Favorite Spot Friday

Favorite Spot Friday... Oldsmar, Florida

Probably Never heard of it.
Me either, until the day I went down and bought a house there!!!
I don't have to say very much as to why it is one of my favorite places.
Just look at the map.
The Red Star is where we lived.
Oldsmar is located very close to Tampa, Clearwater and St. Petersburg.

It is also located close to many city, county, and state parks, a great BMX track,
many of the Best Beaches of the Year Awards,
the Buccaneers, The Yankees and many other spring trainers,
1.5 hours from Disney and Universal Studios, Sea World-
only 30 minutes from Busch Gardens,
15 minutes from the Tampa Airport, in good traffic,
Ybor City,
Tarpon Springs and the Sponge Docks,
no smoking in restaurants,
the greatest, most fun, loving neighborhood we could ask for.....complete with driveway parties all the time and martini Christmas Cookie swaps.
I shall stop there but could go on....

Now, there are bad things about living there i must confess.

It was very expensive to live in Florida. VERY HIGH Property Tax, UNBELIEVABLE real estate costs, double and triple utility bills- and the wages were typically lower than Alabama.

Take it from a small town girl- moving from a town of 15,000 to this tri-city area of about 2 million people is not easy. My son- who was 6 at the time- had to get us to and from the bank for the first six months.
Throw in Snow Birds, Spring trainers and breakers and you had yourself some major traffic and people everywhere- not to mention the road construction endlessly being performed.
I got lost every time I tried to go somewhere and FINALLY got a GPS.
That thing said :"Off course, recalculating route" many, countless times.
If you ever saw a sign that said, CHECK GAS GAUGE LONG bridge ahead, and were going the wrong way---like I was most of the time, you did some major cussing.Roads changed names mid-intersection and there were bridges everywhere.

Alas, the traffic was the worst. The first meeting I had on my job, I mapped out what was 17 miles to go.It took me over one hour and I was mortified and very late. Coming to the Birmingham area used to scare me to death. So I guess, moving from small town to there made moving here seem easy.

While I did love the warm weather and find myself cursing the cold now anytime it is below 65, an 85 degree Christmas Firetruck Santa was weird.

But, the plethora of entertainment, fun in the sun, and treasured, good memories still and will always make it one of my favorite places