This is my view on most of our hikes!  And then they will stop, wait and make me go first until I stop again to take more photos! 

We took Stephanie on one of the hiking trails we have found here in Branson; it is only about 1.5 miles but the first 1/2 is downhill to a beautiful little creek and then you have to hike back up!

The weather here has finally gotten really nice (for 2 whole days!) which has been so nice.  The humidity is not bad yet either and so neither are the bugs! 

Duke likes having company too!

Duke gets thirsty

Stephanie has made a few comments that MAYBE we are spoiling Duke beyond correction!  Well if that is the case we are 3 for 3 in child rearing – oh well, if you can’t spoil them then what is the use in having them!

Tonight we went to another show!  Duh, that is what you do in Branson.  We went to the Country Tonight show at the Oakridge Boys Theater and saw TG Sheppard.  Stephanie had no idea who he was; I recognized several songs from my parents.  He is old but was very entertaining.  He has a magic song!  The Folger’s jingle!  We all recognized it! 

                                          “The best part of waking up is Folger’s in your cup!”

It is so nice having Stephanie here with us in our little home on wheels.  She sleeps on the couch and Paul has someone to stay up late with and I get someone to play games with me!  Today we took a driving tour around town showing her all the theaters and other sites of Branson.  We decided to splurge and go to the Dixieland Theater for their dinner show and stampede!  We had been hearing about it but knew that our horse girl would want to see it.  Dinner with your hands, horses kicking up lots of dirt and Dolly Parton, how could it not be fun!

Tribute to America

Where is dinner?

Stephanie left San Jose yesterday at 11 am and arrived in Springfield, MO at 9 pm central time.  Her flights went perfectly with no delays.  The first connection was in San Diego and she had 50 minutes to get from the American Eagle terminal to the American terminal which involved a bus ride- got to her gate just as they were loading! Perfect timing.  The next connection was actually easier in Dallas.  She had to change terminals again however Dallas has the people moving down and she had plenty of time.  

I can’t say things went as well on our end!  The little town of Springfield has a new airport but no one knows it yet!  I get directions from the Springfield airport website, American and leave them at home.  No problem, Paul has GPS!  Wrong.  We get to the airport at 9 pm, in the middle of nowhere, we can see the runway lights so everything is good!  Wrong.  Enter the airport, no cars, few lights, and then a construction sign that says “Airport, take Alliance to Division”  What the hell is Alliance and how will that get me to Division?  We circle the airport, no other information.  Paul decides maybe it is road names, enters Alliance into the GPS, and it finds something!  We drive 2 miles down the road to enter this airport and there is a big permanent sign for the New Airport right before a street called Alliance!  The odd thing is there was not a sign coming into the airport telling you that there was a new airport nor any signs that indicated that you needed to turn!  Love the midwest.

The good news is Stephanie had to wait for them to unload her carry on bag from the holding bay and we arrived just as she was coming thru the terminal.

Nice, fancy new terminal – maybe now that the old airport is closed they will move the construction sign to “Alliance” with an arrow pointing in the direction of the airport?

Stephanie is here and I am so happy.  She is sleeping on the couch right now!  She better get up soon or she will miss all the excitement here in Branson!

We will be in CA in 15 days!  Look out.

We will be spending this Memorial Day weekend doing what we have most others only this time we were the first to arrive at the park.  We were early!

We spent today hanging out on our patio playing games and this evening was a walk around the park getting to know our new neighbors.  Tomorrow we will BBQ and probably again on Sunday.  Just another weekend of camping.

Happy Memorial Day,

See you all next month!

This is one of the RV’s at the RV Junkyard.  We were looking for cabinets but as you can see, there really isn’t anything worth salvaging!

Wednesday night we had another Tornado warning siren!  This time it was at 12:30 am and I was already in bed.  I wasn’t asleep and it seemed really windy so I got dressed, made Paul get dressed and we went to the bathrooms!  I am not sure how these people deal with this cause it is really disruptive – I will take Earthquakes anyday ove r the anticipation of a tornado!  We sat in the bathrooms for about 30 minutes – actually Paul didn’t.  He was out wandering around in the rain again. 

Thursday morning we wake up to blue skies and nice warm weather.  Friday was also a very nice day with clear skies and a little breeze then I go to bed about 11:30 and here comes the wind!  It rained so hard last night I thought we might float away!  Lots of wind but no sirens this time.  Plenty of Thunder and lightening.  If it wasn’t raining so hard it would be fun to sit out and watch the lightening.

Today is beautiful and a little cooler than the past 2 days but they are predicting more rain.  I am not sure it is very hard being the weather man here.  All they have to do is say it is going to rain and they will be right.

All this rain has caused the RV Park to have some flooding.  The lake is fed by small streams and a giant lake where the dam is.  They are letting water out at high rates inorder to make room so our little RV park is really low in relation to the lake so we get flooding.  There are sites that have had to be shut down because the water is up to the sewer connections. (No pictures still as I still am waiting for my camera)

I guess it is really spring here as I am finally getting to see a few roses blooming and a few other landscape plants blooming.  I planted some annuals and they are just sitting there, no bigger than when I bought them a month ago!  It just is not warm enough for long enough for them to take off.  I guess I should be thankful for the cool, wet weather because the humitity is nasty on the warm days!  We leave for California on May 31st!  I am getting excited!

In Missiouri there is an RV junk yard.  It is located about two hours from Branson so we took the day to drive there and see if we could find some items for the RV.  This place is huge with acres and acres of dead RV’s!  We thought we might find some cabinets and table top to replace our booth but mostly you can only get metal parts that don’t melt in a fire.  Apparently when RV’s are wrecked they also burn and very quickly!  We didn’t find what we were looking for but of course we found something to buy! 

I don’t have any photos because I left my camera at the RV junk yard and am waiting for them to mail it to me!  I will post when I get my camera back.

We had dinner at Lambert’s Thrown Rolls Cafe.  We have been hearing about this place since we got to Branson so we had to go.  If you leave this place hungry you should not have gone there in the first place!!!  As soon as you sit down in your booth they start throwing rolls at you.  Then a guy comes around with a paint can full of molassas to put on your roll if butter & jelly are not enough!  Then here comes the guy with the stainless steel bowl full of deep fried Okra that they just put onto a brown paper towel that you get from the roll on your table.  This is just the appetizers.  Here come the drinks - 64oz of whatever you ordered (non-alcoholic) and they want you to order from the menu!  Lots of home, comfort style foods.  Paul got Chicken fried steak; I got pulled pork sandwich. 

So here comes the meals.  Paul’s was served in a 14inch fry pan and there was not much space open.  His steak was probably 10inches across with a scoop of mashed potatoes  and lots of gravy on top.  You get two sides like corn, green beans, coleslaw, potatoe salad, baked beans.  Then while you are trying to consume your meal here they come with more sides: fried potatoes, blackeyed peas, goulash and of course more rolls!

No lack of carbs in the Midwest and this place was all you could eat so you could order more chicken fried steak if you like!  No sharing of meals though.  It cost us $25 including tip.  What they needed to include in the meal was alka-seltzer or at least recliners.

Tony and Janet left while I was showering this am!!!  They are on their way to meet up with the Tennants in Lincoln where they will all continue there vacation into the Dakota’s and then westward bound until the arrive back in California later this month- Drive safe guys and THANK YOU for coming to Branson, we had so much fun.

Also, many have asked about Amy in Santa Barbara.  She is safe and sound!  The town of Isle Vista and the College are west of Highway 101 and basically in a swamp so I don’t usually worry about the fires other than the air quality.  Amy says she could see the flames and they were huge, as they are across the bay from downtown where the fire was causing so many evacuations. 

Amy didn’t take any photos so I had to find one to make the story more interesting.  Actually most of the photos I found on Google were quite frightening.  It amazes me how close to the downtown the fire reached and how many people were affected by this latest firestorm.  This is the third one in less than one year within 10 miles of Amy’s home!  I hope the weather stays cool until after we are there in June so we can enjoy our last long trip to Santa Barbara.  We will be there on June 11!

My Mother's Day gift

Hope all my mom friends had a wonderful Mother’s Day.  Mine was pretty darn good considering both of my kids and 1500 miles away and my mom too!  I got to have long conversations with all and do some catching up.  Our friends, Janet & Tony are still here visiting so Paul & Tony made us a wonderful steak dinner and then we went to a show.

My other gift - can't wait to try it!

The show we saw was in the Oakridge Boy’s Theater featuring Colin Raye.  He put on a pretty good show with lots of his hits.

Colin Raye in Concert