May 21, 2005

Branson Ramblings

Blue Clipper Butterfly taken at the Butterfly Place Branson Mo. He was a little battered from his mating flight, but look at the colors.


We are staying on a slip of land known as Holiday Island for the month of May. Not really an island, yet you feel like you are someplace quite detached from everywhere else. Its very quiet, a nature preserve, so as we came home last night, around 10pm, we saw in the 5 miles of highway we traverse from the gates to our home, 12 deer of various ages, two foxes, a mother Racoon with a few two or maybe three young along with her...and a beautiful fairly large skunk, tail waving back and forth as he waddled along the roadside.

We actually saw a living armadillo... Woody and I found out that the reason that we see so many dead ones on the road side is that when frightened, the creatures jump vertically. When faced with a oncomming vehicle, this just means better placement on your bumper or grille plate. They cause a lot of damage as well...

The wildlife is facinating to Woody, who is a city boy and has not seen such abundance of living animals outside of a zoo was facinated...WE have tried to get in by dark as the twisty winding roads are a hazzard. We got to the main bridge in Shell Knob last night to find a huge accident with a car dangling precariously...If you go to the link that is the bridge I am speaking of. While people are courtieous to a fault here, there are plenty of nuts too.

We are constantly entranced by the beautiful scenery, the rolling hills and farmland, there is a bit of drought right now, prayer for rain is on the lips of everyone we meet, but its still very green and pretty.

Twice this week we made the trip to Branson Mo. Its been described to us as Las Vegas for none gamblers, as a showplace for musical" has beens", a traffic nightmare and not really worth going to. Because of our close proximinty, we thought that we'd go up and at least see what its like.

It did seem quite a bit longer to get there than the mileage sugested. We have since been told that in Missouri, every sign that says "1 mile" ad a quarter to it for they measure a straight line on a map to guage the mileage...Frankly there are no straight roads in this part of the world. ONce we got that figured out, life was much less stressful.

Once you get to Branson you are confronted with a traffic mess that rivals Houston for its complexity, and yet there are only 10000 people living here. New roads are being built, as well as new sections of the city out of farm and ranching land...just like its big sister, Las Vegas, 1000 miles to the west, this resort city is growing into a metroplolis. A mecca for retirees in particular.

We have gotten into the spirit of the thing. We have the "Oldies" radio station on which has tunes from Benny Goodman to Bryan Adams... (1990 is the cut off for the play list) Swing, rock and roll, jazz, country, standards...you just never know what you are going to get out of your radio.

We ate at a Bob Evans, and reminised about our trip to Ohio and how God brought us to the place where we could see that we needed to come back. As we sat there we marveled at the sheer numbers of "mature" people. Understand that we knew we were going to a place that sort of cateres to this age group but the numbers are astounding. Woody then reminded me that I would be the youngest person living on our street. I find that sort of nice...

We looked at the 1001 things that we could do. I have to tell you that the weather has been superb for us since we got here, so we are always trying to stay out doors as much as we can so we can enjoy it. After looking at musical shows and what not I saw a flyer for a Butterfly farm... Woody thought that was certainly original so we were on our way.

The Butterfly Place was a very interesting fun way to spend an afternoon. I was amazed at how much I didnt know about them. We viewed a video then were escorted to the "aviary". I hadnt in anyway planned to go there when I dressed, and all Woody has are bright Aloha Shirts, so right away we became targets for low flying butterfly aircraft. I took lots of photos and we had a very nice time there.

We made a decision to come back the next day and go to a major attraction that we had heard a lot about, Silver Dollar City Part Craft festival part theme park, this was a fun family place to go eat great food and hear wonderful blue grass music. If you have kids bring bathing suits or them as all of the rides seem to soak em down really well, perfect as it was in the high 80's Woody and I are not ride riders anymore, but we loved everything else and bought season passes as the shows change quarterly.

I have come to realize that this is a vacationers dream. Like So California, you have so much to see and do that it would take a lifetime to see it all. We are looking forward to going and doing some of the more outdoorsey sort of activities but a bunch of our weight has got to come off. Nothing brings that to my attention better than days like today where you are walking and doing all the day long.

But while I still hear the call of the ocean, and the mele of Hawaii, I am content. Truly. I know that the sweetness and the bitterness of Hawaii will linger with me forever, and that it will always be a part of my spirit. But truth is I am feeling more aloha in the casual encounters here in Arkansas than I thought would be possible. All is well and we are continuing our rambles where ever they take us...