Okay, Not Everything is Love-bugs.  Here's Some of the

Good Stuff About Our Neighborhood

A lot of you have been asking about what our area is like so I FINALLY went around our little gated community and took some photos.  I did NOT photograph the two golf courses within the neighborhood because if you've seen one, you've pretty much seen 'em all, and in this area it appears as though every spare inch of land has been made into another golf course.    Plus, you already know how well I like golf carts.  'Nuff said.

Here's the friendly gatehouse of our little "over 55" community at which the resident security people will stop you, and if I've forgotten to phone them to let you in, they'll be pretty adamant about figuring out who in blazes you are.  They mean well.  Forgive them.  I'll try to remember to let them know you're coming.   Interestingly, the neighborhood itself is laid out quite oddly; as though the guy who figured out where to put the streets was on some SERIOUS medication at the time.   I mean, take a look at this little map that I scarfed off Mapquest, showing the roads in our neighborhood:

See the roads just above the green area denoted "Links of Spruce Creek South"?  Look toward the right side where instead of being straight roads they're all kind of diagonal and swervy.  Yeah.  And it isn't done because the topography is forbidding or hilly - hell, the entire town is only 84 feet above sea level!  Wacky. 

We live on one of those  diagonal roads on the lower right.  Oh, and the little "4" in the purple circle is where our Community Center is.  If you start at that "4" and go to the left to where the road ends, there's a softball field there in the blank spot, and behind it is the gated area where we keep our RV.  Just thought you'd like to know.

These two photos show our community center which has meeting rooms, an exercise room, arts and crafts rooms, and so forth.  There's also a pool, a covered outdoor sitting area and a lovely pond with a gazebo, as well as some beautiful oaks; naturally festooned with the ubiquitous Spanish Moss, which is a parasite actually; preferring oak trees because of the iron content they derive from them.  Spanish Moss, by the way, is what "air plants" actually are.  See?  Reading my blog is EDUCATIONAL!

Here's the gazebo by the pond beside the community center - very pretty actually, and it attracts a lot of herons and other wetland birds.  The other photo is obviously our pool, and there IS a hot tub, though you can't see it from this angle.  The whole area of the community center is quite pretty, with flowers planted everywhere and of course many trees and a 2nd golf course sort of in the middle of the community. 

I actually have several pictures of the oak trees in the neighborhood but this one's my favorite.  It's just before one gets to the "interior" golf course, and it's enormous, simply dripping with Spanish Moss, and quite an imposing sight.  Now picture many of these trees all throughout the area.  I have 2 oaks on my little property, though I'll save them for the next blog.

This little photo on the right shows you the other end of the pond

with the gazebo on it.  It's very "wetland" looking and quite pretty.  One often sees heron, ducks and myriad lizards and other critters (as well as the never-ending population of squirrels) nearby, though thankfully I've never seen or heard of any alligators in there (yet).

While the actual homes in the community are sort of monopoly-board houses, mostly looking pretty much like one another, and while they ARE set out pretty uniformly (which is part of why it's hard to find your way around here at first), as you can see, there are some very pretty places. 

Outside the actual gated community is very much the main street. Equivalent to "Northern Blvd" for my New York friends, and "Ventura Blvd" for my Californian friends.   If you look in the upper right hand corner of that map up there you'll see a dark yellow road.  That's Route 441; a major road around here, lined with stores, town squares, MANY medical centers (I've noticed that every time I see a shopping center I see a Medical center that appears to be somehow affiliated with it), and a great number of restaurants; most of which are mediocre to downright awful.  Yes, we're still looking for an excellent restaurant, and while we've found a few pretty good ones, we've still yet to find something wonderful. 

So this is the community in which we live.  Next time I'll share some photos of our house.