Back from Branson

We arrived home early this afternoon after a lovely three days in the Ozarks. I've just finished looking through all the photos we took. I'll try to put them on Picasa over the next couple of days. For now, I'll just tell you briefly what we did:

Thursday evening: arrival at Tribesman Resort (stayed in a one-bedroom apartment with full kitchen and free washer and dryer) and a late dinner out. Noel just about fell asleep at the table.

Friday: Silver Dollar City. We had decided to pass on this because of the expense (about $150 for admission) but sucked it up and went anyway. Then we experienced the most amazing phenomenon: season-ticket holders giving away guest passes at the entrance to the park. We were approached twice, but the first time it didn't work because we had to enter with the season-ticket owners, who had already gone in after giving us their discounted passes. A second generous couple came up to us, this time with free passes for adults and $5 off a child's admission, so we got in for $36! If this kind of thing happens often, it was news to us, and we were blown away. Not only that, the weather was absolutely perfect, and we had a wonderful day, staying from opening until nearly closing. Dominick loved the Lost River, American Plunge, and the Flooded Mine. His favorite part of SDC? The railroad crossing. He drove us crazy constantly wanting to see the "bump." Another memorable moment was when Dominick stripped down to his underwear to run through the fountains near Geyser Gulch. It was a struggle to put his clothes on again. After all that, he didn't really go in the fountain. Noel's favorite part was the ball play at Geyser Gulch.

Saturday: Miniature golfing (the fastest, most frenetic game I've participated in, although I did get two consecutive holes-in-one) in the morning, lunch, back to the resort for Noel's nap (yes, he took a good one!), then out again for go-karts and dinner. Despite all the fun, the highlight of the day, for me, had to be when we returned to our room for the afternoon. Dominick, poor deprived child, was fascinated by the wrapped bar soap and amused himself for a significant amount of time by talking about it, wrapping it in a towel to give to Noel for his birthday, and then creating conversations between the bar soap and a penny. Both were later lost, but Dominick took it like a man.

Sunday: home, and time to get ready for a new school year and a new refrigerator tomorrow.

(That's me and Dominick in the front of the boat going down the American Plunge.)