Fellowship

Ocala, Florida

Weather: low 75 degrees, high 98 degrees, mostly clear skies

Today was about as an ordinary day as we've had recently. We were up about the same time as usual, but Carolyn said she felt a little off, which usually indicates that her vertigo is getting ready to give her a bad time. She didn't have a full-fledged attack with the vertigo, but never felt as good as she did the last two days. Oh, well, it was nice while it lasted. Maybe she'll feel better tomorrow.

We did get out for a couple of hours, doing some more nostalgic sightseeing in the northwest area of the county. Today's trip took us out to the Fellowship and Blichton areas, which are in the center of the horse farm country. Before driving home, we drove through the Golden Hills subdivision, which was developed by the Castro family years ago while we were still living here. The subdivision has a country club centered around an 18 hole golf course. It is a nice place to live, but we were surprised at the number of homes for sale, including those owned by banks.

Since we've been here, we've found that the real estate crash appears to have been caused by the same factors that caused real estate to crash in the rest of the country: people buying property that was overpriced at terms that usually included small or no down payments and balloon payments at some point that they were unable to honor. In addition, when the price of real estate started tanking, many of the people found themselves upside down on the mortgages, and they couldn't afford the loans anymore. Based on what we've observed, it will be some time before the real estate situation gets better in this area. The only people making money on real estate seems to be the real estate agents. But, there's so many of them here, I can't see any of them making a lot of money.

By the time we got home, Carolyn was ready to settle in for the rest of the day. It would be great for her to be able to get up one day and her vertigo be gone, never to return.

More later, be safe.

Today's Town - Eugene, Oregon: The Emerald City

Not all who wander are lost.