BRANSON CONTINUE - JUNE 30TH

Going back over the last few days, I have several things I did, but mostly have to tell you about my lust for finding the best ribs in Branson!!!! As I said in my other post, the Famous Dave's ribs were excellent but then decided to try some that were recommended by the tour books. One is Danna's on Hwy 165 - went there for lunch and although the books and reviews say they were great, I was disappointed. It is just a small cafe and order your food at the counter. The ribs were to well done for me and a little tough. Critch and I then decided to try the steak and rib house on Hwy 165 right across the street from our resort. It is called Odees. They sell ribs for $11.99 all you can eat. Very interesting as the spare ribs were $14.99 and these were the baby back ribs. I decided to go for the baby backs and they were fabulous, very tender, great flavor and you can have as much as you can eat. Our waitress was determined that the spare ribs were better so she kept bringing me one of those and they were very fatty and in my opinion not as good. Maybe we are just more used to baby back ribs in California.

On Friday night I decided to go see "Country Tonight" and really enjoyed the show. I had been wanting to see some country music and this was a wonderful evening of all kinds of country music.

More on food: We went to two other restaurants that we thought were great, One was the "Lone Star" which is located on the Yellow Route right behind the Andy Williams theatre. Critch and I had the best steaks - honestly felt they were as good as our Costco filet's. I would give that a 5* for flavor and excellent service. Another great spot is the "Pasta House" which is also on the yellow route about a block away. I had an artichoke which was stuffed with Italian stuffing and it was wonderful. We weren't to hungry so had that and a salad and was a great dinner. Critch had pasta and said it was also excellent.

On Friday, I decided to take a ride to silver Dollar City to see what that was all about. When I saw 60,000 cars and trolley's taking people from the parking lots, I changed my mind. It is also over $50.00 to get in and all I knew is they have rides so I didn't go in. I drove down past Indian Point and it is a beautiful area along the lake. There are lots of condo's and motels along there and a very growing area. I had lunch at this little floating cafe - not like Coeur d'Alene!! The lake right now is 14 ft above normal level. They have had so much rain here this year and we are sure feeling it. I have never been anywhere where it rains 4-5 inches in a day. In the 3 weeks we have been here there have been anywhere from 7-8 severe thunder and rain storms.

BRANSON CONTINUED - JUNE 22ND

As we said, there is so much to see and do here and each day is a new adventure. We decided to go see a show that Denis and Joe went to called "Bill Haley and The Comets" and also see the 57' Heaven museum at the same time.


The 57 museum is owned by a neighbor at MCC, Glenn Patch. I can't tell you how fabulous this place is, especially if you remember the years from 1953 to 1960's. There were almost every kind of 1957 car you can imagine, each one so perfect. The museum also had memorabilia from that era of all kinds of items. Critch walked through the museum for over 1 1/2 hrs just viewing the cars. It was amazing to see the prices of the cars at the time they were sold. I enjoyed it also as there was a "Texaco" service station which looked like my dad's that he had back in the early 50's. This Dodge was just like my 1st husband when we were dating!!!! Only it was blue!

The Comet show was one of the best we have seen with lots of oldies. There were 3 of the original "Comets" there, the drummer being 84 years old, the two other are 74 and 76! Both Critch and I really enjoyed this and had front row seats so really got into the mood. The drummer brought the house down with his solo performance. For those of you at MCC, I had to take a picture of the piano player as he looked like Herb Easley on the piano!!! Maybe he started a new career?

For anyone that has not visited Branson, I highly recommend it. There is so much more here than I realized, and actually very pretty country, lakes and beautiful trees. We have had some wild thunder and lightening storms with a little hail, but the dogs and I just cover up and hold on!

We are spending this week trying to get things caught up. Have the RV guy coming back to fix my electric reel and today we have a dentist appointment to see what we can do about Critch's 2 teeth he broke! Oh well, it just takes time and this 2 weeks is giving us the chance to get everything done.

BRANSON, JUNE 14TH

Branson, MO: What can I say, this is a much prettier place than I expected and found there is so much to do here. It was great to pull in with Joe and Kay Demarte and see Denis and Pat Hollwedel again as they had been over to Nashville. We were also greeted by Ron and Linda Schuetz and Paul and Lucreta Wooten, and then pulled in Karen and Ted Zigan – all from MCC. We started out by having dinner Saturday evening at a fabulous fine dining restaurant called the “Candlestick” which overlooks Lake Taneycomo and also views to Branson’s new boardwalk shopping area and the bass shop.

We ended up seeing 5 shows in 3 days but had a ball. Each show was great and all different. First show was Bill Medley and Paul Revere and the Raiders, we saw Shoji Tabuchi and if you have never seen that show -it is a must when you come here. The talent and costumes and his playing the violin was great. Kay and I were the only ones to go see the Twelve Tenors but we thoroughly enjoyed it. Some of us then went on the showboat, had a great lunch and enjoyed not only the beautiful day we had, but they also had a great show on the paddle wheel boat. Again that night, we went to see Andy Williams and Ann Margaret with Denis and Pat. That was Critch’s night and he loved seeing that show. Ann Margaret looks great and the show was excellent – which surprised me as I am not an Andy Williams fan.

Some of the guys went fishing – ask Paul about his 32 fish he caught!!!!! A couple people went on the “Duck” which is an army amphibian car/boat that takes you on Table Lake and through the town. The girls took a day and went to “Eureka Springs” for some shopping but my favorite spot was seeing “Christ of the Ozarks”. It is the largest statue of Jesus and it was really awesome as shown in the picture. We did shop until we dropped and my feet hurt so badly, but I made it through the day.

On Wednesday evening we all had heavy appetizers as the Zigen’s and Hollodell’s left on Thursday (1day early). Everyone else is leaving Friday and Critch and I have decided to move over to the KOA which is right in town and stay another 2 weeks. The pace has been a little hectic for us so decided to stay here and get caught up and enjoy the area. The Ozarks is beautiful scenery, very green, and we would like to explore a little more. One week in this area is not enough as there is so much to do.

Thursday everyone spent the day preparing for departure and then we all had dinner together at a great Italian restaurant – only to find out they couldn’t serve alcohol! Was tough to say good by, but will look forward to seeing our friends again in October.

We pulled out of our spot on Friday morning (6/20) with beautiful blue skies – 5 minutes later we had a great rain and hopefully washed off the coach – but low and behold the sun was shining 20 minutes later when we got ready to hook up to our new spot in KOA Branson. (Picture’s included). After spending most of the day cleaning up we decided to go to the Branson landing to have an early dinner at “Famous Dave’s” for their noted great ribs – and boy they were the best I have ever had!!!! While in that area we went to the St. Louis Club shop and they had a great shirt I wanted Critch to have. (He played for St. Louis in 1941 and they won the pennant while he was overseas). Needless to say, the guys that worked in the store enjoyed talking to Critch and asked him to sign a couple of the baseballs. It was fun for Critch as he so enjoys talking of his baseball days.




More on our Branson adventure as we spend the next 2 weeks here.

LAKE LAVON, TX

Talk about the life - Joe is watching the golf match from his favorite place.

June 9th to 13th:We were delightfully pleased with our “Corp of Engineers” park at Lake Lavon. We had 50/amp service and really nice spots with camp tables covered and beautiful view of the lake. Joe and Kay went to dinner the first night with his cousin and Critch and I stayed home to re-group again!

On Tuesday, Kay, Margaret and I went shopping and had a great day of fun and shopping. David and Margaret (Joe’s cousin) invited us all to go to a great restaurant – The Silver Fox – in Plano, TX for dinner. By the time we came back to camp and changed it was time to head over to pick them up for dinner. The restaurant was fabulous and we had such a fun time with our “aussie” friends. What a delightful couple they are and look forward to spending the next few days with them.

On Wednesday David took the day off and took Joe, Kay and I down to downtown Dallas to see the JFK Memorial. It was such a strange feeling to be right where he was shot as we walked around the block where the memorial stood, then over to where the book depository is and then on the grassy knoll where we met up with a man that had been right there when Kennedy was assassinated when he was 14 years old. I was very interested and surprised that there is still such controversy over how many shots were fired and how he died. We also toured the Museum which was very informative. As you left there, you really question to yourself, what is the truth. There have been millions of books written on all of this but our friend told us to get “6 seconds in Dallas".

We then went to Landry’s for a great crab cake sandwich and followed that with going to the large Farmers Market in downtown. It was great and we loaded up with all kids of vegetable and fruits.

Thursday night Kay and Joe had a bar b que with all of us there for our last night. It was really fun as Margaret and David had never seen such large motorhomes and truly realized how fun we all have.

PROUD MEADOWS RANCH

Critch and Jim Mosebrook. Abiligal -4wks

Thursday morning Jack and Evelyn had to go for doctor appointments so we took our time and left there about 10AM for another easy day of about 166 miles to Waxahachie to visit our friends at Proud Meadows Ranch, Jim and Larry.

We got to the area and as usual I got us lost – for some reason I can never get to this place without going the wrong way and not finding it until I get 10 phone calls to get me there. We did arrive about 3PM and Russell was great in getting us to a place where we thought we would have sewer, electric and water! Low and behold, the electric plug would not work so I immediately thought, oh well, we can use the generator. Since it was Critch's b'day we gathered at Jim's for dinner with Larry, Susan and David and Critch and I - and Jim. Had a fun evening and so enjoyed visiting with everyone. They had quite a storm that night and everyone thought we were lucky to be on the generator as they all lost electricity!!! Ha ha, our generator didn't work either!!!

By the time we woke up in the morning all our batteries were totally dead, including the chassis batteries. Our friend Jim said why don’t you just go where you were last year and hook up to the 30 amp. (No sewer but oh well, I had just dumped) Well by the time we could get the battery charge (after about 5 calls to Supreme RV service) we were able to start the engine (1/2 day gone). The ranch was preparing for a large breeding show so everyone was so busy getting ready for that. In the meantime, our toilet would not work (great to have electric toilets!) and had no idea how to fix that but again after 3 more calls to Supreme RV they explained that it was a fuse – great, not only I couldn’t get cell service in the RV (had to run to Jim’s house each phone call), Russell was busy so I dug in and decided I better figure this out or we were not going to stay in the coach. Supreme told me to get needle nose pliers (I knew I had those, thanks to Mike Rogers), got a flashlight cause I couldn’t see the writing as to which fuse was which. I even had to get a stool as it was too high to see. I got really brave, pulled with my pliers the fuse and stuck one in that place and low and behold, the toilet worked!!! I was so excited that I accomplished that all by myself. Just about that time, Russell came over to say he had some time and would help me. Isn’t Rv’ing fun? Needless to say, we still had all kinds of problems with being able to run the generator and also using 30 amps. I kept blowing circuit backers but when I turned the electric off I could only get 1 air conditioner to work. Needless to say it was the day from hell and I worked on the coach for 12 hours.
Just about the time Critch and decided that we should probably go get a hotel room, it was hot and miserable but Russell and David said go get some dinner then they would watch the dogs and if the generator went off again by that time we would go get a room.

We ran into town and had dinner and when we came back the air was still on and so was the generator. I got Critch to bed as he was tired for me so I joined a whole group of people that were here with the breeding show over at the ranch house. Had a really fun evening and took a lot of teasing – but in my mind I was sure my RV’ing was coming to an end. In fact Jim decided that I should buy a double wide with no engine in it!!!

The breeding show was very interesting and we were waiting for Joe and Kay to arrive on Saturday afternoon. Obviously, Joe as cool as he is, couldn’t understand why I was having so much trouble – everything should be so easy. We got them settled in right next to us behind the arena and watched the Belmont horse race before we headed for the arena for a party. It was very nice and the caterer was also the caterer that did Jena Bush’s reception dinner. The food was excellent and so was the service. They had a DJ for dancing. Critch left pretty early then Kay and I and then Joe left after awhile and saw quite a show – you can ask him about that!!! Apparently, a gal there with quite large breasts, used to be a stripper – she married an executive from Enron that sold all his stock for 300 mil before Enron came down – she put on quite a show, but was really there showing her 3 horses!!!

We got up in the morning to watch the rest of the breeding show. It was very similar to a dog show but obviously these horses were absolutely beautiful. The show ended early and most people retired to rest after a very busy 2 days.

Monday, we needed to wait until the oxygen was delivered to Critch and by noon we all congreated at the arena and had some lunch to just watch some of the horses being worked with. Larry just purchased “James” a beautiful Friesian and he practiced with him. For a 5 yr old he was fantastic. We also saw “Becall” being rid by Susan and she was a fabulous rider with great talent on Becall. We finally got out of there about 3:30Pm to drive over to Lake Lavon where Joe’s cousin lives to visit here for 4 days.

SOMMERVILLE, TX

June 2nd, 2008

We stayed an extra day in San Antonio to catch up with laundry, house cleaning etc., and a little relaxing then headed for an easy day of 168 miles to Somerville, TX to visit friends from my stock Broker days. Jack and Evelyn Naley were waiting for us and thank the lord that Jack met us out on the road to get to their house. I ended up having to go under a rail track that measured 13.4” but I had great faith that I was only 13/1” – we entered and exited very slooooowly and all was okay. When Jack met us we still had 12 miles to go on a single lane road with low overhead trees so it was quite an experience getting to their place. They were so hospitable as they had us parked right next to their house with 50 amp electric service. We didn’t have water or sewer but we had prepared for that and had both the water and emptied the sewer before we got there.

We had such a great time visiting with them, the first night we sat in our coach and had a few drinks and Evelyn made great lasagna for dinner. Tuesday we relaxed all day, Evelyn took me for a ride around the Somerville Lake which is quite large. Although it was very windy, it was a beautiful looking lake and I am sure had some great fish in it. Their home is actually only a block from the water but we took a ride to the damn. That night Jack decided to bar be que steak and lobster and was that excellent – he should start his new career and become a restaurant owner!!!! Sorry Jack, enjoy your retirement, you deserve it.

On Wednesday we decided to drive to College Station and see the George Bush library at Texas A&M. I am so glad we did that as it really was interesting. Best of all for Critch was all the baseball memorabilia and he spent a lot of time reviewing and recollecting some of the players he played with and also knew. I truly enjoyed seeing the family and life of George Herbert Walker and Barbara Bush and their years in the White House. I actually had my picture taken behind his desk in the oval office and a picture with me sitting next to George and Barbara at a baseball game!!! Obviously, I truly enjoyed the gift shop as there was so much to see and was able to get some things for the family.

Thursday morning Jack and Evelyn had to go for doctor appointments so we took our time and left there about 10AM for another easy day of about 166 miles to Waxahachie to visit our friends at Proud Meadows Ranch, Jim and Larry.