bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- We worked around the MH this morning. At about 11:30 we left and went to St. Joe to Walmart. We purchased two loaves of Italian bread for the pot luck this evening.

We stopped at Panera for lunch, then continued on to Wathena KS, just outside the other side of St. Joe MO. We are visiting with nephew Aaron, wife Casey, daughter Aurora (Rori) and son Jack.

We arrived at the Gray Family Farm and settled in to enjoy the festivities. Aaron and Casey have a yearly autumn festival, but this year they are also renewing their wedding vows. We were unable to attend their wedding, 10 years ago, so we wanted to be there to see family.

There was dunking for apples, a three legged race. doughnut grabbing, pumpkin carving contest and other assorted games for all the kids. Casey has 5 siblings, so there were a lot of kids there.

That is great-niece Rory retrieving the apple. The pumpkin carving.

Bob’s brother Joe and girlfriend Bonnie arrived at about 2:30. They cooked some burgers and brats for a late lunch. At 3:45, we left and went back to the MH to walk the dogs and to feed them. We could have taken them with us, but with all the happenings we did not want to have to watch them all day. Casey and Aaron have 5 dogs, numerous cats, chickens, and horses.

When we returned I helped with setting up for the party.

Casey was already trying to get ready. Her sisters were helping with Rori and Jack.

A little after 6, she came out and walked with Aaron to the front of the barn to say their renewal vows.

The DJ was also the minister, so he performed the ceremony.

The dinner was an Italian themed pot luck with various dishes and soup.

We ate and there was supposed to be a best cheesecake contest. I am not sure anyone won. This was also a small birthday party for Rori, whose birthday is on the 26th.

Then we started dancing. They had a longest married dance contest; Bob and I came in second, at 27 years. Casey’s parents won. Here is the chicken dance.

There was a very large bonfire, which by this time we really needed. It was cold! BRRR,. When we left at around 8, the car first said 60 degrees then quickly dropped to 49. At least we had come prepared with heavy coats and gloves!

We returned to the MH and prepared to leave in the morning.

Sunday- When we arrived at AOK RV Park, on Friday,  we had driven straight in, towing the car. When we arrived after driving the 1 mile long dirt road, the car was filthy. I could not see Bob when he was telling me to back up the car!

So when we left  today, Bob drove the car and I drove the MH. We were at exit 52 and we went to the Loves truck stop at exit 44. We pulled in, parked and hooked up the car. We went to leave and as I drove the MH down the hill, when I braked there was a horrible noise. I took my foot off the brake and it went away. This happened 2x more, then the noise just continued.

With the new to us car and the new braking system, we stopped. I put on the blinkers. We were on a two lane entrance, blocking the truck stop! Bob jumped out and disconnected the car as fast as he could. Meanwhile, as you can imagine, trucks started lining up. First a car passed up going down the entrance lane, then a truck without a trailer. Then a truck with a trailer came down, just as two trucks were trying to enter. EEEEK, what a traffic jam we caused!!!

Finally, Bob jumped into the car and I drove the MH over to the Shell truck stop across the interstate, weaving our way through the traffic jam that we had caused. I drove into the first empty parking space. We stopped the engine but the noise still there, Hydro hot was off, water pump off, everything we could think of was off!

The noise was in the center of the MH.  It was very loud and the floor was vibrating. We were freaking. Bob crawled under the MH. I told him I thought it was in one of the middle compartments. With his deaf ear, he has trouble hearing the noise locations, but said there was nothing in that compartment to cause a noise.

So he finally gave up and called Good Sam, our roadside service provider. I texted Linda and asked her to have Mike call. While Bob was on the phone with Good Sam, I was on the phone with Mike. We were going through everything we could think of…..

While Bob was placed on hold, he decided to press the battery disconnect button over the door. That stopped the noise. Then he pressed again to start and the noise restarted. Hmmmm…..

So he went to the compartment I had pointed to and found that it was the hose reel! This hose is for the water hose. Evidently the on/off button has gone bad. Whew, nothing serious! I thanked Mike for his help and we cancelled Good Sam.

We got back on the road, it was now about 10 AM! We continued around Kansas City then went south to Branson. We stopped at a Pilot for diesel and arrived in Branson at about 3:30.

We are staying at an RPI park, Treasure Lake Resort, which is right behind the Imax Theater. It is a large park with 544 sites. We registered and picked our site, #195. The cost was $10 through RPI, but the resort has a $7 per night ‘utility ‘fee”. Still, $17 per night is a good price for FHU 50 amp.

At 6, we met Tom and Juanita Schnelle, for dinner at Lonestar Steak House. We stayed there until about 8:00, then went to DQ for some ice cream.

Monday- We met up with Tom and Juanita for breakfast at the Branson Café. We had a nice breakfast then we went to Branson Zipline. Tom, Juanita, and Bob decided to do the Zipline. The landing is like jumping 6” so I declined. I am trying to make sure that my knees heal well!

They signed up then waited until 11:30  for that group. There were 8 people in the group. They went downstairs and got into their harnesses and got their helmets. They were taken up to the first tower.

Above is Tom flying. Below is Juanita.

In between they would take pictures on the towers. Below is Bob flying.

Their group. The two in front are the guides. Then Bob and Tom went back and did the Express Zipline. That took them to the 100 ft. high tower.

Here is Bob dropping from the top of this tower.

After their experience, we went to lunch at  Shorty Smalls BBQ. The food was very good. We said our good-byes and Carl and Juanita returned home to Camden Point MO. We went home, walked the dogs and took a short nap.

Tuesday-  I went to the exercise room at 9AM when the building opened to find that they do not open the exercise room until 10 AM. Oh well, I returned to the MH. Bob was working on checking the fluids in the MH while I was gone.

Our first stop was at the ticket office at the resort. We had to wait awhile, as there was another couple in the room buying tickets. We bought tickets to the Hughes Brother show, on special, for Wednesday afternoon, for $22 per person. Regular price $39.95. We also bought tickets for the Wed. evening show of The Shepard of the Hills. We only received a $4 discount, each, on those tickets. Still, $8 is better than paying full price!

We left and went to the Tanger Outlets as I need a new pair of shoes. We stopped at Famous Footwear. This was weird! I tried on a pair of shoes. The left one did not fit. I had trouble getting my foot into the shoe. I looked at the tag and it matched. One of the sales people came by and I told her. We looked at my foot, no swelling or anything. She went to see if she could find a different pair. Bob took the two shoes and put them together, sole to sole. They had looked like two different sizes to me on my feet. He found that they were two different sizes when the soles were compared. The gal came back and Bob showed them to her. She took them to the counter to be returned to the manufacturer, New Balance.  The tags do say they are the same size! Anyway, they did not have an other pair. She called the other store and they did not have a pair either. So no new shoes.

We went to lunch at Little Hacienda Mexican Restaurant. The food was okay. We both had lunch specials for $6.99. We returned to the MH and walked the dogs. Then Bob made an appointment with the Dermatologist in Sun City. The biopsy that the Denver Dermatologist had done was positive for basil cell carcinoma. This is Bob’s second one. The Denver dermatology office had called and told Bob to follow up in Sun City. The Dermatologist in Denver had said she thought it was a basil cell, so we were not surprised. Better than last years almost melanoma that he had.

We left and went to downtown Branson and cruised the shops there. Then we left, stopped at Price Chopper and picked up a couple of items. We returned to the MH and Bob took a nap. He has my cold, so he is trying to get over it. We ate dinner at home.

Wednesday-  We left and went to the craft mall and wandered around. Nice items, but we did not buy anything. We went to the Amish market and bought a jar of pickles and one of cherry salsa.

We went across town to the super Walmart and shopped. We returned, ate lunch and hung out until it was time to leave for the Hughes Brother show.

The Hughes Brothers have been in Branson for 20 years and have sung together professionally for 15 years before that. Interesting family! They are the world’s largest family who continuously perform together. There are the 5 brothers, 5 wives and 37 kids! The theater is staffed with family members. The father died last summer, but the mother is in charge of one of the stores. Two of the wives are sisters, and their mother is in charge of the other store. The wives father is in charge of the fudge stand. One of the their other brothers does the lights and a sister is in charge of the refreshment stand. The brothers themselves do the lighting, choreography, graphics, sound etc. They are a very talented family. At the beginning of the show they did a slide presentation of the cost of violin lessons, guitar lessons, singing and dancing lessons etc. The kids are all home schooled. Three of the kids are off as missionaries, and yes this is a Mormon family. Marty the oldest brother, has 15 kids. Two of the wives were not performing today because Marty’s wife had just delivered and the other wife is to deliver any day.

The singing and dancing was great. The brothers were excellent, but the kids were awesome. We are talking little kids. At one point they brought out some kids, two years old. One little boy was on his brothers shoulder and was having a great time waving to the audience, who waved back!

The kids sang and danced. Boys, girls, big and little. They were so cute! One daughter was phenomenal on the violin, then was joined by another girl and boy for some fiddling.. A 17 year old boy did a drum solo. Wow!

We left and returned home to drop a meal into the crock pot. It was ready by 6, and we ate. We left a little before 7 to go to The Shepard of the Hills outdoor play.

We arrived and had to park across the street. We drove through a tunnel and were instructed where to park. We climbed onto a tram, which took up to the ticket office. We turned in our voucher and received our tickets. Then we had our picture taken and boarded another tram which took us to the theater. We were warned that the bathrooms and concession stand were on this level, so go there first. We ignored that and went to our seats.

We were in row 7, seats 12 and 13, which put us on the right center. Due to the design of the seats, there was a space between Bob and I.

We settled in and waited for the show to start. As with everything in Branson, it started with an American tribute. They had all the vets stand. Then the actors rode in on horses with flags and we all stood for the Star Spangle Banner and said the Pledge of Allegiance. Then they played the John Wayne version of America the Beautiful.

The play was about a sheep sheepherder. He was actually a rich guy from Chicago, a preacher at a large church, who came looking for his son. The son had been there years before, fell in love with one of the girls. The son had left to go talk to the father about marrying the girl. He chickened out, sent the girl a letter breaking off. She died of a broken heart. The son then ran away and returned to the Ozarks to find that the girl had died and he had a sick son. He hid and took care of the son. The father came and became friends with the family, who did not know he was the father. There was the bad guy, who led a gang of bank thief’s. then the guy and girl who were in love.  The story progressed with burning a house, gun slingers, fighting etc. as a wild west show.

There was an intermission where they invited everyone down to the stage. Of course, they were selling the pictures that they had taken earlier. We went down to square dance. We managed to get into a square and did a very easy dance. One of the main characters was in our square. After the dance was over he came to us and asked if we had danced before since we did so well. We told him  yes, that we used to square dance! We were trying out my ankle as it has been almost four years since we square danced. It was fun! 

Thursday-  Bob cooked the dog food and I worked on the blog. We left just before lunch and went looking for shoes again. I found a pair at Kohls. We went to lunch at Jayne Dough, a sandwich restaurant similar to Subway. We returned to the MH, took a nap and relaxed for awhile. I cooked a green bean casserole and we left to go to the pot luck at the resort. It was fun, but there were only about 20 people there.c We sat with some other full-timers.  Dinner was good, with a nice mix. Someone had made some pulled pork which was very good. We had the only vegetable there, so you know it was almost all gone. We returned to the MH, and prepared to leave in the morning.

Friday-  We checked out at about 8:30 and drove north to Springfield. We took the road around the city, then got on the interstate. We continued to Tulsa OK. We stayed at Cherry Hill RV Park, which was right off I-40. We checked into the site. We were backed up to the railroad track, which went right through the park. We settled in. It was raining, so we decided to just stay home and not go visiting the city.

Two trains went by, slowly. Only one honked the horn. Those were the only two trains!

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