Vacation (Last Year)

     Last August I joined my parents & 3 siblings on their vacation to Missouri. Dad had meetings in the Kansas City area to attend at the end of the week, but they planned to vacation in Branson beforehand. I was in great need of a break. It'd been a rather stressful time at work lately (my job as Office Manager, not photographer) and I was more than ready to leave it behind for a week. And there just happened to be one seat left in the van. :)  We left after church on Sunday, arriving in time to eat at a local pizza joint before finding our cabin & getting settled.

     Our main purpose in going was to lay around and do nothing - literally! We purposely did not plan many activities. The first day we went over to the Shepherd of the Hills Fish Hatchery in the late afternoon as Amelia wanted to see the fish.

 

 

 

     It was raining when we awoke on Tuesday morning. We'd tentatively planned a picnic at Roaring Springs State Park (we'd driven through there on our way to Branson and thought it just beautiful). After watching the weather, we headed out around 10:30 assured that the rain would be gone by the time we arrived.  That didn't turn out to be the case, but we had a pretty good time anyway. In fact, this was probably my favorite day of the whole trip. :)

 

 

 

Where we ate our lunch - glad to have a roof over our heads with all the rain!

 

 

 

Killing flies with our bug zapper racket

 

Once we finished eating, we did a little shopping in the gift shop waiting for more rain to pass. Then we went to see the falls, the fish (there's a hatchery there too) and do some hiking.

Watching the fish

 

 

 

 

 

 

The four of us hiked to the top of the falls and got these spectacular pictures

 

By now the rain had mostly cleared out and after eating some watermelon, we went down to the river to wade, play and take more pictures.

 

 

Some fog rolled in making for some great picture opportunities

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    Our host provided tickets to Silver Dollar City, so even though we'd had no previous plans to do so, we went there on Wednesday. :)

 

 

Amazingly, it was cool enough for a sweater in August! The downside was that no one wanted to ride wet-rides. :(

 

 

     On Thursday we went out for lunch. Mom, Amelia & I went to a Tea Room (Ruby Lena's - a Branson Fave) and the guys to a home-cookin' restaurant downtown. Then we did a little shopping & then walked down to the boardwalk to see the fire & water show.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later that afternoon we went to play some mini-bowling and arcade games at Grand Country Inn.

 

 Love it.

 

 

 

 

 

     And so our 5 day stay in Branson came to a close. It was so nice. We slept in every morning, we were home by 5:00 every evening. We stayed up late watching movies and we had no schedule at all! Sure, we went and did things, but those didn't control our schedule as so often happens on vacation.

     Friday morning we pulled out and headed to the Kansas City area. On the way through Independence we stopped at the Harry S. Truman home. Really neat.

 

The downtown building which houses the Visitor Center

 

The Truman Home

 

We were not allowed to take pictures inside, so this is all I have

 

     The home is just amazing. He died in 1974 and she in 1981. Not a thing in that house has been moved (save for the dishes being set out on the dining and kitchen tables) since she passed. The calendar still hangs in the kitchen with every date marked out until her death. His hat still hangs on the peg where he put it the day he died. So surreal.
     The next day dad went to his meeting and we were without a car. However, we made the best of it and walked about a mile or so to a great restaurant. Amelia thought it was great fun and still talks about it all these months later. The things that make a kid happy. :) We swam in the pool that afternoon and relaxed some more. Next day we came home - so refreshed after a week away.