Yeah that dude doesn't help Florida's rep AT ALL. 🤣
That Florida guy is alive and well. If you can find the humor in the idiosyncrasies of the people who live here, Tampa-ish is just like any other place and pretty entertaining. The most common thread is that people don't want to be told how to live their lives. Here's my short list of favorite reasons to live here.
Personally, I'm fascinated by the flora and fauna. Waking the dogs is an opportunity to birdwatch and see awesome landscaping plants every day. We have all of the song birds plus ibis, herons, Muscovy and whistler ducks, egrets and spoonbills just chillin around. And on my way home from work the other day I saw peacocks just walking around. Very random. Any subtropical plant is fair game to be in a yard.
Also, our neighbors have every type of vehicle short of a military tank and drive them around as their regular transportation. Literal monster trucks, golf carts, 4wheelers, regular cars, a sit down bike with Xmas lights, mopeds, electric scooters pulling a wheel chair? I don't know why that's a plus for me since I don't give a shit about cars. It just speaks to the variety of interests and lack of judgement/rules as long as you don't have an HOA. One neighbor has a monster truck, boat and hummer in his front yard currently.
We are an hour from a beach or a chill hot spring area to kayak around and maybe see manatees.
There's no income tax.
You can grow almost any fruit or vegetable in your garden.
I really like not being cold. Winter is the new fall. 50 degrees is puffy jacket weather and maybe a hat.
