ELECTION 2008

Well today was the long awaited day! Hopefully within the next few hours we will know who our next president will be. The polls are showing it very close as of yesterday. Last week, Barack Obama was ahead by alot. He is still ahead according to most polls and it seems that for McCain to win would almost be a miracle. I pray we see a miracle. But if we don't, I know that God is still in control and that He will have allowed Obama to become our president for a reason. Maybe it's time that we really find out what this nation is made of. Maybe it will take hard times for Christians to finally stand up for what they need to stand up for.

I really was not that excited about the McCain ticket until Sara Palin joined the ticket. Now I am a strong supporter because of her values, attitude and experience. If this election does not work out in their favor, I certainly hope that she will be the Republican Presidential nominee in 2012. I don't believe the race would be as close as it is if were not for Sara Palin. The main reason that it is so hard for the Republican party to win at this point is because of our current economy which everyone blames on George Bush. Yes, some of it may be his fault, but some of the blame also lies in the hands of the Democratic Senate and Congress, which are in control in their areas. But somehow, people always blame the party of the man at the top.

Record numbers of people turned out to vote today. Many people had to leave and go at other times because voting centers were so busy at times. I went around 2:30 and got right in and right out. We have watched Fox News for the last two years just about every night and it seems like this election would never get here. I am glad that it is almost over.

Never fear-GOD IS IN CONTROL!

285 Emails

285 Emails......that's how many I had waiting for me after two weeks of being on vacation! It took me just about all day just to go through them. I really had a good day considering it was my first day back. It was easy getting up this morning because of the time change. At six, it felt like 7:00, which was great. The only problem comes at night. It is now 6:42 P.M. and I am already getting sleepy:)

It's always good to come home and catch up with friends. One very important event happened in the life of our good friends, Tom and Linda Peak while we were gone. They became grandparents. William Peak came into this world last week. What a great blessing!

I enjoyed going to lunch with Ken, Dana, and Ayden Whitton today at Panera Bread. Ken insisted that I join them and I am so glad I did. I really enjoyed the food and the time with the Whitton family. I found out about a new website that Dana is using as a weight loss tool called "thedailyplate.com." It is very interesting and Dana has already had good success using it and her neighbor has lost a lot of weight using it. It basically is about calorie counting, but they help you in every possible way. For those of you interested in losing weight, you might want to check it out.

Good nite......sleep tight......remember our BIG election tomorrow. Don't forget to vote!

The Rest of the Story

(Note: No we did not fall off a cliff in Branson! After finally getting on the internet to post my first day in Branson, I was not able to make any other internet connections at all. I knew there were problems when I couldn't post the pictures to my last post of the trees at the cemetery. So I went ahead and posted each day in a Word Document so that I wouldn't forget. So this post will include the rest of our trip all in one post. Also be sure and check out the pictures I posted in the Maplewood Cemetery post. They were really some of the prettiest pictures from the whole trip. Thanks to all of you who went on this trip with us via my blog. We have had a great time and hope you have enjoyed looking at the pictures and reading about what we have done.)

Monday, October 27

After purchasing our tickets, we decided to go to the IMAX Theater where there was a movie on the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is one destination that is on our list of places we want to go. So we decided to do the next best thing and that is to see it on the huge IMAX screen. The scenery on the screen was outstanding. It was done from the view point of the Colorado River looking up at the canyon as you go down the river. It lasted about an hour and was worth the money. They have a nice small shopping mall attached to the IMAX which we spent a little time before and after looking around in.

After this, we came back to the camp for a lunch of ribs and potato salad and then we both took a nap. When we awoke from our naps, we went out and went in a few local specialty shops to kill some time before we ate dinner. We ate dinner at Montana Mike’s before our “Six” show at 8:00. We were disappointed in the food at Montana Mike’s. It really was just O.K.—nothing special. But the show, “Six” was not a disappointment. I had been told before we went to Branson that this was a “must see.” “Six” is a group of six brothers that perform the whole show accappello. Two of the brothers make sounds like drums and symbols and the rest of the brothers sing most of the time. But they change up and do different things throughout the show. They were funny and were greatly talented. It was another night that I didn’t want to come to an end .

Tuesday, October 28

After a breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and sausage at the trailer, we went to the “Titanic.” It is very cold this morning. It went down to around 25 degrees early this morning. “Titanic” is an approximate 1 hour and 45 minute walk through a museum and historical display of all that happened on the “Titanic.” It was very well done. You walk around with a personal audio player and as you come to certain areas, you put the appropriate number where you are and you get an audio description of what you are viewing. Anyone who liked the movie, “Titanic” I would think would find this museum fascinating. I am not one to usually like this kind of thing, but this was GREAT! So well done!

Back to the trailer for a light lunch today because we want to have a big appetite for the Dixie Stampede. We know when we went to the Dixie Stampede in Gatlinburg that the amount of food you get at the dinner with the show is overwhelming. The Christmas show at Dixie Stampede is very similar to the regular show that we saw at Gatlinburg, but it is still very good. There is a Nativity scene in the middle of the show that is very good where Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus come down from the ceiling in the center of the arena and all the shepherds come in with all of their livestock. Later the 3 Wise Men come in on their camels. It was definitely the best part of the Christmas show in my opinion. The food seemed better to us at the Gatlinburg show, but was exactly the same thing. We remembered that we had been on a strict diet for 6 months before we went to Gatlinburg and we were splurging that night by eating the food there. That may have been why it seemed so good to us there. That strict diet is going to have to return when we get home. I am sure we have both gained at least 5 lbs. on this trip!

After the show we went back to the R.V., watched a little T.V. and off to sleep we went. These late nights take a little getting used to.

Wednesday, October 29

Ham, Cheese, Mushroom, and Onion Omelets were the breakfast from Randall’s kitchen this morning. We definitely have a full day today, so we will need lots of energy! We began our morning heading down to historic downtown where you will find a new shopping complex called Branson Landing. What a great place to shop. They had a lot of great stores all connected by a brick landing where music was piped in all around you as you walked. It was already decorated for Christmas and was beautiful. In the center of the landing was a huge Christmas tree and directly across from it was a water & fire show that was connected to the music. The stores were anchored by Belks and Bass Pro Shops. We loved Bass Pro Shop as you might expect. We went in to a lot of interesting shops. We ate lunch at Texas Cattle and Steak and had a delicious hamburger.

Time slipped up on us and we had to hurry back to the R.V. to get ready for our afternoon show of “Noah” at the Sight & Sound Theater. This is a relatively new theater and show and have heard that it is spectacular. The show was SPECTACULAR! The building that it is held in is equally as spectacular as you can see from the pictures here. The tickets to this were the most expensive, but well worth it. At one point in the show, you feel as if you are actually inside the ark with Noah and his family and all the animals. You are in the middle and there are stages in front and both sides of you with all of the animals in cages. Some of the animals are real and some are animated, but from a distance it is hard to say which is which. It was really awesome!

After Noah, we went back to the R.V. for a quick break to let Camp out. Then we were on to our last show of our vacation called Grand Jubilee featuring the New South Quartet. This is the show that we got tickets two for one. It is held in one of the original theaters (very small compared to the new ones) in Branson and is approximately 30 years old. The show was good—not great, but worth the $15 a piece we paid. The highlight of the show was the comedian that did spots throughout the night. He has been performing in Branson for about 25 years and his comedy is much like that of Don Rickles and Harvey Korman on the Carol Burnette Show. In his bio, it said that the Carol Burnette show was where his love of comedy came from and he was just as good as they were. He was outstanding!

We are getting up and heading home in the morning. We are not sure how far we will go tomorrow but we have decided we would like to be home for Halloween so that we can see Carter and Ryleigh. And also, Ryan, Elizabeth, & Carter are leaving Saturday morning to go on a cruise and we want to see them before they go.

Thursday, October 30

We got up early this morning, around 6:30, and began the tear down process in order to head home. We ate a quick breakfast of Pop-Tarts, took quick showers and were ready to head out at 8:30 A.M. We have had an absolutely marvelous vacation. It was everything we had dreamed it would be! We were able to enjoy God’s beautiful creation as well as enjoy the talents that He has given to man for our enjoyment as well. As we leave this morning, it is with grateful hearts for all that we have been blessed with.

We stopped for lunch at Chilis around Pine Bluff, AR. Randall has decided at this point that we can make it all the way to Bladon Springs by about 8:30 and he says we are going all the way, And that’s what we did. We arrived in Bladon around 8:45 P.M. which made for a very long day of driving and riding. Randall had to drive the whole way, 6 hours of which was on a two way highway in the mountains which is very stressful especially when pulling a trailer. I am just not ready to try to drive and pull the trailer. I will get the courage to try it soon, Just not today….so the poor guy had to do all the driving. I must say it was nice to get into a larger space for a change. The 23 foot trailer is fun, but after 2 weeks of it, I was ready for a larger living space. We slept great and got up Friday morning and transferred everything in the trailer to our truck since we are leaving the trailer up there through hunting season. We didn’t realize how much we had in that little trailer until we started unloading it into the truck!

Friday, October 31

Well it’s Halloween and we are home. We arrived in Mobile around lunch time and we have driven according to our odometer, 2505 miles since we left our driveway two weeks ago. We have seen gas prices from $2.59 per gallon to one station in Branson where it was $1.99 per gallon. The gas prices going down was another blessing for our trip. When we planned and figured the cost of our trip, gas prices were around $4.00 per gallon! This price drop helped tremendously! While vacations are wonderful and exciting……. It’s good to be home!

Cemetery Beauty & On To Branson

There was only one thing that I had left on things that I wanted to do in Harrison and as strange as it may seem, it was to go to a cemetery. As I explored on the internet things to do in Harrison, one thing that they said that was a must see in the Fall is the Maplewood Cemetery. So we left the camp around 10:00 and ventured out to find the cemetery. WOW, is all I can say! I have never seen such beautiful maple trees with so many different colors. I must have taken 30 pictures and I have put some of them in this post. They were simply amazing!

After the cemeteryvisit, we went back to the camp and picked up our trailer and headed onto our final destination of Branson, MO. Branson was where we decided to take a week vacation to this year and about a month ago, we decided to expand it to another week so that we could visit the national parks in the area as well.
The weather today is beautiful. It was around 65 at 11:00 when we left Harrison. We had only about an hour ride into Branson. We are now in Branson and our campground is great. When I made the reservations about 7 or 8 months ago and told the woman at the campground that it was our first trip to Branson, she told me she would give me the campsite with the best view.....and she did. I have also posted a picture of a view of Downtown Branson from our campsite. GORGEOUS!

Once settled into our campgrounds, we went downtown to explore and see about show tickets. When we checked into the campgrounds, we talked with the lady here about shows she recommended. One of those shows was a relatively new show called The Rankins. These are two brothers who impersonate great muscial duos of the 50's-90's. They have a band, as well as three girl backup singers who also perform different numbers throughout the show. The show was OUTSTANDING! I am so glad that we went. Before the show, we went out to a beautiful Italian Restaurant called Tony Z's. It was one of the prettiest restaurants I have ever been in and had wonderful food!
Today was a great way to begin our time in Branson. This week will be completely different from last week. Last week was all about country life...this week it is all about shows and city life. On our vacation, we are experiencing the best of both worlds! I am so thankful for the wonderful time we are having.
Love you guys!

Mountain View, AR 25th Annual Bean Festival

Back when we decided to extend our vacation to another week, we began to look for a couple of towns south of Branson where we could stay that would be close to the National Forests that we wanted to visit. One of the towns that we thought we might want to stay was Mountain View. I called two different RV parks and they were both completely full which was very unusual. When I inquired about openings for this weekend, the woman at the park acted like I was crazy to think that I would be able to get a spot. She said, "Honey, I have been booked up for over a year for that weekend. When I asked her if something special was going on, she said with much excitement...."Oh yes, the Bean Fest." She said they have it every year and it is a huge event.

So we decided since we were only a couple of hours from there that we would drive over and check it out. This gave us a chance to see scenery we had not yet seen and have something to do once we got there. She was right! The little town of Mountain View was packed. There were lots of arts and crafts booths, food booths of all kinds, live music in the square with one act after another, silly races that people had made push carts and raced, as well as every kind of bean and cornbread that you could possibly imagine. People came in from all over with their best beans. Who knew??

We enjoyed the Bean Fest. We got back to camp right around 4:15. I am in the middle of doing some laundry and I think the clothes should be dry. So I better run over to the laundry room and check them, Looking forward to watching Alabama football in just a little while. ROLL TIDE!

Have a wonderful night!

Buffalo National River Area

We began our day around 9:00 this morning heading towards the Ponca-Boxley Valley area. We stopped and got gas just down the street from the camp where the gas was $2.57 gal. The road to this area was gorgeous. I believe these leaves are definitely at peak. Our first stop was in Jasper where we stopped at the
Elk information Center. Here they gave us all kinds of information on the area, including some short hikes they recommended. They had a wildlife museum here too which was very interesting.

The first stop they recommended was Steel Valley. When we left the road to go to Steel Valley, we went down, down, down a road. When we got to the bottom, we were met with a beautiful valley where there were stone sides just above the bank of the river and we hiked a short trail where we shared the hiking trail with horse back riders. This area was beautiful!

We continued down the road and the next stop we came to was an area called Lost Valley. This was another hike that was recommended by the girl at the information center. She told us there was a difficult trail and an easier trail. It was only about 2 miles, but at the cross roads where you decide whether to do the difficult or easier trail, there was nothing to tell you which was which. So we just chose the one that looked the easiest from that point. One went straight up a hill and the other was straight. So we chose the straight one.......WRONG CHOICE!!! We ended up have to climb rocks up hill for about 1 1/2 miles! You can see the rocks on some of the pictures I have posted here, but pictures do not convey how difficult this was. I am proud that we completed it, but boy did I have to listen to Randall complain alot because he had wanted to

turn around before we ever even got to the difficult part and I just insisted that we go on. Oh well, maybe be lost some weight today, or at least we didn't gain any:)

The rest of the afternoon we continued on the scenic highway that we had been on. I can't tell you how beautiful it was!!! Every curve was more beautiful than the next.

Our main objective of going to this region today was to be in the Ponca-Boxley Valley area late in the afternoon so that we could see the elk herds that were supposed to appear in the fields along the highway. People just go up and down a section of highway (about 1 1/2 miles) watching for elk to come into the fields. We began doing this around 4:00. We saw the first couple of female elk way off the road around 4:30-4:45. We continued to drive the route. Around 5:00 we saw a bull elk and female elk closer to the road and I was able to get a picture of the bull which is posted here. Many people were sitting along the side of the road in front of one particular field. So we decided to park here to thinking these people must know that the elk come here. Randall had his window down and an old man who lived in the area said that as many as 20 to 30 elk would come into this field right around dark. He was absolutely right. Right about 6:30 all of a sudden about 15 to 20 deer came down off the mountain and entered the field together. It was so late, I was not able to get a picture of the herd. It had the largest bull we saw with this herd. I was able to get great shots of it on video however.

Once back at the camp, we grilled some steaks and had steaks, baked potatoes, green salad and pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Yum!

We had a great day! We thoroughly enjoyed everything we did, except Randall was not fond (to say it mildly) of the hike at Lost Valley. He jokingly threatened to push me off one of the large rocks after we climbed it. I got to thinking later if he had done this, he would have told people that he lost Vallie at Lost Valley...Ha!

I'm tired and I am getting ready to get in my cozy little bed. It is supposed to go to around 40 tonight and I think I throw on an extra blanket.

Good Night!

.

Moving On To Harrison

We left the good ol'e Hot Springs KOA campground this morning at 8:45. Last night, we had rain and a little wind as a cold front camp through the area. As the wind blew, the hickory nuts in the trees above our camper fell on top of the trailer and it sounded like a bowling alley inside the trailer as the large nuts hit the top and then rolled off the back. This scared Camp to death and he hid under the table for a long time. When we woke this morning it was 47 degrees!

Our first stop on the way to Harrison was to get gas in Conway, AR where it was $2.43 per gallon. The scenery on this ride was beautiful. I video taped a lot on the drive. The pictures I have taken out of the truck window have not been very good. So I do not have any still pictures. But take my word for it...it was gorgeous!

The only other stop we made was to get some coffee and hot chocolate.

We are now at the Shady Oaks RV Park about 7 miles outside of Harrison. We were a little surprised to find it was out in the country. We thought we were right in the middle of town. But the longer we have been here this afternoon, the more I think we will really like it. It is really beautiful as you can see in the pictures I have posted here. All of these pictures are here at the park.

We are just a little tired today. The only thing we did after we got here was to go into town to the Wal-Mart and pick up a few things we needed. Randall has already eaten supper of grilled chicken, rice and green peas. I am not hungry quite yet, so I will eat in a little while.

Tomorrow we plan to go to areas where elk sightings are plentiful. Randall just turned on the Auburn football game. I guess that's all for today.

Love to all of you! Have a great night!