When you are retired there usually arrives a point where you are tired of doing chores. The house and the yard look pretty decent or if you live in an apartment, it can look very small. The Blonde in the house and I determined that we were in that type of situation. Since we receive a daily email that provides us with all sorts of places in Florida to visit, we had a source to immediately search for an interesting day trip. Some of them are a little far for day trips like visiting the Keys. We are well aware of the latter as for one year or so we lived in southern Miami. We got in the car one day with the kids and determined that it would be good to take a trip to Key West. It didn’t look far on the map, but heavens to Betsy, did it take a long time to get there. So, this time we decided to plan more carefully.
We perused information and I found a woods and garden spot near Williston. That seemed reasonable, and we asked some friends if they would like to go. They said that would be great, and we made plans to go on a coming Wednesday. Well, on the Tuesday before the coming Wednesday. The Blonde decided to read more about the woods and lake place. It seemed that the property had once been an old quarry where some good people had turned into its present attractive visage. However, there did seem to be some rather rough places to walk which could possibly cause some problems for us older folks – especially me.
I then decided to read some more about it myself. I found one more pertinent fact. That was that the woods and garden facility was closed on one day of the week. It turned out that day is Wednesday. Obviously, the whole concept was dead for the day in question. I speedily looked to see if there was something else, we could do quickly. It so happens, as it does with many people, that we all love pizza. This was pertinent as I came across a love comment on a pizza place where they had a wood fired oven that cooked the pizza at 900 degrees. It appeared to me that 900 degrees would be a fair temperature to cook a pizza. Our friends agreed!
The place was not very close as it was in Wesley Chapel, but hey, we are retired. Thus, on the Wednesday morning in question we headed down picturesque I-75 and eventually arrived at the anointed pizza establishment. We did find that the pizzas do cook rapidly at 900 degrees. What happens after that was open for debate. I like a thick crust pizza and theirs was thin. The other three were fine with thin, so I was outvoted in any case. I like a zesty sauce, and this pizza in my opinion was not to be considered zesty. The other three were noncommittal on that. However, the bottom line was that the pizza was edible and we had come a long way to get it. As a result, the pizza disappeared under the usual circumstances. We arrived back at The Villages around 2:45, and I suggested that we meet again at 6:00 pm and head out to The Blonde’s favorite ice cream place – which is on 441/27 just passed Sunset Harbor Rd. I like the place myself as it is one of the few places in the world where you can still get a root beer milk shake (not a root beer float, but a milkshake). Actually, I do know of another place, but it is in Alabama just west of Pensacola. It is definitely not a day trip to get there.
There is nothing like a good root beer milkshake to make a day!
Columnist Barry Evans writes about “Life in The Villages” for Villages-News.com.
