My dad had said more than once when I was a teenager (I grew up in New York and later in Maryland) that Florida has warm weather and much cheaper than California. Then one winter day in freezing Michigan, I went to college in Michigan, I was talking to my uncle in Florida and he said it was in the 70’s and sunny. On winter breaks while I was going to school I went to Florida for a week to escape the cold.
When I graduated college I decided I was going to move down to southeast Florida, and I’m still stunned I did it. It was immediately great! Like vacation every day.
Fast forward nine years my husband and I moved to North Carolina and two years later back to Florida and then five years later to Tennessee. While living in Tennessee we were driving to Florida for a race in Sebring, FL, and we stopped in The Villages, FL to eat. I had no idea I was in The Villages, all I knew was there was live music and dancing in the town squares where the restaurant was. Later I learned I was in The Villages. We made a stop one more time a couple of years later to eat at the same restaurant.
Several years later we moved from Tennessee to the Tampa Bay part of Florida. A few years later my husband was laid off. Eventually, we looked for businesses to buy, and one that came up was in The Villages, and we bought it, and here we are. We’ve sold the business, but I’m still here. Vacation every day.