Our countdown is on

[Garywt]

Here we sit Thursday night with only days to go until our Florida trip starts. We plan to leave Monday about 6AM and with any luck we will be in our house between midnight and 2AM. If we need to stop then noon at the latest. It has been since April that we have been down. My wife has been studying the golf courses as she wants to play once or twice and we have never played in Florida. We will be there for close to 2 weeks this time around so it should be fun. Looking forward to lots of golf cart miles. Lots of catching up for us.

[tophcfa]

Safe travels and have a great time during your stay. I get your excitement, I get the same way every time we can get to our Villages home. Not feeling comfortable flying during the pandemic has made the time between trips to Florida way too long for my liking.

[Nucky]

Safe travels and have a great time during your stay. I get your excitement, I get the same way every time we can get to our Villages home. Not feeling comfortable flying during the pandemic has made the time between trips to Florida way too long for my liking.

Gotta hook up that little camper and mosey on down.

I tried to purchase a Class C this past summer to go north with no luck.

I really want a Prevost but that's not looking too good as of now. :1rotfl:

An Integra Odessey would be ideal. We'll see.

I get that same excited feeling after about a week in N.J. I just want to come home to The Villages. :)

[dewilson58]

:MOJE_whot::MOJE_whot::MOJE_whot:

[Laker14]

Happy Travels!!
We are closing up the lake house today, and catching a flight down to Sanford tonight. Should be home around 1AM Saturday.
The weather up here has been spectacular for most of September and the first two weeks of October, so saying goodbye to the lake is harder than I thought it would be, but each day gets shorter, and I know soon the weather up here will start spitting cold hard icy bits.
Time to change gears and lifestyles for about 6 or 7 months.

[DAVES]

Gotta hook up that little camper and mosey on down.

I tried to purchase a Class C this past summer to go north with no luck.

I really want a Prevost but that's not looking too good as of now. :1rotfl:

An Integra Odessey would be ideal. We'll see.

I get that same excited feeling after about a week in N.J. I just want to come home to The Villages. :)

Re: motor home
I would expect there is a season to buy. Example, I bought several small used boats.
New York, area. Best time to buy was in the fall when people were looking to get rid of them.

[Garywt]

Happy Travels!!
We are closing up the lake house today, and catching a flight down to Sanford tonight. Should be home around 1AM Saturday.
The weather up here has been spectacular for most of September and the first two weeks of October, so saying goodbye to the lake is harder than I thought it would be, but each day gets shorter, and I know soon the weather up here will start spitting cold hard icy bits.
Time to change gears and lifestyles for about 6 or 7 months.

It has been beautiful in New England. Our camp closed on Columbus Day and we ended our boating season on the lake at the same time. Now it is Florida season for us.

[tophcfa]

Gotta hook up that little camper and mosey on down.

I tried to purchase a Class C this past summer to go north with no luck.

I really want a Prevost but that's not looking too good as of now. :1rotfl:

An Integra Odessey would be ideal. We'll see.

I get that same excited feeling after about a week in N.J. I just want to come home to The Villages. :)

Last year we did the 2,750 mile round trip drive four times and we have made the trip 3 times this year. Starting to get burned out from the drive. We have concluded it is not worth the drive without a minimum stay of at least a month and a half. Fortunately, my better half is finally retiring at the end of the year, so much longer trips are in our future. We can’t wait for New Years so we can finally enjoy an entire winter away from the cold, snow and ice. My aging back is also happy, I only had to split and stack 2 cords of wood for this years heating season instead of the usual 5 cords, so I got that going for me. The little camper is stored until next summer, but it got some good use this year. As much as I would like to tow it down this winter, so we don’t have to do the hotel thing, it takes up too much space in our garage and deed restrictions prevent me from leaving it in the driveway.

[PugMom]

It has been beautiful in New England. Our camp closed on Columbus Day and we ended our boating season on the lake at the same time. Now it is Florida season for us.

how exciting for you! hopefully you got to see some new england leaves change before you left

[Garywt]

We just found out my wife needs surgery on her wrist so she wants me to see how we can extend our week in December to multiple weeks. The 2 things in the way are her follow up to surgery and my chemo but if we get them on the same day it just might work out.

[vintageogauge]

Re: motor home
I would expect there is a season to buy. Example, I bought several small used boats.
New York, area. Best time to buy was in the fall when people were looking to get rid of them.

There is a shortage of them just like everything else. I bought a new class C from LaMesa in 2018, sold it outright to Lazy Days on 44 for exactly what I paid for it except for the sales tax over 2 years later. I dropped it off on a Sunday and gave them the keys, went over to pick up my check and give them the title on Monday and the girl said it was already sold just the way I dropped it off. I doubt that will ever happen again.

[CoachKandSportsguy]

i bought the F250 to pull whatever we buy, large, small, truck is comfortable as we are driving down the first week in December. Trailers are cheap, but we are staying only two weeks, checking in on the rental and taking vacation days as well, so not renting one.. The diesel gets 19+ mpg with a 32 gallon tank, can get 600 mi per tank, so we stop to fillup only twice, usually at lunch the first day and then lunch the second day. .

1,250 miles from Worcester, door to door, but we have only driven straight through once, during the height of the pandemic, with no cars on the road. We try to leave by 4 AM, to get through NY by 8 AM to avoid the commuter hour, and that gets us to Richmond VA by 1 PM for lunch. We can make SC by sunset for a shorter drive on the second day. But the back is grouchy after the second day, and same for the way home. With big holiday weekends, Memorial Day, fourth of July, etc, we take longer but less traffic routes, through Delaware, or the western route. . . The western route adds 1-2 hours, due to smaller lane counts and slightly longer distance.

Drive safely, always leave 4 car lengths which people hate, but you still are driving the same speed, so the difference in arrival time is about several seconds. .:shrug:

sportsguy

[tophcfa]

i bought the F250 to pull whatever we buy, large, small, truck is comfortable as we are driving down the first week in December. Trailers are cheap, but we are staying only two weeks, checking in on the rental and taking vacation days as well, so not renting one.. The diesel gets 19+ mpg with a 32 gallon tank, can get 600 mi per tank, so we stop to fillup only twice, usually at lunch the first day and then lunch the second day. .

1,250 miles from Worcester, door to door, but we have only driven straight through once, during the height of the pandemic, with no cars on the road. We try to leave by 4 AM, to get through NY by 8 AM to avoid the commuter hour, and that gets us to Richmond VA by 1 PM for lunch. We can make SC by sunset for a shorter drive on the second day. But the back is grouchy after the second day, and same for the way home. With big holiday weekends, Memorial Day, fourth of July, etc, we take longer but less traffic routes, through Delaware, or the western route. . . The western route adds 1-2 hours, due to smaller lane counts and slightly longer distance.

Drive safely, always leave 4 car lengths which people hate, but you still are driving the same speed, so the difference in arrival time is about several seconds. .:shrug:

sportsguy

Our drive is a little shorter than yours since we depart from the western part of the state, but we hate busy high traffic areas so we always do one of two western routes, going no where near NYC, NJ, Delaware, Baltimore or Washington DC. Mass pipe to the Taconic south to 84 west to 81 south. From 81 we either take rt. 66 (about 12 miles south of Winchester, VA) to 17 and hit 95 in Fredericksburg, VA, or alternatively we take 81 all the way to rt. 77 south going toward/through Charlotte to rt. 26 east and hit 95 in South Carolina only about an hour from the Georgia boarder. Either way is about the same distance and adds over a hundred miles to the most direct route, but the drive is much more predictable and stress free. Since it is two long days of driving regardless of the route we take, we don’t risk venturing near major metropolitan areas.

[LizzieBorden]

Congratulations, and “welcome home”. I know the feeling and after 16 years of owning, and 12 years of retirement and living here, I get it. Each time I have been away ( 4 months each summer) and I return home, I drive through the gate…its the same feeling all over again. In these years, I have seen many changes in the Villages, some I like, some I dont, BUT, for us, we still love it here, love our home on a quiet street that faces the farm fields, and allows us to hop in that golf cart everyday and continue to enjoy our retirement. We still do the drive, we spend three days on the road and break up the 20 hour trip. We enjoy seeing different parts of the sea shore on our way north taking up to 3 weeks to get home, but what the heck, we arent in a hurry and some days we only travel 2 hours to our next hotel…LOL. We plan it all out, 6 months in advance and enjoy seeing all that we see. Enjoy your new home….where did you buy? So much fun and if you need anything, ask around as we all were “newbies” at some point. Enjoy.

[DaleDivine]

There is a shortage of them just like everything else. I bought a new class C from LaMesa in 2018, sold it outright to Lazy Days on 44 for exactly what I paid for it except for the sales tax over 2 years later. I dropped it off on a Sunday and gave them the keys, went over to pick up my check and give them the title on Monday and the girl said it was already sold just the way I dropped it off. I doubt that will ever happen again.

I saw a lot full of them just off I-75 on the way to Ocala Monday.
Same as the lot on 441 near Market of Marion...
:popcorn::popcorn:

[DaleDivine]

We just found out my wife needs surgery on her wrist so she wants me to see how we can extend our week in December to multiple weeks. The 2 things in the way are her follow up to surgery and my chemo but if we get them on the same day it just might work out.

Wellllll, there goes the golf game.:ohdear: Hope all goes well with the surgery.
Have a safe trip...
:pray:

[Don5154]

Here we sit Thursday night with only days to go until our Florida trip starts. We plan to leave Monday about 6AM and with any luck we will be in our house between midnight and 2AM. If we need to stop then noon at the latest. It has been since April that we have been down. My wife has been studying the golf courses as she wants to play once or twice and we have never played in Florida. We will be there for close to 2 weeks this time around so it should be fun. Looking forward to lots of golf cart miles. Lots of catching up for us.


REALLY :bigbow: