Thinking of warm Florida in cold Northeast Ohio

Dreams of warm-weather getaways become reality for many folks this time of year, including me. The head counts are down at regular events that populate my calendar, and many folks have returned with tans and stories of their sunning, sailing and scuba diving in Florida, Mexico and various Caribbean islands.

It’s hard discern why people from Lake and Geauga counties tend to head for Florida’s west coast along the Gulf of Mexico, heading for beach towns such as Clearwater, St. Petersburg, for year-round Floridians. Local folks Sarasota, have long gravitated to Fort Myers, this coast. and Naples. I’m trying to remember One community what 80 degrees feels like near Naples as I pack for my own Florida even has visit in a few days. I’ll street names be headed for a small villa straight from I own in Nokomis, near this area, Venice, south of Sarasota, such as Mentor Avenue, and it will be a bittersweet Johnnycake Ridge, and visit. That’s because other locally known thoroughfares. I’m putting it up for It was a community sale, even though I love it. of vacation homes I inherited the twobedroom, founded in the 1950s by two-bath place a group of Lake County from my brother a few doctors that has since become years ago but just haven’t a residential community had the opportunity to visit often enough to make it worth keeping. I have rented it out in the months when it’s coldest in this part of the country, but not this year because I knew I would be offering it for sale.

I’ll be meeting with realtors and checking things out when I go there this weekend.

I was delighted to discover that Frontier Airlines, a relative newcomer to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, now flies directly to Sarasota, which is about a half hour’s drive to my place in the sun. I’ll be flying Frontier for the first time and will report on its service in an upcoming travel story. Usually I fly into Tampa and have about a 90-minute drive to Nokomis. But that time can vary greatly this time of year, when so many snowbirds head that way.

My friend Paris Wolfe, who just returned from a month or so in Florida, confirms that traffic in high tourist season can make even the simplest destination a challenge. She explored the Sunshine State by motorhome, towing her car for some excursions. She wrote in the evenings and filed her stories for The News-Herald as she went.

Check out News-Herald.com and March 10’s Travel section in the paper to see her accounts about Florida gems ranging from St. Augustine to Kennedy Space Center to Key West and more.

I surely will return to Florida, even after I’ve sold my sweet little villa. Its seafood feasts, snowwhite beaches and palmy charms are especially seductive in March.