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The Drive: Well, we’re here… we arrived Friday afternoon around 4. The drive itself wasn’t that bad, we made great time through Texas, Oklahoma and all the way the Fayetteville AK, where we stopped for lunch. You’d think with classes out for the summer the home of the Razorbacks wouldn’t be so crowded, but the traffic in the town was ridiculous. We headed north on 540 for a while and everything seemed normal until we turned to the good ol’ state named “highways” … things like AR-102, AR-37, MO-76 … yet they’re not just named that… the google map directions read more like The Mitchell report (”should we be on 76, or 86?” … “both are listed” … “How can a road be 76 and 86?” … “wait, this sign says we’re on ‘DD’, who names their highway after Dolly’s cup size??”… “Make a right at 112 or 13b or Main street”… ) and was flat out wrong at least once (beyond that I just guessed with my keen sense of direction and we ended up exactly where we needed to be). And of course “highway” is not really descriptive for this group of roads… winding and nerve-racking, fluctuating between 25 and 55 MPH, up and down steep grades and around blind corners… in an SUV that doesn’t get the best gas millage or handle all that well. But, none the less, we made it…

We relaxed in our condo the rest of the night (video / pics to come), had a nice picnic lunch on our balcony overlooking Table Rock Lake, and planned out the rest of the week the best we could. But if anyone has ever gone on vacation with a couple of kids and a just as unpredictable weather forecast, you know plans are futile:

Saturday, Branson Day 1: Our plan today was to go shopping for the week, and then head for the pool. Maybe finish with a movie at the condo… Hey, with a full kitchen and dishwasher, what better way for my wife to relax than spending less overall money and cooking us lunch and dinner nearly every day? But honestly, by eating easy meals in, i’m guessing we’re going to save $100-200 (and it was her idea anyway). Besides, its saturday, so why do any of the touristy stuff on the busiest of all days? So we headed out about 10:15 this morning to an unbelievable site: Traffic… was… beyond… insane, in one particular direction, which happened to lead right to our front door (we’re one of the resorts in walking distance to their biggest attraction, Silver Dollar City). We’re going out camera in hand tomorrow around the same time in hopes of seeing it again… seriously, it was awe inspiring. Luckily, we were headed the opposite direction, but I was quite apprehensive about coming back through the traffic just 30 minutes later after our trip to Wally World, so we decided a change of plans was in order.

Instead of heading straight to Wal Mart, we took a drive down 76 East, right through the heart of Branson. I figured if we were going to fight traffic, we might as well get something in return. Of all the things we had planned, the most relaxing way to start off the week logically fell to Riding the Ducks. All of us were looking forward to this, just for the family fun experience… we knew the girls would enjoy it, and we knew the ‘rents wouldn’t have to put in a whole lot of effort. The only downside is we didn’t have our camera with us… after all, we have Wal Mart’s in Texas so I didn’t see the need to bring it along. We did get some phone pics that I’ll post later this week.

After the nice 80 minute tour, we ate some Mc’Ds and took the back roads home. We were just about the only car on the road, which surprised me considering every tourist had the same map I did. But in any case, it was a quick and easy trip, but there was still about a mile and half strip which flowed right through the heart of traffic we we amazed at earlier in the day. By some act of God, the traffic had cleared and we made our way to the Supercenter before heading back to the condo, finishing off the day with an hour at the pool.

So for now, i’m sitting in the office (the extent of their wireless network doesn’t reach to our room) while checking in on some very unimportant things while the little one sleeps and the two bigger ones watch a movie. So until next time… “quack quack”

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Category : Family