Day One: Branson Here We Come!

(As always, click on any photo that you would like to see full screen sized!)
















(The first two photos were taken earlier this morning. Grant had told the little kids to CLEAN THEIR ROOMS before we headed out of town. I came up to find that Rayna had changed out of her shirt and jeans into more "suitable" house-cleaning attire! You can see here how very desperately her room NEEDED cleaning!!! The third photo was taken shortly before we left home...the two little ones have their backpacks filled with traveling essentials (that would be a pteradactyl named "Rick", a Superman, and a Batman, and a Gameboy in Doug's pack and a Panda named "Belle" and a Gameboy in Rayna's pack.). Then there is the scene up our drive from our open garage, just before we pulled out! And, finally, a view from inside our van...sharing our space with Grant's six foot acoustic bass!)



We are off! We left home five minutes ago in a gray, driving rain. It has rained a LOT here, lately. It rained on my birthday (last Sunday) and has been gray and rainy every day since then except for yesterday. I’m beginning to feel like I live in Seattle! But, today, not even the pouring rain can dampen my spirits because we are ON VACATION!!!

As we were busy packing this morning, I overheard my quote for today: Rayna (as she leaned in closely to her brother and took a deep breath), “I’m checking to see if you smell like a dog.” What inspired that action and those words I have no idea! It is always a little bit out of the twilight zone when I eavesdrop on conversation between Rayna and her brother! Rayna will say something totally out of the blue and utterly bizarre and her brother responds as though what was just said or done was not only normal, but expected! This morning, it was completely reasonable that his little sister should practically crawl down the collar of his shirt making sure he “didn’t smell like a dog”. The glimpses I get into their world always leaves me feeling a little bit confused!

Well, we loaded up the porch with enough food to feed a small army of dogs and put out two extra large pans of water in addition to the dog’s automatic waterer (like they might dehydrate!…probably would have been more reasonable to provide them an ark--just in case!). We patted their furry little heads and assured them that Grandma and Grandpa (next door) would watch out for them while we were away. Then we stopped off next door to tell Grant’s folks, Jan, Eric, and Aaron, “Good-bye!”
Mom C was just finishing up her stepping stone class…so Aleida and Mom showed us the stepping stone that Aleida was about to pour the concrete for. (In the picture you can see the glass Aleida cut to inlay into her stepping stone.)

Poor Aaron was lying rather pitifully in the bed in the living room that Mom and Dad fixed up for him after bringing him home from the hospital. Of course, when you are stuck in a cervical collar AND a body brace AND it is raining cats and dogs outside, what else is there to do except lie in bed? I know he is READY for those bones of his to knit back together so that he will feel halfway decent again.


Jumping around in topics here, I just remembered what I was going to write on the blog yesterday as my “quote for the day”… Darcy commented, “I wish we were having band practice here, soon.” Surprised at her comment, I queried, “Oh?…how come?” There are some questions a mother should never ask. “Oh?…how come?” was the question I should NOT have asked that day! My daughter innocently replied, “because the toilet is AWFUL!” Ouch. I guess my children have figured out that pretty much the only time I scour the bathroom is right before our monthly turn to host band practice at our house!

When I relayed this story to Grant later that night when he got home from work, he pointed out the obvious…(WHY didn’t I think of this?)… “So why didn’t you tell DARCY to clean the toilet?” Well, DUH, why DIDN’T I???? That would have instantly toned down her observation skills!

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We stopped in Clinton, MO and ordered lunch at the local Pizza Hut.
(Doug was certain they offered CHINESE food at the Pizza Hut. We were baffled about this until we saw the sign he was studying...look carefully at the little bowl of pizza sauce in the upper left hand corner...don't the artfully arranged cheese shreds LOOK like Chinese characters?! Now I would call that false advertising!!! We ordered some breadsticks, but our sauce came in a PLASTIC cup and didn't have a single cheese shred adorning it...much less CHINESE speaking cheese shreds! Oh well...the breadsticks were still really good! And the cinnamon strips were even better!)





I wanted Veggie Lover’s, but my carnivorous husband and eldest daughter always put up such a fuss when I suggest that one of our two medium pizzas be something without meat, that I always have to give in. So, Grant and Darcy ordered a MEAT LOVER’S, but, I had to make do with ordering a HAM, green peppers, onions, mushroom pizza.
(I didn’t want to ham, but it was the only way I could quiet their protests.) The pizza WAS delicious, though. (Mine, I mean…I didn’t eat any of the meat lover’s. Everyone but Grant ate some of ‘my’ pizza. Everyone but Darcy and Grant would have eaten some of the Veggie Lover’s had we ordered it!) We had a sweet waitress. She even wrote a little note to us, wishing us well, on the back of our receipt!




Then we drove for a few more hours, admiring the muted Autumn colors draped in rainy day gray. At Springfield, we stopped to mosey through Battlefield Mall. As we were looking for a parking spot, we passed two young men who looked quite unremarkable from the back, but, as we passed them I did a double take. The first fellow had a huge, LONG, wildly curly, exceedingly bushy, strawberry blonde beard…and so did the second fellow. They were identical twins. The beards were so unusual looking and it just was amazing to see TWO people with exactly the SAME beard. It isn’t unusual to see identical twins, but it IS unusual to see two very unusual looking identical twins. I wanted to get their picture. Grant was horrified at the thought, but, bless his heart, he turned the car around at a discreet distance and made another pass past them so that I could get a photo for my travel blog. Unfortunately, there was traffic between me and them, so I wasn’t able to get their photo. I almost did, but the car dipped with the road or something and I just got a photo of them from the chest down…so, here is a very unremarkable photo of the identically unusual twins…

One in the mall, Darcy begged to look around in the Border’s Express. Grant and Doug headed through the books one direction and Darcy another. A few days ago, I had been reading the blog of a professor and relationship psychologist that gave a glowing review of Stephen King’s literary skill (see "Don't Panic" from Thursday, Oct. 19th). It has been YEARS since I have read anything by Stephen King (maybe “Carrie” thirty years ago!) and “literary excellence” wasn’t a label that had ever come to my mind when thinking of his books…just “horrifying”. Still, the comments that blogster had made had left me interested in giving Stephen King a closer look. With Rayna in tow, I found an entire section of his books. I had no idea he was such a prolific writer. There were TONS of titles by him. I began sifting through them all, trying to decide which one might be a good vacation read.

There were the straight out horror themes that I have always associated with his name, but, then there was also a seven book (or longer) series that had the look and feel of Louis L’amour meets Tolkien. I was intrigued. Rayna was pleasantly quiet and content as I pondered whether or not to buy one of the books and if so, which one. Presently, I looked over her direction and saw that she, too, was picking up one book after another and very somberly, methodically, purposefully thumbing through them one by one.

A little while later, Grant came around the corner and was more than a little surprised to find what section I had become engrossed in. He said, “So you are in the mood for a horror story?” I replied, “I might get one.” At which point, Rayna burst out, “You CAN’T get one of these, Mom. These books aren’t any good. I’ve been reading them and they’re DISGUSTING!” She paused then and very deliberately stuck her nose between the pages of the book she was holding, until the tip of her nose was nearly touching the inside spine of the book. Inhaling deeply, she lifted her eyes back up to me and declared emphatically, “They SMELL disgusting, too!” Ahh, Mr. King, I hope you never run into my youngest daughter….she would have a few words for you, I fear!




(Alas, it is really, really, really late and Grant, Doug, and Rayna long ago fell asleep. Darcy, of course is making the most of her wireless internet access and won't go to bed until I insist that she do so! I am exhausted, though, so I will just let you see the rest of the photos without a blow by blow commentary. We made it into our hotel and got settled, then went to the Shepherd of the Hills play. Since it is performed in an outdoor amphitheater, tonight was the very last performance of the season. It got a bit chilly. The kids really enjoyed it, but were ready to leave by the half-way point intermission...so, we did. We missed the huge cabin burning scene, but then, Grant and I have seen the play quite a few times and the kids really enjoyed the first half, but were ready to move on before the second half. We got in free (thanks to "comp tickets" for Silver Dollar City employees) so, we didn't mind leaving when the kids decided it was too cold to stay for the second half. We headed on over to "Cakes and Cream" to have dessert. Darcy ate French Fries, Doug and I had strawberry shortcake a la mode, Rayna had cherry pie a la mode, and Grant had blackberry cobbler a la mode. We were pleased to find that we were given a 20% discount due to Grant's temporary "Silver Dollar City employee" status! ....oh, the photo of the theater tower below?...I took that picture as Grant was telling us how he and his college room-mate had gone to Springfield to that very theater to see the re-release of "Rear Window" way back in his college days. ...oh, and Doug found something he has been coveting at the Shepherd of the Hills gift shop...Leonardo the leader of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! He was so happy we let him buy it! Who would have thought you could find a Leonardo at there!)