[VillagesFlorida]

Toured south and central Florida in 1997. Drove by the Spanish-looking buildings on 441, turned around and came in to the sales office for the 45-minute trolley tour. Spanish Springs was still under construction and the tour was mostly on the historic side. Decided that The Villages, even as small as it was back then, was far nicer than other retirement communities. We told ourselves we would come look in earnest when we got ready to retire. A year later in March of 1998 we came back again, this time with appointments to see 7 or 8 other communities in the Ocala/Leesburg area. Nothing compared to what was here. Long story short we decided to sell our home and move to The Villages, years ahead of when we had planned to retire. It all looked like a lot of fun, almost too good to be true. Here we are, over 16 years later, just as much in awe of this place as we were when we bought our home here, when there were 16,000 folks who called The Villages home. We found it "accidentally" but watching this place develop and grow turned out to be the most fun of all. I wouldn't have missed it for anything.