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Is there something wrong with sweating? I find it to be healthful as well as a way of cooling off during hot weather conditions. Some people talk as if a little sweat is going to kill them.
Certain parts of Florida it can be a lot more than "a little sweat".
Needing to change your clothing 3 times a day, due to clothing being sopping wet from sweat, isn't fun.
Being dripping wet from sweat after walking through the supermarket parking lot and loading your groceries isn't fun.
Walking to your mailbox and feeling sweat rolling all the way down your back feels weird.
Sliding on the leather seats of your vehicle due to being soaked with sweat is a real thing.
OP... I, too, am curious why The Villages is even in the mix for you; what is the attraction?
We have vacationed in Florida for 30 years. We have enjoyed the weather. The hot humid weather does not bother us. My DH likes the fact that there is everything close by (shopping, restaurants, bowling). Where we are looking in NC, things are a bit away.
The housing in the Villages is more affordable for us. And I like the fact that there is things to do that I could do close by without him if I wanted to.[/quote]
Just got an email from "realtor.com" saying that The Villages is now the fastest growing US Metro area. You might consider this a plus or a minus, but anyway submitted for your approval.
If I had to live in FL, I personally don't think I would pick The Villages, but I'm a fairly dedicated rural type of guy.
But it obviously "works" for quite a few people.
I'm rural/small town and absolutely sick of it at this point. Keep in mind I live in a city of around 50,000 now.
Case in point - I bought a Walmart+ subscription last year for the free grocery delivery service to the home last year. I had a couple deliveries that I got before buying the service last year that came fine, so thought, why not?
I've had more failed than the successful deliveries at this point. You'll order items the day before, select an afternoon delivery, and then just get a text or app notification that the order was "canceled due to delivery issues." This happened yesterday for the second time in a row.
Our regional grocer here is low end compared to Publix. Publix won't expand to my city due to "unfavorable demographics" - read, it's poor. We have a Kroger, but it's rundown, dirty, and stinks. There's an Aldi, but they're limited and about fifteen minutes away.
I like to smoke and grill meat. We don't have a butcher shop in a city of 50,000. I'm constantly buying meat in NC, putting it in the cooler, and bringing it back here because a lot of products I cook are unavailable here. I can rarely find bone-in center cut pork chops. The mainline regional grocer doesn't carry prime beef in this city.
I got a prescription for amoxicillin Tuesday for typical spring congestion. Two Walgreens in town didn't have any. What Walgreens runs out of amoxicillin? I found one at a CVS about twenty minutes away. I'm also on a weekly injectable that Walgreens only had one of, and it's now on "indefinite backorder."
My girlfriend wanted to look at some rural land Saturday in Flag Pond, TN. Most properties on the way were not maintained well. Tons of rundown homes with junk cars and trash in the yard, lawns that weren't mowed, just a general look of people not giving a damn. That's common here.
I'm sick of low end everything, rundown eyesore properties, etc. You're not going to find that in The Villages. There's definitely a market for that kind of experience. I don't like the politics, but I doubt the politics are as crazy as small town TN, and everything is well-maintained, available at your fingertips, etc.
I really do understand why active people move to The Villages in retirement. When you move to a new location, you have to make an effort to find clubs, organizations and activities that you can enjoy. That may also involve driving various distances.
In The Villages, it is all laid out for you to choose from. There are many other people in the same circumstance as you and hopefully accepting of a new member in such activities. If one choice doesn’t work out, there are plenty more to choose from. Everything is clean and manicured. That can be very appealing.
The downside to us is we find it “ages” us emotionally to be around older people all the time. Maybe it’s something you get used to but we enjoy having neighbors in different stages of life. Guess it comes down to personal preference.
I'm curious why the OP sees a binary choice between "somewhere" in NC, and The Villages, specifically, in FL? You have several other southeast states with a different market basket of plus and minus features, some important to you, some not.
And of course you have the rest of the country, there are 48 other states you are not considering.
OP mentioned having family in NC in the Raleigh area.
I really do understand why active people move to The Villages in retirement. When you move to a new location, you have to make an effort to find clubs, organizations and activities that you can enjoy. That may also involve driving various distances.
In The Villages, it is all laid out for you to choose from. There are many other people in the same circumstance as you and hopefully accepting of a new member in such activities. If one choice doesn’t work out, there are plenty more to choose from. Everything is clean and manicured. That can be very appealing.
The downside to us is we find it “ages” us emotionally to be around older people all the time. Maybe it’s something you get used to but we enjoy having neighbors in different stages of life. Guess it comes down to personal preference.
I like the idea of being around people who are my age and retired. In regular neighborhoods everything seems to be geared towards working families - any activity is in the evening or on the weekends with very little going on during the daytime. There are lots of tot lots, basketball courts, recreational kid sports, school centered volunteering, kids' swim teams, scouting but not much in the way of activities geared towards active retirees.
I've aged out of walking groups with young moms who push babies in strollers - especially if they jog! I'm too "young" for the senior center activities, plus it's too far away for me to go to on any regular basis. The cost of joining a golf club is prohibitive. Gym classes tend to be more advanced than I want. I love trails but these days it's not a good idea to hike them alone. Too many wackos in this world.
The Villages - nicely kept up, early to bed, early to rise, a nice variety of activities geared for active 55+. We will definitely do a lifestyle visit.
I'm rural/small town and absolutely sick of it at this point. Keep in mind I live in a city of around 50,000 now.
Case in point - I bought a Walmart+ subscription last year for the free grocery delivery service to the home last year. I had a couple deliveries that I got before buying the service last year that came fine, so thought, why not?
I've had more failed than the successful deliveries at this point. You'll order items the day before, select an afternoon delivery, and then just get a text or app notification that the order was "canceled due to delivery issues." This happened yesterday for the second time in a row.
Our regional grocer here is low end compared to Publix. Publix won't expand to my city due to "unfavorable demographics" - read, it's poor. We have a Kroger, but it's rundown, dirty, and stinks. There's an Aldi, but they're limited and about fifteen minutes away.
I like to smoke and grill meat. We don't have a butcher shop in a city of 50,000. I'm constantly buying meat in NC, putting it in the cooler, and bringing it back here because a lot of products I cook are unavailable here. I can rarely find bone-in center cut pork chops. The mainline regional grocer doesn't carry prime beef in this city.
I got a prescription for amoxicillin Tuesday for typical spring congestion. Two Walgreens in town didn't have any. What Walgreens runs out of amoxicillin? I found one at a CVS about twenty minutes away. I'm also on a weekly injectable that Walgreens only had one of, and it's now on "indefinite backorder."
My girlfriend wanted to look at some rural land Saturday in Flag Pond, TN. Most properties on the way were not maintained well. Tons of rundown homes with junk cars and trash in the yard, lawns that weren't mowed, just a general look of people not giving a damn. That's common here.
I'm sick of low end everything, rundown eyesore properties, etc. You're not going to find that in The Villages. There's definitely a market for that kind of experience. I don't like the politics, but I doubt the politics are as crazy as small town TN, and everything is well-maintained, available at your fingertips, etc.
I'm quite familiar with the online order picking system at Walmart. Those workers work HARD and there is a fair amount of turnover. If one person calls out or quits, home deliveries can't be made - especially to far flung addresses. This is one area of the store that sometimes needs to pull workers from other departments to help pick the orders and have them ready in time for customer pickup. So it does not surprise me that you have delivery issues.
I would suggest using the online ordering app and then picking it up at the store. The employees will do the shopping for you and bring it out to your car when you come to pick it up.
If the store is not convenient for you, maybe order monthly and buy in bulk and then freeze.
I think people are dramatically overstating the impact of the weather.
I live at around 2100' in the western NC mountains. I don't think we had more than an inch or two of snow this year. What we did have melted in a couple of days. The farther east you go in NC, the less you get. I saw an article where Raleigh had no measurable snowfall this winter.
It is usually "jeans and T-shirt weather" well into November, often December. Highs in the 50s/60s in January and February are not uncommon. By the time "stick season" starts getting old, things are greening up again.
We'll need to mow in a couple of weeks. I was in Chapel Hill on 3/8, and the grass was high enough to mow. I was near Charlotte Sunday - many trees were leafing out. It's spring now.
Summers, either in NC or FL, away from the mountains or coasts, are hot, humid, and unpleasant.
We’re at 2,650 ft. elevation in western NC and have had no snow in 2 years. The weather here is about as perfect as it gets. Winters have become relatively mild and summer temps almost never reach 90; typical summertime highs are in the upper 70s and sometimes low to middle 80s. Humidity is mild relative to what we were use to on the Gulf Coast.
The electric power companies in Central Florida have done a MUCH better job in the past 18 to 20 years of "hardening" their electrical distribution system. They've put a LOT of electric lines UNDERGROUND. They've also done a lot more clearing of trees that overhang electric lines, especially the main lines. Power outages today are rare and localized.
Back in 2004, we had 3 hurricanes hit Central Florida which was something that hadn't happened since they had started keeping records well over 100 years ago. Since then, we've had the occasional hurricane hit Central Florida.
In my particular area of Central Florida, since 2004, we've only had a loss of power a small handful of times for ANY reason, and the longest that I recall was about 2 hours.
If a person prepares for hurricane season with some extra provisions such as bottled water, food, flashlights, batteries, battery operated radio, etc, then there is no reason why hurricanes should be feared if you live in a well-constructed house that's not in a flood plain. And both of those qualifiers can be determined BEFORE you buy the house.
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I take you haven’t been through a Cat. 5 hurricane..
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