these sports from being possible.

Many of the activities are those that are commonly found on cruise ships. If you like to see what’s available today, click here for the long list of activities. After sharing this list with Tom, he didn’t seem interested in any of the activities, and we accepted the reality that such activities don’t necessarily appeal to us after all.

Sure, we’d like to meet new people and hope to do so when we attend events in the various town squares and dine out each week. But we have a massive list of people here that would like to get together, which alone could keep us busy the entire time we are here.

Let’s face it; our interests have changed over the years of world travel. Also, we spend half of each day working on our posts, future travel plans, and communication with family, friends, and readers. After our walk in the morning, cooking and eating breakfast, doing household chores, and prepping dinner, the day flies by. We enjoy all these activities at the house and never feel bored or lonely. By late afternoon, we feel prepared to socialize, alone or with others.

Many would say, “Get out! Try something new! Don’t be stuck in the mud!”

But our lives consist of always “trying something new,” and we never feel “stuck in the mud.” If it weren’t for this blog, no one would know what we do and don’t do. And we decided long ago that we can’t live our lives for the blog. The blog represents our chosen life and activities, not driven by it. That would be impossible with a new post uploaded daily. It would be too much pressure.

Our lives are about low stress, as much as possible, and choosing to do what appeals to us the most. Before we went into lockdown in India in 2020, we had embarked on about 20 safaris at three national parks. We never hesitated to do this. We never hesitated to interact with the people or the animals while in Africa. We rarely turn down an opportunity for social interaction.

We never hesitated to embark on 10-person rubber Zodiac boats to explore icebergs and wildlife in Antarctica. We never hesitated to explore the souks in Marrakesh, Morocco, walk the hilly roads in Boveglio, Italy, or even attend a party where no one spoke English. We never hesitated to stand in the pouring rain, soaked to the gills for over an hour, to see the Gardens of Versailles in France.

We never hesitated to live on farms, learn about farm life, and spend time with farm animals and farmers. We never hesitated to embark on almost 30 cruises in the past ten years to see more of the world than any flights could ever offer us and so much more, the content of which is documented in over 3900 posts.

We’ve continued on when many others may have quit. Since that, too, was precisely what we wanted to do. And that will be the same for us while in The Villages. We are relishing the comfort and amenities of living in this lovely house and will enjoy many social events we plan for our time here. We are having dinner guests on Wednesday, people we’ve never met, and friends Carol and Mark are coming next Saturday for three nights.

Doing precisely what we like to do…

Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, May 13, 2013:

Due to our 10-hour expeditions to Petra, Jordan, we couldn’t prepare a post on this date. Stop back tomorrow for the fantastic photos.