Didn't blog yesterday, but today?

Hey everybody, maybe you noticed that there wasn't a blog entry yesterday, huh?  Just kinda took it easy yesterday morning, but in the afternoon Katie and I had to run a couple of errands so I just wasn't around the computer to do any typing.  James was sick yesterday, but is a little better today, but is still home today.  He's really not playing hooky, he's really under the weather.  Katie checked with an art instructor yesterday about classes and started them today, an early Christmas present for her.  She really got excited about it yesterday and afterwards, was just as excited.  I'm really happy that she's enjoying it.


The Travelogue

After leaving Clarksville, In., we headed west towards Branson, Mo., going through St. Louis, Mo.  I don't remember exactly how much time it took to get through St. Louis, but there was a traffic jam that lasted several miles east of St. Louis, probably all through East St. Louis, to a long ways west of St. Louis.  The sun was going down, and it wasn't a lot of fun trying to change lanes on the freeway, but at least it wasn't nearly as bad as it was when we went through Chicago in rush hour.  Still, it wasn't a lot of fun, ya know?

We stopped somewhere along I-44, east of St. James, to dry camp for the night.  Katie said it was at some little store, but I don't remember.  But as we headed west the next morning, we saw an unusual billboard along the road that looks like this:

Sadly, we've never seen any factory outlet and museum for whatever the factory outlet was selling.  Turns out that this Vacuum Cleaner Factory Outlet and Museum has a website (didn't know until today!) and tells a little about themselves, and a lot about vacuum cleaners, probably more than you ever wanted to know, or thought you wanted to know.  For instance, did you know that in 2008, less than 7% of the vacuums sold in the USA were made in the USA.  Sad, huh?  But thanks to this website, you'll know which ones are made in the USA, AND where they're made in the USA!  Pretty exciting, huh?  Next time we go by there, we will stop and see the museum at least.  Don't know about the factory outlet store though...

We made it to Branson in the afternoon, and as I recall it was kinda wanting to storm, but not quite.  The road to Branson was filled with lots of ups and downs where the moho would be able to speed up on the steep downhills and slow way down going up the uphills.  The campground we stayed at was several miles out of town, and it took about 20 minutes to get to downtown Branson.  Over the next couple of days, we went to the downtown area to ride the Branson Scenic Railway which took us out into the wilderness outside of Branson about 20 miles and back.  We also visited Dick's Olde Time 5 and 10 which had lots and LOTS

 of items that seemed like novelties because they were rarely thought of (at least to us, we rarely thought of those things!), and aisles that are narrow enough to allow only 1 small shopping card down them at a time.  We also went to see the Oak Ridge Boys put on an outstanding concert which just about anyone could like.  While the highlight of our time in Branson, was probably the Oak Ridge Boys, it was followed quite closely by going to the Shoji Tabuchi Theater to see the restrooms.  I'd never been into a restroom where the toilet bases were sculpted,

or the Men's Room had a pool table in it.

Obviously, after seeing opulent restrooms, we knew that we'd seen all we could see in Branson, or just about any other city as well.  And went on down the road.

Have a blessed day.