In Three Places at Once

Our time at Dogwood Canyon ended the planned part of our vacation.  For those of you who know me well, you will rightly assume that this is a bit unusual.  I’m not overly sure what happened to my planning gene for this trip; I think it got covered up with trying to take care of a baby!

Anyway, we still had a short list of things we wanted to do, namely visit the other two nearby states that border Missouri and eat a meal at Lambert’s Café, the Only Home of Throwed Rolls.  We had no hotel reservations and no plan beyond that.

So, when we packed up at Dogwood Canyon, we headed toward Joplin, Missouri.  Only we were sort of in the middle of nowhere, and the shortest route between Dogwood Canyon and the interstate was an hour of the hilliest, curviest roads that I have ever seen.  I’m not prone to carsickness, but these roads were enough to turn even my stomach.

Finally, we reached the interstate and made the rest of the drive past Joplin.  Our first stop was a place that Jeff had actually found on a map:  State Line Road, on the premises of an Indian reservation’s casino!

What was very cool about this particular stop is that there was a marker showing exactly where Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma butted against each other.  Of course, this was a perfect opportunity for some goofy photos!

By this time, we were ready to eat, and southwestern Missouri has a restaurant that central Illinois, so far, does not:  Chick-Fil-A.  So, that’s where we headed.  While there, Jeff made us a reservation at a nearby Comfort Inn, complete with a swimming pool.  I had packed our bathing suits, just in case, so we spent the rest of the evening swimming, watching TV, and playing cards.  I thought this was a funny scene.

The next morning, we ate breakfast and decided to visit a place of which we had seen a billboard on our drive through Joplin.  Nearby Carthage, Missouri, is the home of the Precious Moments Park.  Part Visitors Center, part gift shop, part museum, and part beautiful grounds, this a place that pleasantly surprised all of us.

While I am not a huge Precious Moments fan, I do buy a dated Christmas ornament every year, something I started back in 1995 when Jeff and I were first married.  I thought that it might be fun to buy one where the Precious Moments thing started.  And there is, indeed, a huge gift shop.  But there is also an interesting museum that traces the evolution of this line of giftware and a huge private collection that a woman donated some years back. 

There are also some life sized figurines from the Birthday Train collection, which my mom has bought for Charlotte since she was a baby.  Charlotte was very excited about this and wanted each of the kids to pose next to their “age.”  Charlotte actually posed next to nearly all of them before we left!

We also found a life-size figurine in honor of the rescue workers from the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City.

At the back of the property was a chapel, custom-designed by Sam Butcher, who created the Precious Moments line, that features the 23rd Psalm and the Beatitudes in stained glass.  There are also many paintings of stories from the Old and New Testaments and a huge mural called “The Hallelujah Square,” which depicts Precious Momentized real people who have died untimely deaths arriving in heaven.  Sam Butcher lost his own son to an early death in a car accident .  While the chapel is undeniably sad, it is also a beautiful memorial.

We ended our visit in the gift shop, where I did, indeed, purchase a 2010 dated ornament!

When we finished up here, we headed back toward Springfield, Missouri, and slightly south to the town of Sikeston, where we were seated almost immediately at Lambert’s Café, the throwed rolls place.  Lambert’s serves large portions of good country cooking; there is also wait staff walking around with large pots of okra, macaroni and tomatoes, fried potatoes, black-eyed peas, and sorghum and honey, which are served to anyone who has ordered a meal.  The throwed rolls come in when the bread man comes along, hollering, “Hot rolls!”  Then, you hold up your hand, and he pitches a roll across the room at you. 

Charlotte and Elijah were absolutely delighted with this place and ended up eating more bread than anything else!  I don’t think that I saw a single roll end up on the floor.  When we got done eating, we were nearly sick with how much food we had consumed!

By this time, it was around 2:30, and we were about six or seven hours away from home.  We had planned on being gone through Friday, and, as it was just Thursday, we wondered what else we should do. 

Wine tasting?  There was a good wine trail if we headed back west a bit.  But the kids vetoed this one.  We could have overridden their veto, but, quite honestly, the thought of pulling the baby and two other cranky kids out of the car at a series of wineries was a bit overwhelming.

Should we head to Mark Twain country in Hannibal, Missouri?  This was a possibility, but, when we started looking for hotels, we weren’t having much luck.

At last, we decided to just head home, and we arrived about 9:30 on Thursday night.  We spent Friday relaxing and recovering, glad to be home after a busy vacation.

And, finally, finally, I am finished with Branson!

Coming up…Jeff’s birthday and our December activities thus far.

Back to Nature

Before I get back to Branson…it’s official!  We are in the middle of a blizzard with everything canceled.  Because of the wind, the snowplows aren’t even running yet, and the kids and I have the gift of a long Sunday with nothing to do!

As this doesn’t happen often, we are taking advantage of it.  We had pancakes around 9:00 this morning, and we are all still in our pajamas.  We played a board game, and the older two kids are now playing downstairs while the baby naps.

Good times.

Now, back to my regularly scheduled blog.

On Wednesday morning, our final at Still Waters Resort, we woke up early and started the arduous process of packing up.  I’ll tell you, traveling with a baby makes your stuff expand exponentially!  Jeff’s parents took off pretty early, and we finally got our car loaded and hit the road for the short drive to our next destination.

Before I write about Dogwood Canyon Nature Park, I have a few reflections on Branson.  Of course.

First of all, we were about the youngest people that we saw the entire time that we were there.  One part of the Six show was a tribute to American veterans.  Six sang the old Lee Greenwood song “God Bless the USA,” but, before they started, they did a roll call of veterans from all US wars, starting with World War II.  Believe it or not, there were probably six or seven gentlemen who stood up as WWII veterans, each of them in their mid-80’s, if they were a day!  Even most of the people playing mini-golf were senior citizens.  I suppose that summertime brings more younger families, but late October surely didn’t.

Secondly, Branson is one of the worst tourist towns that we have ever visited.  There is a “visitors’ center” every other building and dozens of billboards screaming about discounts to shows.  When Jeff and his mom went into Walmart for a few groceries, they had to run a gauntlet of people hard selling show tickets.  It was all Jeff could do to politely get away from one woman who would not quit until she had harangued him into buying some tickets.  And I’ve already told you about the photo hustler in the Italian restaurant.  I can’t really even think of anyplace else we’ve visited, other than Egypt, where the general population was so obnoxious about separating us from our money.

Finally, I can’t imagine many circumstances that would make us repeat a trip to Branson.  I would go back to the resort, and the Ozarks are absolutely beautiful, but Branson itself just made me impatient and tired.  I’m wondering if there is a better time to visit.

Anyway, in spite of all of this, we did enjoy the shows, and the kids really liked the mini-golf.  And we all enjoyed our next stop, Dogwood Canyon Nature Park.

Again, a friend told me about this place.  It is privately owned by the Bass Pro Shop people, and it is drop-dead beautiful.  It boasts miles of trails, one of which is an out-and-back biking/walking trail that crosses the Missouri state line into Arkansas.  Dogwood Canyon rents bikes and bike trailers, and, given that Charlotte was still on her crutches and Jeremy in a backpack on a bike wasn’t very practical, we ponied up the fee to rent two bikes, one trailer, and one trail-a-bike.

And we were off!

We passed lovely waterfalls, ponds, and bridges. 

We actually carried a picnic lunch in here and stopped along the trail to eat on way out to Arkansas.  We also stopped at a rainbow trout pond, where the kids fed the fish what they hadn’t eaten of their lunches!

The whole ride was a bit over six miles, none of it very hilly.  Charlotte rode the trail-a-bike behind Jeff for most of the time, and I hauled Jeremy, who wasn’t overly impressed with riding in the trailer.  In fact, after we stopped for lunch, he spent most of his time screaming his head off, which sort of marred the peaceful beauty surrounding us.  He was happy enough, though, when we stopped our bikes and took him out, so we did that rather frequently!

The only time he wasn’t happy to be out of the trailer was when we gave him to the older two kids so we could take a picture of them at the Missouri/Arkansas state line.  Strangely enough, Jeremy was only unhappy in Arkansas.  Hmmm.

Here are a couple of shots at the end of the trail, before we headed back.

Eventually, Jeremy got tired of screaming and decided to go to sleep.  Here is how we secured him in the trailer, poor baby!  But, hey, he did manage to get a nap, and we got some peace and quiet!

All in all, we really liked this place.  It was a great way to see some unspoiled Ozark beauty, get some exercise, and hop over into Arkansas, a place that is probably not a vacation destination for us!

By mid-afternoon, we had finished our ride, given the kids a chance to spend some money in the gift shop, and loaded back into the car.  We were next headed toward another place we had discovered…the spot where Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma meet.

And since this post is pretty lengthy, I will tell you about that next time!

Playing in Branson

After a couple of pretty full days traveling to and in Branson, we were ready to take it easy for a bit.  So, on Tuesday morning, we called the front desk to make sure that the paddle boats were still available for use and then headed down to the lake shore.

Due to how late in the season it was, many resort amenities were closed up.  The pools and water slides were drained, the fishing gear was locked up, and pontoon and motorboat rental was no longer available.  However, the paddle boats were not quite winterized yet, so we decided to take a spin on the lake.

Shortly after 10:00, the time we were told that we could take out the paddle boats, we arrived at the dock.  The place looked pretty closed up, but we had been assured that someone would be down there to help us, so Elijah walked up to the door and gave it a good yank.  About 10 seconds later, we heard what I thought was a vacuum running, so we popped around to the back of the dock house to see if anyone was there.

Of course, it wasn’t a vacuum running; it was the warning hum that a really loud alarm would soon be going off.  And that’s exactly what happened.  An ear-splitting siren started wailing, and we nonchalantly wandered away.  When we got back to our condo, we called the front desk and told them what we had done.  The person at the desk kind of laughed and told us that someone would be down to the dock shortly.

So, we walked back down to the dock, by which time the police had arrived.  The policeman and the boat guy chatted a minute, and the policeman offered to cuff Elijah and haul him to the slammer.  But then he thought better of it, told us that he would be getting back to his nap now (no joke), and drove off.  The boat guy unchained the paddle boats, warned us about getting too far from shore because of the wind, and wandered off to get some work done.

While this was not exactly the best way to start the morning, all’s well that ends well, right?!  We spent some time enjoying the sunshine and paddling around a small part of Table Rock Lake.

After our dubious paddle boating adventure, we grabbed a quick lunch at the condo and headed into Branson.  Jeff’s parents had bought tickets to watch another show that afternoon, and we had promised the kids some mini golf in the meantime.  We had driven up and down the strip in Branson enough by now for the kids to have picked exactly where they wanted to go:  Lost Treasure Golf.

So, Jeff strapped Jeremy on his back once again, and we were off for a round of golf!

When we purchased our golf games at Lost Treasure, the lady selling tickets told us that we could get another round of mini golf at a reduced price either there or at another course called Dinosaur Cove.  When we finished up at Lost Treasure, we only had about an hour before we needed to pick up Jeff’s parents, so we decided to wait and see what they wanted to do later on that evening.

We spent the hour at an outlet mall, where we had seen signs for a Croc outlet.  I bought each older child a pair of Crocs for $10 each and Charlotte a lined winter pair for $15.  All in all, a good bargain!

After we picked up Jeff’s parents, we decided to visit the Stone Hill Winery.  This area of Missouri is actually pretty famous for its wines, so Jeff and I had a quick tasting.  Of course, we found a few things we liked, so into our very crowded car went a few bottle of wine!

Then, it was supper time, and we debated where to go.  We had been told that Branson Landing was a great place to find a restaurant that wasn’t as touristy as those in the town proper.  However, it was a longer drive out there, and the kids really wanted to play another round of mini golf, so we opted to stay in town and eat at a place called Florentina’s Ristorante Italiano.

While I wouldn’t call this a big mistake, we probably would have been happier making the drive.  No sooner were we seated than a man approached our table with a camera and insisted that we all pose for pictures.  No sooner had we ordered our food than he was back with key chains and photo booklets featuring our pictures, a genuine Branson souvenir for a “reasonable” price.  The waiter delivered our food so fast that we hardly had time to finish our bread and then brought the check right after he delivered our food.

We experienced this in Europe whenever we had the misfortune of stopping in a touristy place, but it is particularly annoying in a place like Branson.  When we pay that much for food, we expect to be left alone to enjoy it, but that was certainly not the case.  Live and learn.

After our aggravating supper, we headed over to Dinosaur Cove Golf.  Jeremy got strapped on Granddaddy’s back this time.  This golf course featured a volcano that spit fire out the top, something that made us all the jump the first time it happened.  But we had a fun round of golf, this time with Grandmama playing too.

By this time, it was dark, and we were ready to head back to Still Waters.  We played a few games and then tumbled into bed.  Jeff’s parents were headed home the next day, and we were headed to a nature park.  Our vacation was rapidly wrapping up!

Next time:  Dogwood Canyon and being in three places at once.

Christmas Letter Alert…Stay Tuned!

Well, as my Christmas cards, complete with the link to my blog, start trickling out, I’m feeling the pressure to get the Christmas letter up so that it can sit here for a couple of weeks.  But the Type-A personality part of me (and, let’s admit, that part is…um…HUGE!) just can’t let that happen before I finish up everything else that has been going on lately.

So, if you are checking in to check out the Christmas update, check back in a few days…I should be ready to have it up by then!  In the meantime, I am stockpiling several blogs to post over the next several days which should, hopefully, get me caught up!

(And, yes, I do realize that this probably matters a lot more to me than it matters to you.  Oh, well.)

By the way, if you  haven’t gotten a Christmas card yet and usually do, it’s coming soon.  I haven’t actually mailed any yet.  Most that have gone out have been handed out to my kids’ music teachers, our small group, and such like.

And here’s what’s been happening…

First of all, Jeff left for Thailand this morning.  This trip was rather unexpected and threw a monkey wrench into our Christmas plans, as we had originally intended to leave for Tennessee tomorrow to celebrate with Jeff’s family.  That has been postponed.  The kids and I have one week of school left before we take a two-week break. 

Second, Charlotte started basketball last weekend, and, since Jeff is coaching, this trip has sort of messed that up, too.  Fortunately, the sister of two of Jeff’s players has agreed to cover the practices and game he will miss.  Of course, team pictures are scheduled for tomorrow, the one Saturday Jeff will miss!  The director offered to have him photo shopped in.  Terrific.

Third, we plan to stay home for Christmas this year.  As we rarely do this, I am honestly looking forward to it!  There is always something special about a baby’s first Christmas, and Jeremy is at a great age.  Surprisingly, he has pretty much left the tree alone, although the nativity figurine, previously on the hearth, hasn’t been so fortunate.  Joseph and a lamb were broken off, so I had to fix that.  I first moved it under the tree, but Jeremy thought it needed to be on its face, so, before he could break it again, I moved it to higher ground.

Those are our current events; now, I’ll hop back and try to finish off Branson.  Have a great day!

Another Year, Another Snowfall

So, today is Jeff’s birthday.  It also happens to be the day of our first snowfall.  I’m not sure why this happens, but these two events seem to correlate every year that we’ve been here!

The thermometer says that the temperature is in the lower 30’s, but it surely feels colder than that to me.  It has been a blustery, gray day, and the snow is trying accumulate.  I suppose that I must accept that winter is finally here.

I’m struggling with dressing a baby in this type of weather.  We lived in Tennessee and Mississippi when the other two were that age, and, while it did get cold there, the weather was nothing like the bitter stuff that we get here.  I can’t really put him in bulky stuff because he’s not safe in his car seat.  I also don’t want to underdress him, so I’ve been making do with layers, a hat, and a blanket.  We’ll see how that goes!

While today is Jeff’s birthday, we can’t do that much to celebrate, as he and Charlotte have basketball practice tonight.  But Charlotte and I did make brownies with a “secret ingredient,” as Charlotte likes to say:  crushed candy canes.  She can’t wait to see how long it takes Jeff to figure out that there is something extra special about his birthday brownies!  We will go out to eat tomorrow night to the restaurant of Jeff’s choice and settle for a simple spaghetti supper tonight.  (It’s the end of the month, and I am very low on food.)

In other news, Jeff and I went to see the new Harry Potter movie on Sunday afternoon.  I thought it was OK and was surprised to see how far in the book the movie had gotten.  Jeff thinks they should have just made Titanic and gotten the whole thing done at once.  I am looking forward to the final battle at the end of the final movie; it should be worth the price of admission.

Can you believe that this past Sunday was already time to start the Advent candles?  Four Sundays before Christmas…wow!

I’ll end this post with more photos of our naughty baby.  He’s gotten quite skilled at climbing; the getting down is not so great yet, but he can get up!

I helped him down off the dishwasher yesterday, but I didn’t get to him in time when he got up on the hearth.  He tried to get off by himself and managed to land on his back on the hardwood floor.  Ouch.

He also got into the trim Jeff bought to do some work in Charlotte’s room and tried to eat coffee.  Yikes.

But he does love his siblings, especially when one has a balloon that she keeps blowing up and letting go.  Hours of entertainment right there!

Have a good one!  Next time, we should be back in Branson.

Hard Work U

Before we left for Branson, we had several people give us some really good advice on places to visit that didn’t involve shows, high-pressure salespeople, or lots of money.  On Monday, we decided to visit one of those places that nearly everyone to whom we had spoken about Branson said we shouldn’t miss.

As we were on vacation, we slept in a bit on Monday morning, and, shortly before lunch time, drove 20 minutes over to the College of the Ozarks. 

Yep, you read it correctly.  We visited a college campus on our vacation!

In case you’ve never heard of this school, it is one of the very few free universities in the United States.  Every single student here attends college on a work-study program.  Most students are from the area, and I think that over three-quarters of them exhibit financial need.  In return for a four-year college degree, these young people work 15 hours a week when school is in session and two 40-hour work weeks when school is not in session.  There are something like 80 different work stations across the campus, ranging from the computer center to the on-campus dairy to landscaping maintenance.  The College of the Ozarks is nicknamed Hard Work U.

We had been told that the College of the Ozarks also had a fabulous restaurant, also completely staffed from the kitchen to the waiters by students, so that is where we were headed.  And we definitely had an excellent meal here.  Here are some pictures of the kids in the classily rustic Dobyns Dining Room.

After lunch, we took a self-guided tour of the campus.  Places to visit included a tractor museum…

…a dairy during milking time…

…and the original mill that has been converted into a gift shop and also houses the student weavers and basket makers.  Charlotte bought one of the baskets for sale here.

After touring these places, we headed over to the kitchen where students make the famous College of the Ozarks fruitcakes, apple butter, and pies.  We got to sample the fruitcake.  I’m not a fan.  We ended our time here with a walk out to a scenic overlook at the edge of the campus.  Beautiful!

After our visit, we headed back to the resort, ate a sandwich supper, and then left to see our second show in Branson.  After our Kirby Van Burch experience, we were a little leery of what this night held.  As Jeff’s parents were going to their own choice of show that night, Jeremy was attending this one with us, and the show started right about at his bedtime.

However, we were very pleasantly surprised by this show, performed by a group named Six.  Six is an a capella group consisting of (wouldn’t you know it) six brothers from a family of ten brothers.  Their vocal ability is absolutely amazing.  The show started with a vocal rendition of the sounds that you hear in a theater when it is demonstrating the surround sound.  It continued with a variety of songs from a variety of genres, interspersed with hysterical conversations among the brothers, with all of the instruments in a band brought to life with voices.

In addition, the theater in which Six performed was beautiful, and I think the only empty seat was the one that they gave us for Jeremy, as he was too little to use it.  It was night and day from the first show.  Jeremy actually listened to the music until intermission and then managed to sleep through a good portion of the second act.  What a great evening!

Thus well entertained, we returned to Still Waters, ready for bed.

Next time…playing at the resort and in Branson.

Back to Branson

As I am going to have to write and post our yearly Christmas update soon, I really have to get this Branson vacation finished.  No more excuses!

So, we arrived in Branson late Sunday afternoon.  Jeremy actually traveled very well…except for the last 20 minutes.  He was hungry and tired of being in his car seat, so he commenced with screaming.  Elijah tried screaming back at him to get him to stop, and even Charlotte, who is usually quite patient, was asking him to stop it. 

At least, it was only 20 minutes!

We arrived at Still Waters Resort and got checked in.  As it was late in the season, the place was nearly empty, but it was quite beautiful there.  Our two-bedroom condo overlooked Table Rock Lake, and the leaves were beautifully colored.  We were pretty pleased with our vacation accommodations!

For some reason, I took zero pictures of our condo or of our view, save this one of Jeremy being naughty.  He was after the power cords that were under this side table.

Jeff’s parents were joining us here from Tennessee and arrived shortly after we did.  Their condo was right above ours, which was nice and convenient!  We ate supper at the Bayside Market, a small shop and carry-out restaurant right on site at the resort.  Elijah wanted pizza, so that’s what we had for supper!

While Jeff’s parents babysat Jeremy, the rest of us spent the evening attending the first of two shows that we had booked in Branson, the Kirby Van Burch Magic Show.  This theater was WAY off the beaten path, and I think that it must have originally housed some sort of Arabian Adventure show, as we entered the theater underneath a spire straight out of Aladdin.  The paint was peeling, the carpet was threadbare, and the whole thing looked kind of shabby.

“What are we doing here?”  Jeff and I asked each other.

We took our seats shortly before the show started and were treated to an older gentlemen who tried to convince us that the Sunday night show was the smallest of the week (the seats were maybe one-fourth filled) and then gave us a hard sell on Kirby Van Burch memorabilia.  “This stuff is going for at least $70 on eBay right now,”  he informed us with a straight face.  “It’s an amazing bargain at $25!”

This probably wasn’t the best thing to be saying with an audience containing Jeff and his iPhone (the only KVB thing on eBay at the time was a secret to a magic trick being auctioned for thousands of dollars), and we managed to resist the limited edition stuffed tiger and signed photograph.

However, in spite of the rundown theater and snake-oil salesman who kicked things off, the show itself was really quite entertaining.  Kirby Van Burch uses lions and tigers in his show, and they are beautiful, magnificent animals.  In fact, he’s probably operating out of this particular theater because the cost of keeping the cats forces him to do so.  Kirby himself is a pretty small man with a very strange, nasally voice, but he is a good showman, and he has some very cool tricks!

And, fortunately, our children just aren’t as jaded as we are!  They enjoyed the show very, very much.  And, honestly, Jeff and I did, as well.  We saw David Copperfield perform at a casino hotel in Mississippi some years back, and Kirby Van Burch’s show was probably just as good as Copperfield’s.

Of course, photos during the show were not allowed, so I don’t have much interesting to look at for this night.

And that is the end of our first day in Branson.  Next time: a slightly more educational pursuit!