My Newbie is Showing...Part 3

Day 2: August 19 Branson Vacation

So when we finally started moving in the morning, the first thing we see are these hideous red pictures with squiggle lines that looked like worms. Cindy just had to post the ugly on her Facebook page. Me? I wanted to go as no tech as possible. Cellphone for emergencies only and that was not an emergency. (Messaging the Iowa sign and the Fonda golf course sign to my brother was an emergency because he is snotty.) Seriously, Comfort Inn is proud to display shadow box picture of these squiggle lines that remind me of worms. They truly need a better buyer for their “art” work. They even had the audacity to put their markers on those pictures. Cindy had to post the ugliness on Facebook. As if anyone would dare steal those ugly things.
This was a no/low tech vacation for me, so I refused to do FB, or computer anything and the phone would be for emergency only. But if Cindy wanted to use her phone for FB, I was surprisingly okay about that. In a FB message, Denise found out we were all travelling together and told Tom: Safe travels keep those girls in line. His response? "I gave up on that yesterday." Always good to start the morning out laughing. So while we were giggling about this, that and the other, us three women were commiserating about not getting any sleep. So before the gripe and moan session about not getting enough sleep kicked in, Tom pipes in, “Oh, I guarantee you were sleeping, you had an acapella chorus going. It was Sh, sh, purr. All night. You were all in rhythm so I got to sleep eventually.” Little snot that I married.
So we filled our tummy with the continental breakfast and headed off to Branson again. I was the designated driver. I could get anywhere as long as Babs told me where to go and I had a co-pilot looking out for the right exits and motorcycles. I was so glad to get into Branson alive. Some dingbat semi driver did not want to share the road. I had to ride the sidelines and pull in behind the fool. All the while Babs is screaming at me to get in the far left lane. Okay, Babs. Here I go.
I think the most interesting thing I saw right bfore pulling into Branson was an Amish taxi. For real. I can’t make this stuff up. I bet the semi did not try to run him over.
Don’t ever admit to me that you invent round-abouts or wreck perfectly good streets to stick those creations from hell in place. I think I would strangle you or at least kick you in the whoo hoo because I know for sure it was a man who did this and probably just for laughs.
As we pulled into Branson to get the vouchers for all the event tickets, I was floored by all the attractions. Old town is fabulous. Didn’t like parking on a hill so much, but the older part of town is gorgeous. There is a huge Amish population in Branson. They roam about, giggling and laughing, spending their money on “modern” things. It was cute. You can tell the difference between Amish and Mennonite in that the Amish men where blue shirts and side button pants, with a farmer’s hat. The married men will have beards and no mustache. The Mennonites drive vehicles and wear white shirts.
The sights and smells of Old Town took my breath away. We only stopped long enough to pick up the ticket vouchers and then head out to the home base. Lucky for us there is a Walmart with food on the way so we stopped and stocked up on what we would need for the week. We overdo everything so I not a surprise that this was one more thing where we overdid it.
The actual place where we were going to stay was in Hollister. It is easily a million dollar house that the owners rent out to tourists. Babs tried, but the road to get to this hidden treasure is complicated. I am sitting at the stoplight in the far right lane and Babs is telling me to take a left turn. The sisters are telling me I have to go straight and turn around. HA. NOT I. I took a right turn and left u-turn to get pointed in the right direction. Granted Cindy’s tapes went flying all over and everyone except me was grabbing for the suicide handle, but I got the job done. Sort of. After everyone is relaxed again, I asked Cindy why she is not yelling at me and letting me drive. She surprised me when she said she is glad it’s not her driving and she wants me to keep driving. So that’s how I got to be the designated driver for the week-long vacation.
The house was a four bedroom, 3 bath, big house. Everything was open and we were on the river. The worst part of the place was this shabby chic décor. But the appliances were quite nice. We pulled in around 4:00 which was just enough time to get a light supper (sandwich) and get to town for the Spirit of the Dance.
The four of us used one car and my dad and stepmom, brother and sister-in-law went in the other. I thought we would go as a team, but they shooed us off and went in a different direction. There is only one way in and one way out of that cove, they should have followed us. Instead, they managed to find their way and came up 20 minutes later. Apparently, they thought they knew the way, and my brother was talking over their Garmen, so they ended up all turned around. They followed up back to the house this time and so they did not get lost or turned around, but the stepmom and brother were still bickering all the time.
I got a few souvenirs with my credit card and that’s the last I saw of it. The rest of the vacation was using hubby’s credit card or cash. Can we say pain in the patootie? Or ARRRRGGGGHHHH? I needed, like really needed, to shake something really, really hard.