Branson

We spent some time lounging around the time share this morning. Lovely.

 

We actually spent the whole day today in town. So unusual for us. We took a tour all around the whole area so we could see Table Lake and other spots around town. After our scenic loop we went to the historic district of Branson to check out the stores. First can I say what a hot and humid day! What looked like little hills to climb became like mountains in no time. Whew!

Christina and I found a Victorian shop that was incredible. There was so much stuff everywhere in true Victorian style that it was pretty overwhelming. We just walked around and stared.

 

Right next door was another amazing store. Dick's 5 & 10. What a blast from the past. Each row was fun to go up and down because every single aisle was different. I loved the old sewing notions that looked just like they would have years and years ago. They had candies from days gone by that I haven't seen in years. 

 

Apparently I walked right by a penny smashing machine numerous times too and never even noticed. So later when I figured that out we had to climb back up the hill so I could smash some pennies for the grand kids. 

 

We had a great time doing more antique shopping. I think we are hooked now big time on antiquing. I get it though because now all the "antiques" are things from my childhood and have such fond memories attached! We are loving it. We rode out the afternoon shower in an antique shop or two and then went down the hill to get some lunch.  We opted for a healthy lunch at Subway and then not so healthy snack of ice cream. Total rip off but it tasted good anyway. We took a lovely stroll down by the river and loved the cool breeze.

 

 There was a cute bunch of ducklings swimming around that we watched for awhile.

 

 After we walked around for awhile we decided it was time for dinner at Olive Garden. 

We still had lots of time to get to the show thank goodness because the traffic was the usual jam up on the way down the "strip". 

We had heard great things about the show SIX so we were excited to check that one out tonight. It is six brothers of ten that perform together with absolutely no instruments. They were amazing.They each have a camero they park out front before the show.

 

 

After the show we got talking about it and decided they just had to be LDS. They showed family pictures and they were all dressed so modestly. One of them knew Japanese so we were guessing mission experience. It just started to all add up to us. We decided to go back for the meet and greet afterward the show and get their autographs and find out. 

Sure enough every single one of them was a returned missionary. Pretty cool. We only had a second to chat but we enjoyed meeting these guys. It was an great night with a fun performance. We highly recommend it!!

Driving the Ozarks

We decided to have a relaxing day and tour the Ozark Mountains. We spent a few minutes buying our show tickets for tomorrow and then drove through Branson to find a place for brunch. We decided on a Belgium waffle and pancake house since IHOP was packed to the rafters as usual. After Breakfast we took hwy 65 south to see what we could see out there. It got really pretty by Buffalo National River. Love that river. It's just gorgeous and peaceful too.

We drove right to an amazing overlook with a cute little gift shop so of course we had to stop there.

This is the site of the now infamous "Mom is ignoring me while I'm trying to take a picture of us" picture. hahaha. I was pretty busy trying to figure out the settings on my camera and needed a minute or two. It was pretty funny.

That camera wasn't so easy to figure out! We drove through some beautiful countryside that afternoon. We stopped several times to just take pictures and enjoy it. We discovered you better not take an unfamiliar road thinking you could just turn around and go back because you usually had to go clear down the mountain before you could even find a place to turn around! The tree lined back roads were breathtaking for us dessert rats and that was our favorite.

We stopped at Mystic Caverns on our way back . We had missed the tour by 25 min before but this time we were just 5 min back so they caught us up to the tour. Perfect. It was really beautiful. Not huge but it was a very nice stop.

 

 

 

 As we were driving back to Branson we decided this would be the best night to run up to Ozark City and go to Lamberts. It was a good half hour north. We got the tip that it was super fun and good food. The place was huge thank goodness because it was completely packed to the rafters with hungry people, including us. There was tons of food to pick from but no matter what you ordered they came around with pots of additional dishes for you to get a scoop of. We passed on the fried okra. We tried the macaroni with tomatoes. The fried potatoes were excellent. Of course the most fun thing was the rolls. They literally threw you a roll. Even if you were right by them you better catch a roll. The rolls themselves were probably the best rolls I have ever had. Sorry mom. Seriously killer good.

 

 Notice how enormous the drink mugs were! We did NOT need any refills.

 

 

Another super fun day in Branson.

Made it to Branson Missouri

We finally made it to Branson at the end of our day of driving and we were happy to be there. We just drove straight freeway this time after checking out the Blue Whale and got to our time share. When we finally got all checked in we went to unload and we noticed they gave us a lockoff room with just one bed. Well that wasn't right and there was no way we would fit so they moved us with no problem. Thank goodness because we were pretty tired. It was pretty late (again) so we just hit Cracker Barrel for dinner then called it a night.

Bright and early (ok after we slept in I mean) we started off with a time share presentation! Ya we are dumb. It was supposed to be how better to use ours etc etc bla bla bla. Didn't do much for my mood but I'm happy to report we didn't buy anything but we did get three tickets to a show tonight. Oh and lunch, sorta not the best but oh well it was free lunch. So it's true...no such thing as a free lunch. It cost two hours of my life.

Here we are on our time share tour when I'm still in a good mood.

Photo cred going to Christina who screen shot her snapchats for me.

After our tour we drove around Branson a bit, picked up our tickets for the show and hit the outlet mall to do a little shopping.  There were some pretty good deals to be had unfortunately.

After our shopping break we headed back to our time share for a bbq dinner they put on.  They bring in a ton of acts from the local shows to kind of give everyone an idea of what their performances are out there and what you might like to see. It was actually a great idea.

Christina and I got the giggles so bad over this brochure. Our tables were full of brochures of the shows for everyone to look at. Giggles? Ok it was full on roflol. He was actually a great performer but his wig was hilarious to say the least.

After the dinner/show it was time to go see the Haygoods perform. Our first ever Branson live show.

Ready for the show to start.

It was quite the opening act.


We really enjoyed the show. I admit I had low/no expectations but it was really fun. It was very upbeat and we had a great time. So much fun we got tickets to another show this week!

Tulsa Time on Route 66

By now it seems like we have been on the road for days and days but we kinda have. We enjoyed going through Texas and were excited to hit the OK border since we still had some miles to go. We got to Weatherford and figured we better have dinner before everything was closed for the night. We found a gem in Lucille's Roadhouse! It was originally a service station and eventually a diner and now both a diner and steakhouse. Unfortunately we were too late to eat in the diner but dinner at the steak house was great. We enjoyed the blue lemonade, a house specialty.

 

 

We spent the night in Oklahoma City after driving through the rest of New Mexico, Texas and part of Oklahoma in one day. Pounding out the miles like that really makes it hard to see so much of what Route 66 has to offer but we tried to get in lots of highlights.

The next day we drove through Tulsa. This was a first for us for us and we were looking forward to it especially after I read that it was famous for the Art Deco style! It was true. Who knew Tulsa's architecture was so amazing!  Lots of pictures. Sorry not sorry!

We spent some time antiquing in Tulsa which was a blast. 

 

Lots of great finds and reasonable prices too. 

 

We went to Talley's Cafe for lunch. The food was good just not super clean there but it might not have helped that we arrived just after the lunch rush. Great decor with the red/black. 

 

We enjoyed a plate of fried green tomatoes with our lunch.

 

 

 

We had such a good time in Tulsa it was sad to leave.

 

We saw this fun arch on the way out of town.

Not far out of town at Catoosa is the Blue Whale. I knew since seeing it on the Great Food Truck Race we had to see it for ourselves.

 

We also made a quick detour for the Totem Pole Park, site of the "world's largest totem pole".

Further down the road you have to drive the I 44 by Vinita so you can drive right under the world's largest McDonald's. It seriously straddles the freeway.

On to Missouri!