Heading North To Missouri

Leaving Choctaw Park, we're heading N on Hwy 65. We made a quick stop in Harrison to return an iron and buy a better one, as much as I hate to iron I'm afraid the new washer makes it necessary to touch up.

As I have said before, this Arkansas scenery is just beautiful and as we crossed into Missouri it stayed that way. We headed to Table Rock Lake, just south of Branson, a town we had always by-passed before now. As we pulled into the Long Creek COE Park it looked just terrific but as we found our site, I was disappointed at how short it was. We had to back up into our site and our 36 feet just wouldn't fit so we had to extend the jacks until the front tires were off the ground AGAIN. If our brakes and jacks had broken loose we would have plummeted down the driveway and into our car and probably into the lake across the street as there was no RV parked in that site yet. That's a very uneasy feeling to say the least. Aside from that it was a very nice CG.

We took a couple of jaunts into Branson to see what was there and it was just like I-drive, tourist traps galore BUT the scenery was gorgeous. We made a lot of side trips just to see more fabulous scenery.

Our 2nd or 3rd morning there we were taking the dogs for their morning stroll and Magic saw either a squirrel or rabbit behind me and took off. Luckily I had a tight hold on the leash because the sudden and unexpected yank pulled me back, I tried to get my footing but failed and down I went on the asphalt, tailbone hitting first, ouch!! Just a couple of scratches on my right palm and I was good to go- for a few minutes as my poor old body started to react. Thank heavens I had some left over pain pulls from my last back episode but that was over 2 weeks ago and I'm still taking Aleve. This was the 2nd CG we've seen rabbits and they drive Magic crazy. Hmm? Could it be that it's because she is a Greyhound? My guess is yes. For the remainder of the time there, she wore a Gentle Leader. On coming back from an outing we found a chewed up disk that had photos of Longcreek Park on it, the little brat! Snoopy never gets into mischief, he's so good.

One of our side trips took us to Ozark, MO where we just had to revisit Lambert's Cafe - home of the throwed rolls. I know it sounds funny but that's right, throwed rolls. There are 3 of these restaurants in Missouri and we just happened to stumble upon this one on our way west in 2005 as our RV park was just behind it. Anyway, we arrived on a Saturday (big mistake) and had to wait for 1 1/2 hours. We went garage saleing around the corner and into a couple of shops and the time flew by. When we went back we only had to wait about 10 minutes. Once seated, these young college kids who work there walk around with big pots of what they call "pass outs", the best fried okra you ever ate, fried onions and potatoes, black eye peas and macaroni and tomatoes. Then another kid comes out of the kitchen with a cart of fresh hot yeast rolls and yells "hot rolls!" Hands start going in the air and believe it or not he actually starts throwing them. It's the funniest thing I ever saw in a restaurant and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good laugh and a great meal.

We left Long Creek two days early and moved a little West, still on Table Rock Lake, to another COE Park named Big M. Now this was really really in the boonies. Across hwy 89 with lots of hills and curves on a two lane road to E road to M road until it dead ended. Hooray, a nice long level site with full hookups. I washed clothes almost the whole time there except when we took a side trip as we did to Eureka Springs.

Now I remember why we never roamed Eureka Springs before. I simply WILL NOT pay $5. to walk up and down a hot sunny streets going into shops with overpriced tourist stuff. Call me stingy, tight - anything you want, but I'd rather flush it down a one armed bandit any day. So we did!