Branson, Missouri

This morning we awoke to mostly cloudy skies, that looked like they might drop rain, and the air felt somewhat humid. I had slept a little later than normal due to an interruption to my soft slumber at 3 am when I felt something crawling on my arm. We've seen so many ticks that after I reflexively swiped it off, I turned on the light, expecting to see a tick, but instead saw a fat bodied spider. I found a Kleenex and eventually got it smooshed, but by then my adrenaline was flowing pretty well and sleep didn't come back immediately.

Here's Tim and Gwen's big yard moose that I love.

Once I went inside Tim and Gwen's, I learned that Greg and Brock (and Heidi) were going to drive to a nearby park for a run and Gwen, Sharon C., and Sarah were going to walk the trail while they did that. Gwen graciously suggested that their washer and dryer was empty and available and so I took her up on it and did a couple of loads of free laundry. Woohoo!

I got out our grill with the griddle and Russ whipped up some perfect pancakes on it and Betty made some crispy bacon in the house and everyone who was around the house ate a great breakfast, enjoyed our coffee and/or juice and especially enjoyed visiting with one another. The kids played together some outside, some dominoes, some video games.

I brought in and washed up our dishes from the trailer (since the gray tank is full and I couldn't do it in there). Bryn and I got the first load of clothes folded and I took a nice shower in Tim and Gwen's shower.

Once I was putting all my toiletries away, Brock and the rest of the exercisers got back.  A crew of people decided to head into Bass Pro Shop. Since I still had the laundry going and Brock still needed to shower and we both needed to get the trailer ready for travel, we stayed at the house, but Brighton was invited to go and he was thrilled.

All of us, minus Brighton, worked together to get the trailer all ready to leave. We thought it might be difficult to get the trailer turned around in the driveway, but Brock did it no problem at all and so we were ready to head out. We needed to leave before everyone else because we had to drive to a dump station and get all emptied before we hit the highway for Branson. I got the last load of clothes folded and we loaded up and headed out. It was only about a 10 minute drive to the dump station in a nearby little town and then we were on the freeway headed for out destination.

Branson was only about a 45 minute drive away. We were surprised by how pretty the area actually was. It is a lot hillier and greener than I expected.

The plan was to get to our rv park, get setup, get the air conditioning going for Heidi and leave her and the trailer at the park and meet everyone at The Rib Crib for all-you-can-eat ribs.

We followed Tom right through historic Branson and he said we'd arrived at our destination only we hadn't. He'd taken us to Turkey Creek Campground or something like that when we were looking for and had reservations for was Ozark Country Campground because it was the closest one to the Worldmark Resort that everyone else was staying at and it was a participator in the Passport America program which would give us unlimited days at half-price.

We ended up having to make this big 18 mile loop to get back to the other side of Branson where the campground was actually located. We'll need to report that to Rand McNally that their database is wrong. This is a good lesson though...always doublecheck with the actual source to get the address instead of just looking up the campground from the internal gps directory.

The campground looked great with full hookups and very nice, helpful staff. We got unhooked very quickly, took Heidi for a quick pee break, filled up her water and locked her in. She didn't seem to mind much though because she was pretty zapped from running in the heat this morning.

We made it to the Rib Crib before the entire party was finished eating, but not by much and once they were done some of the group watched us eat for awhile. ;o) The ribs were really good. We learned the difference between St. Louis and Baby Back ribs and between the sweet and sticky style and the rubbed. Our favorites were the sweet & sticky baby backs. The meat was leaner, more tender and just fell off the bones so it wasn't hard to eat. We ate a lot and the sides were great too! We decided that all-you-can-eat isn't necessarily a good thing for us because it does encourage you to eat beyond when you would normally stop and we were a little uncomfortable when we walked out of there. (To the Moses Family: "Our food babies were kicking!"

One table nearly finished with their ribs...

...and one table hungry because of the delays. (We didn't have to wait long)

We left The Rib Crib and drove to the Worldmark so that the rest of the gang could get checked in to their rooms. We enjoyed seeing the resort and getting more time to visit.

Gwen gave Brynna a private, crash course in knitting and Brynna really had a knack for it. She picked it up very quickly. Gwen generously gave Brynna some cool bamboo circular needles to get her started and some yarn so that she can keep practicing and not quickly lose what she learned today.

While Brynna was knitting, Brock took the boys and several others from the group went over to the rec room for a competitive game of ping pong and Spencer worked out in the fitness room reporting that he burned 500 calories on the treadmill. Brock said he was on it for nearly an hour straight.

Eventually several of the group went swimming in the resort's pool and enjoyed a vigorous game of marco polo. Greg and Jim were especially good sports to get that going and it looked like everyone had a great time. The rest of us enjoyed watching from the pool deck and lawn chairs.

The marco polo crew

A challenging game by the looks of it

Sweet big brother moment when Bri sweeps up Sky and carries him around shouting "Polo!"

The evening finished with a few snacks in the condo and highly anticipatory discussion of what tomorrow will be like and who will be brave enough for what rides. We are all looking forward to Silver Dollar City!