Here are the pictures we've taken these last three days:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Kjell.and.Luanne/BRANSONMOAUG1718FromBRANSONToMULBERRYGROVEILLAUG192009#
Sorry I haven’t been keeping you up to date lately, but, as you can imagine, there’s been circumstances… I’m just not going to tell you about them, that’s all…. Nah… Just kidding.
I believe I clued you in to August 16, so let me go back to Monday, the 17th…
Wow! That was only two days ago!
Seems like so much has happened since then…
Guess a lot has happened, now that I think about it, but let me just touch on the highlights, otherwise you’ll be bored to tears…
Before I do that though, I need to digress for a second and inform you, once again, that we’re deadly afraid of tornados, and we’re really grateful to the weather gods that we’ve missed some horrendous storms as we’ve made our way East… Erik informed us (and we saw on TV) that the area around Manhattan was inundated by floods and other heavenly nastiness shortly after we departed, and that’s been the case on several occasions… So… We were a bit surprised, and maybe a little flustered, when we got soaked in Branson.
Monday morning was wet from last night’s rain, but the day looked good, so we took off sightseeing… Just drove around everywhere… Up one hill, down another…
There are hundreds of them… Probably thousands all through the Ozarks, where man has made it his mission to build roads along every hilltop, and connect them to their kin in every valley, canyon, and arroyo… Very scenic, of course, but very tiring if you’re driving… Especially if you’re hauling something behind you.
So that’s that… We stopped and got tickets to see CLAY COOPER, one of the local stars, for Monday night, and to see PIERCE ARROW on Tuesday night.
For those of you who don’t know about Branson, Missouri, I’d suggest you look things up on the internet… Suffice it to say, it’s a hopping city with hundreds of Country and Western artists performing in their own theaters all throughout the year, but it so happened that we came at the wrong time… First week of school, wouldn’t you know…
We heard it say the town was kind of dead, but we managed to see two very good and entertaining shows performed by very talented people, so we think we did all right…
Matter of fact, we had front row seats for the PIERCE ARROW performance, so that was kind of cool…
Tuesday morning we took off and drove around Table Rock Lake… Stopped at several tourist facilities, one of which is the old paddle wheeler, BRANSON BELLE… Too bad we didn’t find out about this dinner cruise before buying our theater tickets, because we heard nothing but praise about it… A bit costly, at around 50 bucks per person, but probably worth? Maybe next time?
On the way around the lake we stopped in Old Town again…
Enjoyed another stroll along the boardwalk… It’s so pretty down here, we almost forgot to notice the clouds… And the humidity (which was climbing)… Of course, Mother Nature has a way of reminding you of who’s the Boss…
We had gone in to get some groceries (on our way back home), and, in the time it took us to walk from the store to the truck (about 20 yards), the drizzle had turned to a downpour! I’m not kidding! In a matter of about five seconds we were soaked to the skin… Are we having fun yet?
At home, we had to wait in the truck for a long time, until it eased up enough not to wash us away while dashing to the trailer… Not that it should’ve mattered much… After all, we were pretty much wet anyway, but there’s something about getting out in a downpour when you don’t have to… Of course, there was that lightning and thunder that shook you to the core… Maybe that was it? Maybe that’s what made us get some common sense? Who knows? Anyway, as soon as it started, it quit! Just like that! Really weird! I’m just thankful there were no tornados…
Both of the shows we took in lasted until about 10:30, or was it a bit later? Can’t remember… All I know is that I didn’t feel like writing on my Blog on any of those evenings, so there you are… That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it….
So… We’ve come ’till today, Wednesday, August 19.… Our grandson birthday! HAPPY 6th BIRTHDAY, HUNTER! Grandma and Grandpa loves you very much!
We left Branson around 7:30 this morning, having one of our longest drives ahead of us… About 330 miles…
Turned out to be a nice and easy drive as soon as we hooked a right in Springfield… I can tell you, it felt good to be able to drive on fairly flat terrain again.
Got to St. Louis, and realized (when we saw it) that the GATEWAY ARCH is here… Who would‘ve thunk it! Probably knew about it, but there you go…. Anyway, we decided we’ll drive the 50 miles backwards tomorrow, and go and see the arch and some of the other things St. Louis has to offer. Good idea!
Not so good an idea was taking off and going to Vandalia (the next town East) after arriving at Timber Trails Campground (Mulberry, Illinois), this afternoon…
The sky was a bit on the shady side when we left, but nothing threatening…
We stopped at Walmart (plumbing stuff), right off the freeway, and thought we’d take a look at the town afterward…
First, we couldn’t find the town, and second, heading back to the freeway, we heard this incredible wailing sound… Thought it might be a train, but when we lowered the windows, we figured out real quick that it must be a tornado siren.
Sure enough, as soon as we drove onto the freeway, facing West, there was a solid wall of black ahead of us… There were lightning all over the sky, but very little wind…. Big semi-trucks and small passenger cars scooted and whizzed by us, like we were standing still…. So I thought if it was OK for them to head into that crap, we should be all right…. Oh, yeah, there you go thinking again, Johnsen….. It didn’t take more than a few miles before the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up with the wash… Everything came to a slow… Barely moving…. Red lights ahead blinking off and on… Then gusts of wind… The truck ahead of me stopped… I crawled up on his rear, went over to the shoulder, and did the same… A huge truck slid in behind me… Thankfully not breaking my tail lights… My wipers did a masterful job sprinting from one side of my windshield to the other, but it was impossible to make out anything ahead… That’s how furious the wind and rain came down… Talking about the wind: My truck shook so violently at times that I honestly was afraid it was going to tip over… Looking out my side window (away from the wind) I could see branches and all kinds of crud flying all over the place… I told Lu I saw a cow fly by, but I don’t think she bought it… The whole episode lasted maybe 6, 7 minutes, but they were among the most frightful minutes I’ve ever spent doing absolutely nothing but sit and stare at the awesome power unleashed around us…
We turned off the freeway about a mile further West, and crawled along the road to our campground through all kinds of debris from the storm… Branches everywhere… A lot of damaged and uprooted trees… Man, it was a mess, and I was pretty much expecting our trailer upside down, but, Goodness, Gracious! the trailer was fine… Even our satellite dish (which I was sure would’ve vanished) was proudly pointing to the stars…
We talked to one of the people at the park, and she said her husband (who was West of here somewhere) had watched the TV weather station, and, evidently, they showed that a tornado had gone right over us… I don’t know whether that’s true, or not, but what an experience! I’ll never forget it, and I sure hope we’ll never get into something like this again. And that’s it for now, my friends…. It’s 11pm, and I’m heading for the sack…
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