Saturday, March 24, 2012
My grandpa, Elwood, was born on this day in 1924. He passed away in 1997 but I still remember his birthday! So Happy Birthday, Gramps. Miss you so much.
Today was the fair weather day we'd been waiting for! The first couple days of the trip were cooler with intermittent rain. This was the first trip that I let Chesney completely pack for herself. Before we'd left, I asked her if she had clothes for warm weather, too, because it was supposed to be warm while we were in Branson. She said no, and added some clothes to her bag. What I didn't know is that she also removed all of her cooler weather clothes so she ended up wearing shorts and short sleeved shirts LOL. Fortunately she had a jacket so it wasn't a total disaster. I think she learned a packing lesson. I think I learned a Mom lesson.
(Warning: Rant Ahead) So, we awakened to bright blue skies and sunshine with a few fluff clouds (just to emphasize the blue of the sky, I'm pretty sure). Temps were predicted to be close to 80! First on the agenda was a trip to Table Rock Lake. It was after 9 when we got up and around. It was too late for the hotel breakfast, so I made the mistake of going to the World's Worst McDonald's thinking we could grab something quick to eat on the way to the lake. The drive thru lane was backed up...not only backed up but people were apparently too dumb to read where it says "Drive Thru Lane" and were mostly blocking the parking lot. I thought going inside would be quicker.
Of course, inside was just as busy. They were also no longer serving breakfast; apparently that ended minutes before we arrived. Naturally. So we were going to just have lunch food instead. It took a minute but I figured out there were indeed two lines so I picked one, and was waiting. After a few minutes of watching the employees running around behind the counter acting busy but not actually doing anything, I realized that a nice little line had formed off to the side of me, effectively leaving me in between two lines. Not that it mattered, since none of them were moving. Even more annoying, several of the people in the "new" line were McDonald's employees, looking at the watches and muttering about how they only had 10 minutes until they were supposed to clock in. Hey, here's a thought...how about you clock in now and clear out some of this crowd and then take a break? Nah...that'd be logical!
At this point I looked at Katie and said, "I can't be here anymore. Let's go." And we went! I needed to gas up the Nitro so we stopped at the White Oak Station at 165 and Green Mountain Drive. While I was gassing up, I remembered there was a Sonic right on the way to the lake anyway, so that's where we got our grab and go breakfast. The food was fresh and tasted good, and they serve breakfast food all day long so we actually had our breakfast in the end. /end rant
We drove across Table Rock Dam to the Dewey Short Visitor Center. The old one is still open - the new one opens in April. It's pretty from the outside, so we'll definitely be going back there to check it out after it opens. The girls were fascinated by a different type of stuffed animal today!
We took advantage of the great walking path to get some exercise and fresh air! It was marvelous!
Skipped some rocks:
(Ok, none of the rocks actually skipped, it was really just throwing rocks in the lake!)
Wondering if this heart shape is natural?
Look at this beautiful sky!
LOVE!
After our walk, we drove around a bit and then went to the Shepherd of the Hills Hatchery. Moonshine Beach was closed so we couldn't go there...hopefully next time! The girls loved the Hatchery. We used up all our quarters on fish food and Chesney scavenged a bunch of pellets off the ground after she ran out. They were entertained watching the fish go for the pellets.
They were just finishing up a presentation inside the building when we got done feeding the fish, and guess what the guy asked? "Does anyone want me to get a snake out?" This is the part where I question if my children were possibly switched at birth, because they both shrieked "I do, I do!" and ran to be the first to touch it. And by it, I mean, the snake. THE SNAKE!!!
Oh, look. It's wrapping itself around her hand. How wonderful.
They were pretty thrilled with the snake touching. Me, not so much. I just took pictures.
When we went back in to town, we stopped at the Blue Man Grill to get the photo I posted yesterday of the girls with the Blue Man. Brief stop at the hotel and then we decided on Pizza by the Chef for dinner. We hadn't been there before. It was really good! I got the Mama Mia pizza which had meatballs on it. Katie got the Lasagna pizza with meatballs and ricotta cheese on it. It burned her tongue but otherwise she liked it! The girls had cheese pizza. There were a couple of fellas there playing live music. I later discovered I could have used my Branson Guest Card to save 10%...oops! Again, now I know for next time. (Notice how I keep mentioning next time? I'm attempting to will another trip into happening by my optimism.)
On our way back to Branson from Branson West, we were stopped at the light by the RFD TV Theatre. I was watching a guy jog across the intersection and come up the hill and as he got closer I realized it was Patrick Haygood LOL! I looked at Katie and said, "Um, is that Patrick?" Woo...Branson Celebrity Sighting! Actually Celeb Sighting #2, because we saw James Garrett in the lobby area of the IMAX complex the day before. Nothing against James G but he's not as cute as any of the Haygoods, so the Haygood sighting was better.
This was the night we were seeing the Haygoods show again. Again, we had a good time! I'm still planning to do a separate post to review the show. Here's the link for the photos from the show again, though.
I took some pics of the girls with the Haygoods and got to chat with some of them for a few minutes. I told Pat we'd seen him out jogging...he advised against jogging to the fitness center from the theater because it's harder to get back than you'd think LOL. Since Dominic is always introducing Michael as "Branson's Most Eligible Bachelor," I asked Michael just what exactly is it he's eligible for? Ha! I have to think of more jokes for him for next time, because I really like to see that guy smile! After the New Year's Eve show last year he told me I didn't look older than 30. He was probably lying but I'm going to pretend he meant it lol.
Tim Haygood was outside the theatre so we got to chat with him a few minutes. We'd driven into the parking lot of the Americana earlier that day and seen some of the tornado damage there and the damage to the house behind the theatre that had been their recording studio. I'll be doing a separate post on the tornado damage with pics, but Tim said it was around $600,000 in damage to the Americana alone, and that's just the property damage. It sure does seem like a God thing that they had moved their show to RFD this year. Mysterious ways, and all that.
Since it wasn't pouring down rain, we checked to see if Shoot for the Stars mini-golf was open, but we were too late. So, it was time for a jackhammer at Satan's...I mean Andy's, Frozen Custard. This is vanilla custard, with cookie dough mix-in, and hot fudge straight down the center. I gained 5 lbs just typing that.
Since we were all in a sugar coma after that, it was time for bed!
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