Treasure Lake, Branson IL 9/19/2012 - 9/24/2012

We have had several family members and friends, and other RVers, who have visited Branson, MO.  All of them have just raved about the place and the shows.  So, we did a little back-tracking so we could be one of those people who talk about going there! 

 

The park we stayed in was really nice.  It wasn't a Thousand Trails park, so we came in on our Coast to Coast membership. 

The park has a really nice little lake just as you come in the entrance.  We even saw people fishing in it.  The park is located right in the town of Branson, at one end where all three of their main roads come together.  That was handy because we were able to come and go really easily.

 

 The busy season was over so they let us choose our site. Usually, people coming in on a Coast to Coast membership have to park in certain areas of the resort.  Even though we had a nice site, we didn't spend too much time in the park because our reason for going there was to see the shows.

 

The first place we hit was the 2 for 1 ticket store.  Actually, we had already stopped at a "welcome center" right before we got into Branson and were talked into going to a time-share presentation.  The 90 minute presentation ended up to be 3 hours and they weren't too happy when we said, "Thanks, but no thanks."  But, we did leave with four tickets to some top shows!  We went to eight different shows while we were there, so the 2 for 1 tickets really helped with the rest of them.  I am going to post all of the shows, just for the sake of having it in our "journal" when I print off this BLOG.  Hope it isn't too boring of a read!  A lot of the pictures are from their flyers.  Not many of them would allow picture taking during their performances.

 I think the Haygoods was probably one of my favorite shows.  It was a family of all brothers and one sister.  They sang a lot of different types of music and had comedy mixed in.  They played over 20 different instruments and it was really good family entertainment.  Most all of the shows we saw had audience participation of some kind.  These guys threw out huge beach balls and we all batted them around.  All of the shows are video-taped and then you can buy them after the show, especially if you were on the video when they taped the audience batting around the beach balls!

 

 Yakov Smirnoff is a Russian immigrant who came to the United States as a young person and is now a US citizen.  He tells his story as he makes you both laugh and cry at the same time.  He is very patriotic and believes that laughter can help make world peace.  By the time you leave his performance, you truly believe that you can make all of your trials and problems easier with laughter.  He has a great authentic Russian Dance Troupe that performed--he sometimes performed with them!

Outside his theater is this head statue of Yakov and it talks to you as you come in and makes you laugh even before the show stars. 

 

 A really popular show is called SIX.  They are six brothers that are from a family of 10 boys--no girls!  They are dubbed "an orchestra-of-human-voices."  All of the sounds that are heard in the show come from their voices, but you know there must be drums, guitars, saxophones, and other instruments behind the curtain.  They are pretty amazing.  They have six different colored, different sized cubes on stage that they stand on and re-arrange during the show, and the only other thing on the stage are their microphones.  During one part, they show some car races and chases on the screen and all of the sounds the cars make come from their voices.  Crazy!

 

 SIX preformed at the Mickey Gilley Theater.

 

Rock Around the Clock was done by Bill Haley's Original Comets (well, two of them were original Comets) which was the group that recorded the songs "Rock Around the Clock" and "Shake Rattle & Roll."  They were said to have been the first band of rock 'n' roll.  The original Comet sax man Joey Ambrosse, 78 years old, and drummer Dick Richards-Boccelli, 88 years old, are still in the band.  They brought back lots of old memories (some were so old that we didn't even remember them.)

Mel Tillis was undoubtedly Terry's favorite show.  He is the country singer and actor that stutters--but not when he sings.  Terry has been a long-time fan of his.  We were lucky to see his show because he isn't always in Branson.  He is 80 years old and is still singing, although he only sings a few songs and then takes a little break.  His son, Mel Tillis, Jr., is a song writer and he was there and sang a few songs--a really cool one he wrote about his dad.  In the middle of the performance, Mel Tillis came out into the audience and gave away some CDs and a copy of his cookbook!

 

The stage that Mel Tillis performed on was pretty cool--with the big guitars hanging down.

This is what happens when you go to a country western show--some "cowboy" sits in front of you with his big cowboy hat on!  Thank goodness someone coming into the row in front of us knocked it off and he must have realized that maybe he should leave it off.

As you can imagine, Terry was just thrilled when Mel Tillis took time to sign an autograph for him and then let us take a "once in a lifetime" picture!  I am sure it will be one of Terry's prized possessions!

 

Some of the shows were in really fancy theaters--like "The Mansion."  It really suited its name, and is just as nice inside.

 

 The theater inside is really big.  As you can see, we were one of the first people there to see Red Skelton, which was actually Tom Mullica impersonating Red Skelton.  It was a Saturday morning show and only about 50 people showed up.  The usher said that was the smallest crowd all season.

Tom Mullica actually met Red Skelton and became a good friend of his.  There is a picture in the lobby of Red Skelton's wife giving Tom Mullica an original hat and bow tie that Red Skelton wore during his shows.  He did a good job impersonating, but one of the funniest parts of the show was a lady in the audience that laughed so loud during the whole thing.  We laughed as much at her as we did the performance.  "Red" kept offering her money (more each offer) to come back to his next show!  Terry and I were both Red Skelton fans and so it was a fun show.

One of the evenings we went to see a show at the Grand County Music Hall.  It reminded us of some of the Las Vegas buildings, but without all of the alcohol, gambling, and girlie attractions all over it!

At the Grand Country Music Hall we saw the Grand Jubilee.  There was a great quartet, with a base singer that could sing "in the basement!"  The emcee and his co-hart, "Jim Dandy"--who ended up being quite a musician on every instrument on the stage, and a great singer--provided lots of comedy.  There were also two other singers who were really good.  They all sang some country, some rock & roll, and some gospel.  This performance taught us that it is not wise to sit on the front row, or even the second row!  Twice they brought up a lady from the audience, one from the front row and one from the second row, and "sang" to her.  It was hilarious.  But, I am sure that those women's husbands bought the video of that performance.

Another really nice theater was the White House Theater.  It was also very elegant inside.

The show we saw there was The Legend of Kungfu.  The Legend of Kung Fu tells the story of a young boy, Chun Yi (the pure one), who is apprenticed to learn the ancient art of Kung Fu. This story is told through the eyes of the young boy and his older Kung Fu Master. Along the way he overcomes obstacles, is distracted and ultimately achieves the designation of master.  This production combines the elements of kung fu, story-telling, acrobatics, modern dance and original music to celebrate the philosophy and skill of martial arts.  The Legend of Kung Fu was the designated show for the opening of The Beijing Olympics and features more than 50 artists on stage with spectacular sound, lights and costumes native to China.  (Can you tell this narrative is straight from the flyer?!)

After the show, a lot of the performers came out in the foyer to "meet and greet" the audience.  They provided an interpreter to help because they knew very little English.

The young boys were really impressive in the show.  But, when someone asked them if they went to school, they looked at each other like "what did she say?"  Even they could not speak English.

The show was really well done.

Everyone had talked about the bad traffic in Branson.  Most of it was pretty good for us (after Labor Day things start slowing down there) until Saturday night.  It took us about 45 minutes to go 2 miles!  Thank goodness we had allowed ourselves some extra time that night and we were not late for the show.

There are so many things to see and do in Branson that you could stay there a long time.  We were there for five days, but it was not near long enough!  This was kind of a unique building that held Ripley's Believe It or Not (which we didn't go see.)

There are a couple of big lakes by Branson and you see these strange "Ducks" driving around.  They just come and pick you up, drive you to the lake, and take you for a boat ride--all in the same vehicle (which we didn't do.)

 

On every corner, practically, there were lots of family things to do, like go-carts, water slides, and fancy miniature golf courses (which we didn't play.)  The best thing about Branson is that it is a "family- oriented Las Vegas"--lots of glitter and lights and shows and fun, without any of the "bad stuff."

 

 I had to post a picture of the Duttons.  They also have a theater in Mesa, AZ.  We wanted to go see them, but we decided we could see them when were are in Apache Junction, AZ, this summer.  They are an LDS family and we have heard that their show is great.  It was really fun, because when we went to Church on Sunday,  the guy in the back row in the picture was there and is the Mission Leader, the guy in the middle in the front row taught Terry in his Priesthood class, the gal on the right gave the closing prayer in Sacrament Meeting, and she and the gal on the left were both in relief society with me.  That was kind of exciting for us!  They all live in Branson half the year and in Mesa half of the year.  We can't wait to see their show in Mesa this summer.

 

Well, the afternoon before we left Branson, we did take time to walk around the park a little.  It is a really big park and has lots of amenities.  Maybe another time we can spend more time enjoying them.

 

 I should never had laid the camera down while I played on this alligator!

Lost Valley Lake, Owensville MO 9/6/2012 - 9/19/202





After leaving the Nauvoo area, we headed for Missouri.  Terry's mom was born in Gallatin, MO, so we considered going that way.  But, it would have added an additional 300 miles to our trip, so we decided to just head to our next ROD park.  The Ozark Mountains cover a large part of Missouri.  They are just "big hills" in comparison to the mountains in the West--the highest elevation a little over 2700 feet.  But, it is a lot different county compared to Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois.  There are a lot of trees, but not many pine trees. 

 

Our park was really nice.  It is surrounded by several small towns, the closest being about 15 miles away, but it does have a small Walmart! 

The park is quite hilly, but we got a spot at the bottom of a tree-less, grassy hill on one side, and the forest on the other.  There are several sections to the park, which would have been really nice for bike riding, but some of the hills were too much for us in most of the other areas.

On the property there is this catfish pond, which they regularly stocked, and two other really pretty lakes.  You can fish in them without a fishing license and there was no park fishing fee, either.  This little pond usually had fishermen around it.  We are still not big fans of eating catfish!

This lake is the closest to a small dam.  It is very nice and has a bike trail around half of it, which we rode.  They have canoes, row boats, and paddle boats you can rent.  There is a dock out in the swimming area with a slide on it.  There were a few people using these facilities on the weekends.

This was the closest lake to our campsite.  Terry didn't bring his fishing pole with us this year because out-of-state fishing licenses are usually quite spendy.  So, he had to go into Walmart and get an inexpensive pole and try his luck.  He didn't have any luck, but we had a nice time.

This resort has a large, beautiful lodge.  It is just being re-built from burning down from a fire a year ago.  It will be really nice when they get it done.   They also have in indoor aquatics center with two pools and a hot tub.  They have an large outdoor pool (which they closed after Memorial Day.)  There is a small store and snack bar and a restaurant that has meals on the weekends (since Memorial Day.)  Their sports center burnt down a few months before the clubhouse.  They just opened the new Lake Expo building five months ago.  It is beautiful.  It is two stories, with a large event room, smaller meeting rooms, miniature golf, basketball court, arcade room, shuffleboard, and more on the bottom floor.  On the top floor they have a fitness room, a Marilyn Monroe meeting room, a lounge, a spa where you can get massages, etc., and a theater that is as big as the one in Emmett!  They will show a movie every 2-3 hours during the day and evening.  If the slot is not filled, you can request a movie and if they have it, you can see it in the theater!  We watched several movies while we were there.

Instead of a trampoline, they have this large rubber, blow-up (they would let all of the air out if it rained because it was really slippery when it got wet) jumping pillow.  It was really popular with the kids and adults.  We never jumped on it, but it looked like fun.

 

With one side of our campsite next to the forest, we occasionally saw deer in the area.  This one just meandered across the road in front of us one day.

The people in this part of the country is very religious.  We have never seen so many churches.  There are a lot of denominations--Lutheran, Baptist, Catholic, and others.  A lot of the churches are quite small and many have little cemeteries.  We never saw any really big community cemeteries--they were all just little ones around a church, or just very small ones along a county road. 

The people here are very patriotic.  One of the schools put all of these flags out in front of their school on 9/11.

With all of the churches, we still had to travel over 40 miles to find an LDS church to go to on the two Sundays we were there.  We went to a ward one Sunday and to a branch the next Sunday.  We also got a chance to go to the St. Louis Temple one day.  It was only 60 miles away and was beautiful.

Coming home one day from town, we saw a squished turtle on the road.  A little further, there was a little one right in the middle of the road.  Terry didn't hit it, so we went back and got him.  He is a male box turtle (we found that out, thanks to the Internet) and is about the size of my fist.  We named him Homer.  He is so cute!

We went to Walmart and got him a little "condo."  I first put in rocks, dirt, weeds, and a "little pond."  But later, I found out that the dirt wasn't good, and the rocks may scratch his shell, and the "pond" rusted.  So, I remodeled his condo with shredded paper, a little cardboard "cave" and a plastic pond that wouldn't rust.

The first night we left him outside.  The next morning there were muddy paw prints all over the top of Homer's house and all of the pieces of apples and bananas and lettuce were gone.  There were also paw prints all over the tablecloth and seat covers of the picnic table.  We were glad that Homer had a nice shell to protect himself, because raccoons can make a tasty meal of a little turtle!  After that, we took Homer inside each night.

Even after Homer wasn't enticing that little coon to come around, he still walked all over our car each night.  We left the window open one night, about an inch, and he was really determined to try and get in because we couldn't even see out of the window for all of the mud on it one morning after it had rained a little.  We had to go to the car wash!

I have been telling Terry that he needs to find a hobby.  He vetoed needlepoint, but after seeing our nephew's scroll saw, he decided to get one.  I gave up half of my Scentsy room and made room for a scroll saw.

Terry doesn't think he is very good yet, but I think he did a great job on his first project--a set of coasters for our little table!

 

Well, little Homer never really adjusted to his new home.  We had him for five days and he hadn't eaten anything.  Even though they can go two weeks without eating, we didn't want him to go into hibernation mode (from the Internet), so we decided he would be happier back in the wild.

We turned him loose down by the lake.  Here he is giving us a good-bye look!  We will miss him!



Carthage & Nauvoo IL 9/4/2012 - 9/6/2012

One thing we wanted to do on this trip East was to go to some of the Church historical sites.  We made a bit of a detour to our next park, which was in Missouri.  We wanted to get close to Carthage and to Nauvoo, Illinois, so we decided to go that way and stay a couple of nights in a Walmart parking lot, just across the Mississippi River into Keokuk, Iowa.

 

On our way to KeoKuk, we actually went through Carthage, IL, so we just parked our RV in the Carthage Jail parking lot and took the tour.  Carthage Jail was the site of the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum on June 27, 1844.  Joseph and Hyrum, with two companions, were imprisoned here.  A mob broke into the jail, killed Joseph and Hyrum, and severely wounded one of their companions. 

This is the outside of the jail.  The upper window on the right is the one that Joseph fell from after he was shot. 

 

The jail who befriended Joseph Smith actually lived in the same building, with his family.  This is part of their living quarters on the first floor.

This is the room where Joseph and the others were put into the first night.

Then, the second night, the jailer had compassion on them and let them stay upstairs in his bedroom.  Joseph and Hyrum slept on the bed and the others slept on the floor. 

 This is the bedroom door that still has the bullet holes in it from when the mob attacked them that night.  We watched a movie about all of this before we went on the tour.  Our guide was really good and made you feel like your were right there as it happened.  I have a testimony that all of this happened and that Joseph Smith, the first prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints, sacrificed his life for the restoration of the true gospel of Jesus Christ. 

 

After we left Carthage, we crossed the Mississippi River and parked at the Walmart in KeoKuk, Iowa.  We had time to get ready and to into Nauvoo that afternoon and go to the Temple.  It was amazing--to think that we were in the Temple (rebuilt) that was being built during the time that Joseph Smith was there.  The original Temple was completed after his death, and just a few months before the Saints left Nauvoo.  The inside was gutted by fire in 1848 and then a tornado destroyed most of the outside two years later.  The Church rebuilt a temple on the original site whose exterior is a replica of the first temple.

This stature is on the Nauvoo Temple grounds.  It depicts Joseph and Hyrum Smith riding away from Nauvoo with the men taking them to jail in Carthage, with a last look back at their "Beautiful Nauvoo."  The Temple site overlooks the flatlands of Nauvoo, where their homes were, and the Mississippi River.

The next day, we went back to Nauvoo and began at the Visitor's Center where there is a beautiful garden dedicated to women.  It is filled with beautiful flowers, plants, and statues of women in all aspects of their life--youth, courtship, motherhood . . .

. . . and, yes, even being a grandmother!

From the Visitors Center, after watching a movie about the settlement and eventual departure from Nauvoo by the Saints, we went on a buggy ride through the country where we heard stories about many of the people who had lived there.

Next, we went on tours of some of the historical buildings still left and restored in Nauvoo.  The tours are given by senior missionaries of our Church, all dressed in period clothing.  It was a pretty slow time, so some of the Sister Missionaries were out stepping on chestnuts that had fallen from the trees, to get the pretty nuts out.  We all talked abut roasting and eating them.  They gave us a couple of chestnuts and I said I might take them home and roast them.  Later on, one of the the Sister Missionaries caught up with us and told us not to eat them because they had looked them up on the Internet and found out they would make us sick!  She was so relieved when she found us!

 

We went on tours of the Print Shop, John Taylor Home, Post Office, and Browning Home & Gunsmith Shop first.  Terry was really impressed with the Browning Gunsmith Shop.  The guide showed us how to make a rifle barrel.  It was really interesting.

The Brownings actually bought their homesite from Benjamin Bird, who was Terry's g-g-g-grandfather.  The original Bird restored home is still there, and Terry was asked to sign a journal of Bird descendants.  I wonder how many times G-G-G-Grandpa Bird stood in this same doorway!

At the Blacksmith Shop, the Brother Missionary showed us how a horseshoe was made (miniature style) and then he gave it to me.  He also gave us each a "prairie diamond" ring, made out of a horseshoe.  He said that he had proposed to his wife with this same kind of ring!

 

We really hadn't allowed ourselves enough time to see everything we wanted to--the tours all ended at 5:00, but we did walk around and see the outsides of some of the homes and buildings.  Brigham Young's home said "Open" on it, but it was really closed.

All of the Joseph Smith properties are owned by the church that broke off from the original LDS Church after Joseph Smith died.  They are now called "The Community of Christ" church.  They charge a small fee for their tours (all of the LDS tours, wagon rides, shows, and exhibits are all free). 

Joseph Smith's Red Brick Store that he owned and was proprietor of, was still open so we did get to go into it.  They sell snacks and souvenirs and not much is original on the bottom floor, except a few cases. The original building was deteriorated so badly it had to be torn down and reconstructed.  There was an office in a back room where Saints would come and pay their bill and also pay their tithing to the Church.

 

Upstairs in the Red Brick Store was the office of Joseph Smith and a large meeting room. 

The meeting room is the place where the first "Women's Relief Society" was organized.  This is the women's organization of the LDS Church.  It was fun to see that.

Part of this home was the first original home of Joseph Smith and his wife, Emma.  It was later added onto by his son.

A lot of Joseph Smith's family are buried in a little cemetery next to their first home.  Hyrum, Joseph, and Emma are buried next to each other. 

The Prophet Joseph Smith's headstone.

This is a replica of the original home of Joseph Smith's parents, Joseph Smith, Sr., and Lucy Mack Smith.  It was used as a summer kitchen when Joseph and Emma lived here.

This is the Mansion House, the second home of Joseph and Emma Smith.  It is the home where they lived when Joseph was martyred.

After watching the films and seeing all of the homes and other places, it was a good time to go down the "Trail of Hope."  This is the way to where they crossed the Mississippi River after they were made to leave Nauvoo, mostly without being able to sell their homes, and only taking the few things they could carry in an oxen-pulled wagon.   

 

The first group left on February 4, the middle of the winter, crossed the Mississippi, and started their journey to Salt Lake City, Utah.  Many of them didn't make it to the end of their journey.

Some of their wagons were ferried across the Mississippi on a "wagon raft."

 There is a monument at the end of the "Trail of Hope" depicting Joseph Smith showing Brigham Young (who became our prophet and the President of the Church after Joseph Smith) a map to the place where the Saints should go.  Joseph had seen it in a vision and had given a copy of the map to Brigham Young, before he was killed.  What courage all of the early Saints had.

 

At the end of the day, we stayed for a performance by all of the Nauvoo Missionaries.  They told us that everyone participated--whether you have talent or not!  It was called Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo.

 

There was lots of singing and dancing and laughing. 

It was a great show and everyone did very well, even though some professed to not have any talent!  It was great! 

 

We had such a good time in Nauvoo--only not enough time.  A person needs at least two days to see and do everything.  It really brings to life the early Saints who lived there.  The Senior Missionaries of the Church do such a good job and all look like they are really enjoying what they do.  Hmmm. . .it would be a great place to go on a mission!