Land O’Lakes is near the cities of Tampa, Clearwater, and St. Petersburg. We primarily stayed here to get our annual Freightliner service in Tampa. It was a short one hour drive from Tarpon Springs to Land O’Lakes.
Lady Lake, Florida
Lady Lake is near Ocala, Florida. It’s called the “Horse Capital of the World”. There are more horses in Ocala county than anywhere else in the USA.
Grand Oaks Resort
We stayed at the Grand Oaks Resort. They are known for their equestrian activities. In addition, they had a bistro, golf academy and spa. We had full service, great satellite and good internet.
The bistro’s food was good and the restaurant was filled with mementos from their museum. Unfortunately, their museum closed after the majority of its carriage collection were sold.
The property is huge. Daily we took long walks and enjoyed watching all the horse activities.
There were an insane number of animals, carriages, horse trailers, trucks, and even a helicopter.
Our coach faced the competition arenas providing nice views and things for Jake to watch.
Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing
When we were kids in Racine, Wisconsin, Mark and Barry Mano had a garage and built a drag racer. We would hang out and watch them create these amazing machines. Even though the Manos brothers never made it big in racing, “Big Daddy” Don Garlits did.
The museum had about 90 racing cars and a second museum with about 50 classic cars. Top Fuel dragsters are the quickest accelerating vehicles capable of reaching speeds of over 300 mph in just 1000 feet in 3.64 seconds. It’s amazing that their engines generate greater than 7,000 horse power.
The Villages
It’s a master planned age restricted community just northeast of Land O’Lakes, Florida. The Villages is one of the fastest growing communities in the USA. It’s also been rated in the top 25 Best Places to Retire. If only we loved heat and humidity.
It seemed as if there were as many golf carts as cars. There were miles of roads for golf carts only.
The town squares are filled with restaurants and bars with specials all day long and live music. Most were packed with seniors. Some describe the Villages as “Disneyland for seniors” or “a college town for seniors”. It was refreshing to see retirees enjoying themselves and breaking stereotypes. They seem to embrace “life is what happens now'”.
Lunch at the Redsauce was delicious. Sandy enjoyed a lentil and wheat berry salad with fried goat cheese.
Land O’Lakes, Florida
Land O’Lakes had just about everything we needed for a couple of weeks, so we kind of melted back into a blissful routine of daily living.
Land O’Lakes to Tampa
We went to the Florida RV Supershow in Tampa. Jake knew the bush was really a guy willing to pet him but Sandy didn’t until he moved.
Land O’Lakes, The Woods
We had full service, good satellite, but poor internet. The best part was making new friends at the numerous social events while we were there. Whether it was pot lucks, live music, or impromptu cookouts, the people here are a friendly group.
Daily, we saw Sandhill Cranes in the Land O’Lakes area. A pair hung out by the motorhome everyday. They weren’t at all shy of us or Jake. They walked right up to Sandy with one on each side of her. She didn’t know if they were going to peck her or not, but figured someone must have fed them in the past. Seems like there are osprey anywhere there is water. This one was having lunch.
