Back home again.
Well we are back from Branson. It wasn’t exactly what we expected but we still had a really good time. There’s definitely not a lot to do at night there. The streets are bumper to bumper during the day, but at night you’ve got free run of the place! If we were to do it again, we’d definitely try to rent a cabin or something out by Table Rock lake, just to have some nice space to relax in during the downtime.
The big building is called the "Chateau on the Lake" or something like that.
Tons of places to fish and camp. And the water was crystal clear!
Cottages down by the marina.
It’s so beautiful out there. All sorts of trees, hills, and water. I’d love to rent a house boat or something sometime and just spend a week out there fishing and drinking beer, and taking in some of the sights. I’m a geeky boring person, so I really enjoyed all the museums. Some were better than others, but the Titanic museum is well worth the price of admission (and at $20 a person that’s saying something). Come to find out, that big ship outside? Yeah, only 1/2 scale. MAN was that a big boat. No pictures allowed inside, so soak it all up while you’re in there. We spent 3 hours there, and I’m sure we didn’t get a good look at everything.
There’s also Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum. Just a collection of weird cooky stuff. Kinda neat but thought it was a little pricey. The Hollywood Wax Museum was very cool. The Dinosaur Museum has life size replicas of Dinosaurs. Pretty cool, kids would LOVE it! I would have liked more scientific info, but it was still neat to get up close to T-rex and others.
Big ole Stegosaurus.
Say goodbye!
Everything in Branson seems to cost at least $10. So take your number of stops planned for the day. Multiply by $20 and add food and gas, and there’s your budget. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not to say it isn’t worth it, but a lot of times I found myself forking over $20 or $30 just because I knew I wouldn’t have a chance to do this stuff again for a long time. (Which I’m sure is their plan.) $10 a person to ride an elevator 16 stories seemed a little steep, but I’m still glad we went up Inspiration Tower, and got a good look at the Ozarks. $10 a person to ride one of the 50 different go-kart tracks… lame. Since when do gokarts AUTOMATICALLY hit the breaks going down hills. 20 m.p.h. speed limits FTL. $10 per person for a really retro indoor mini-golf was okay since we had the whole place to ourselves pretty much. But they could have been a little more creative with the course designs!
Inspiration Tower
Branson from the top.
Goofballs
Indoor mini-golf. Fun, but I recommend one of the 17 outdoor mini golf courses (unless it's snowing).
In Branson, you're never more than 100 ft. from a gift shop.
Part of what surprised me about Branson is just the atmosphere. I knew it was all about country music, and live shows, but the way the city is laid out creates a very confusing experience. With so many hills around, there’s not too much “off the beaten path”. There’s just not that many paths to choose from. So mixed in between really upscale theaters and condos, you’ll find old vacant buildings reminiscent of the 50’s and better days. Then you might run across large cleared and undeveloped areas. It’s almost like the town is caught between two eras. The old tie the suitcase to the top of the car, Griswold family vacation days, and the new multi-million luxury timeshare days. And without space to separate the two, it just seems odd. Not bad or scary, just not what I had expected.
I’m glad we went and I had a great time. But I probably won’t be back until we have some kids to take with us, or we get a group of people who want to split renting a cabin on the lake or something. There’s no shortage of things to do there. Which reminds me, we never did go see a show. Not really Andrea or I’s thing, which surely adds to why we might be Branson misfits. Haha. It’s not the cheapest vacation if you plan on running and doing stuff all day everyday. But like anywhere there’s always fun things to do that don’t cost a dime. Like taking in the lake or visiting the fish hatchery! (Seriously, it was actually fun.)
Trying to decide the best way to torture these fish.
Table Rock Dam and powerhouse.
Oh yeah. We rented a Mazda 6, and now Andrea wants a new car. Greaaat.
Don't get used to it.
She never even let me drive it on the road. I got to pull it around the hotel once.
Speaking of cars... just saw this driving around. All I can say is WTF?
A real "head turner".
Welp, I have a little over a week left at Dillon’s. Better get to work!
We’re in Branson
We’ve had this trip planned for a while, and I can’t believe it’s already here. We were messing around on the internet one night and discovered Branson is home to the Titanic Museum. Andrea’s a big fan of the movie, and I’ve always been facinated by the story since I was in grade school, so that was kinda the seed that was planted to start the planning.
We got to town around 4:30 or so, and have just kinda been feeling our way around so far. There’s a lot of stuff here, but honestly I feel a little out of place. Branson seems set up for two different demographics. The Senior Citizen, and the Family Vacationer. Lots of buffets, gift shops with oversize broaches, and about 200 different go-kart tracks and water slides. And of course TONS of shows to go see.
But that’s not to say there’s nothing for us to do. Just today in the short time we’ve been here we found a nice microbrewery called Charlie’s and I had an excellent dark wheat beer while Andrea enjoyed a tasty chicken-fried steak. We also visited the Hollywood wax museum. Lots of celebrity figures and stuff and they let you pose with ’em and take your own pictures even. Pretty cool. I know Mom’s coming in a few weeks so I won’t post all our pictures and spoil it, but here’s a couple of my favorites. The rest of the pictures are in my Picasa gallery if you want to see who else is in the museum.
Jack Black and I sharing expressions.
This one kinda freaks me out because the picture almost looks real! Even the wax Hef' can get the ladies in bed!
So we’re back at the Holiday Inn Express now. In our SECOND room. At just before midnite (while typing this post actually) water started dripping from our ceiling into our room. Tried to call the front desk… but the phone didn’t work! So I make myself halfway presentable and go up to the front desk and explain what’s going on. Didn’t have to be mean, or nasty or anything. And they sent somebody over to look at the leak, and immediately moved us to a king suite! Nice. We don’t have our own hot tub or anthing, but it’s a lot nicer room, and all it cost was a few drips!
But now I need to sleep. Tomorrow is on to the Titanic museum, and whatever else we end up doing. Who knows! Here’s a few pics we shot today of the outside of the museum. I don’t think the ship is QUITE full size, but it’s damn close. 4/5 size maybe. Still pretty darn big.
ICEBERG! I hope the museum is still floating tomorrow.
Weird to see half a ship right in the middle of town.
Our Home. I wish!
Here’s the place we stayed in Hawaii. So nice I felt out of place!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoT-_Sw5UX0]
09.2.08More of the pics.
You may have perused the gallery already, but for those who haven’t and those who wondered what they were looking at…here’s a few more with commentary.
Opaeka'a Falls - The house at the top of the falls is actually for sale. $4.25 Million and it's YOURS!
Wailua Falls - You might recognize it as the waterfall from "Fantasy Island".
Of all the waterfalls on the island, the ones below were my favorite. These falls are about 3 miles from Hanalei, where the picture was taken. If you look at the full size picture in the gallery, you’ll see a few baby waterfalls to each side of the big one in the middle. The top of this mountain gets over 400 inches of rain a year, it’s one of the wettest spots on earth.
Waterfalls descend from the clouds.
We made it back!
I must say, if you ever get the chance to go to Kauai…GO! Andrea and I both had a fantastic time. We were there for eight days and seven nights and at the end of it we STILL weren’t ready to leave. It’s amazing how beautiful it was everywhere you looked.
The island was bigger than I thought it would be. Only one hiway went around the island, except for about 10 miles. So if you want to get from the north side to the west side, it’s about a 2 hour drive clear around the island to get there. The island is only about 35 miles wide, but we managed to rack up almost 800 miles on our rental Jeep.
Here’s a few highlights. Check out all the pictures in my Picasa Gallery.
Here we are just getting off the plane waiting for our bags. We were enamored right from the start as we walked through the airport, and everything is open to the outside air. There were some fences and gates to keep people from bypassing security areas and the like, but no matter where you are, you’re breathing fresh ocean breeze!
Andrea at baggage claim in the Lihue airport.
From there we hopped on a shuttle to the car rental place. Which was hidden away in a little industrial area. We’d never have found it ourselves. From there, Andrea’s dream came true when they handed us the keys to our Jeep for the week. She’s now for sure she wants one of her own!
Andrea in heaven.
Then we headed up the coast for a beautiful drive to Princeville on the North Shore. We took lots of videos, but it’ll take some time to get ’em uploaded so look for that post later. As a wedding gift, Andrea’s Dad let us use his timeshare. It was a real classy place. I was quickly feeling out of place!
Entrance to Princeville.
Our building. We stayed in the top left condo.
My favorite spot.
The view off the balcony. Looks too pretty to be real, but it is!
We got all checked in. Took a moment to take everything in, and then hopped in the suits and headed for the beach! But more on that later. It’s 2 AM (only 9 PM Hawaii time!) right now and should get to bed. Jet lag sucks!
To be continued…
08.20.08Well, this is it…
My last little bit of internet time before we take off. Our flight leaves 8:30 AM tomorrow morning. (I’m excited!) And we’ll get back around noon on the next Friday. We’ll have lots of pictures and videos and lots to talk about, I’m sure!
Talk to y’all soon!
08.18.08Lapse in Blogging
Well I haven’t blogged for the past few days, because I haven’t hardly been near a computer.
Andrea’s sister, Trina, came into town Friday afternoon. And we headed out to a United Way fundraiser Friday night. It was pretty fun. The food was good, but not great. They said the buffet line was ready and everybody was just sitting there. So I hopped up grabbed a plate, and what do you know, everybody else finally followed suit. Guess those hoity toity folks have a problem with starting a buffet. But it was a fun night. They had a magician/comedian there that was pretty good.
Saturday we went to the zoo here in Great Bend. It’s not the best zoo in the world, but it’s the best FREE zoo I’ve been to, and pretty nice for a town this size. But apparently free also describes the containment of the animals. There were a few peacocks and assorted birds roaming around. But by far the most startling, was the small alligator just swimming along in in the pond right next to one of the walking paths. Andrea being the nut that she is, decided it’d be fun to throw sticks at it. After snapping a couple sticks in half, it swims right at us! Let me remind you, there’s no barriers, or fences, or anything stopping this little guy from crawling up and snacking on a toe or two! So we trotted our little butts out of there! Still not sure if there was supposed to be an alligator there or not….
Saturday night we went to a going away party for one of the guys here at work. That was pretty fun, I played in a “dimes” tournament. Apparently I’m not very good at throwing a dime into a cup. I lost pretty easily. At least I still have some Mario Kart skillz!
Sunday got up early to haul our cat down to SWK for a little vacation of her own before we head to Hawaii this week. Andrea was going to come too, but she was up early up-chucking and decided to stay home and rest up. I felt sorry for her. But I didn’t want her to drag being sick out and into vacation time. So I went and had a good time. Got to see my family and get headed back in decent time. It’s so much nicer to live a little bit closer that I can head down and back in a day and actually have some time!
And now it’s Monday and there’s nothing to do at work again. But no biggie, it’s a three day work week for me!
Returned from the wild west.
Welp. Had a pretty good trip. Job interview went well from what I could tell. Hopefully it didn’t go even better for somebody else.
Stopped by the old dealership. Gagnon Motors, not in business anymore. But I did get to catch the owner Mr. Gagnon himself! He actually remembered the car when I threw out the name of the guy that bought it. Even remembered what color it used to be! Pretty cool.
Said they stopped selling GM in 2000 and after a fire in 2002, he just salvaged what he could and uses it for his own shop. Had a good time talking to him, and he seemed to enjoy seeing the car and talking about the old days.
For me it was kinda cool to see the car come full circle. Not too many cars go 230,000 miles and make it back to where they were sold after 23 years. I bet when he sold this car in 1985 he didn’t expect it to outlast the dealership. 🙁
While I was out in BFE, I drove out to castle rock. Take I-70 to the middle of nowhere, then head 14 miles south down a dirt road and you find Castle Rock. Saw a sign for it while I was enjoying some DQ in Quinter, KS and had some time to kill so I figured what the hell.
So I guess even if I don’t get the job, I at least had an enjoyable day off.
05.29.07SW Kansas Here We Come!
Welp, we’re heading off to SW Kansas this weekend. We’re dropping off the cat at Matt’s mom’s place so she can catsit for us for a while. We’re definitely moving out of our apartment, can’t stand living in a creek flood zone. So, they’re going to start showing off our apartment coming up in June, since we have to put in our 60 day notice on the first.
Searching for a new place has been kind of difficult. It has almost wore me out, even though it’s only been a few weeks since we’ve started looking. 😛 Matt says that it will take time. I believe him, but I wish it wasn’t so hard around here. I was looking on rent.com for places in Wichita, just for fun, and came across a lot of places that were a hell of a lot cheaper than around here. I found a two bedroom apartment for about $425/mo down there that would cost us around $700/mo around here. It’s just ridiculous.
Anyways, I’m excited to see the other half of the family. I didn’t get to go with Matt the last two times he went down there. So, I hope everybody else is excited to see me!
11.21.06I haven’t forgotten.
I haven’t been posting lately. But as the picture above shows, I haven’t been just ignoring the blog. I haven’t even had time to play any games for the past week! So you KNOW I’ve been busy. I’ve just had a lot going on.
I went up to Sabetha to see all the grandparents with some time off I had the end of last week. Grandpa Wayne doesn’t seem to be getting any better. He’s lost most of the strength in his legs and has trouble getting out of chairs and has been using a walker to get around. Grandma called today and said they ran some tests and that he needs to stop taking chemo immediately. So say a prayer that he can start feeling better one way or another.
Between then and now it seems like I’ve just been busy doing odds and ends stuff. Fixing little things on my car, and doing stuff around the house I’ve been putting off. I’ve been strangely motivated lately and just haven’t been on the computer much longer than to check e-mail, and haven’t played any games or watched TV or anything.
I did get a chance to see the new Bond movie. It’s what a lot of people said it would be, more like the early Bond films. There’s really no gadgets, although there is plenty of high tech stuff. It’s all just a lot more believable. It’s certianly a different Bond film, and I think a nice change of pace for the series, and great timing to introduce the new actor. Check it out if you have the time, and the $8.50 to buy a movie ticket. =P
Coming up I’ll be heading to SWK for the Thanksgiving weekend. I’ll be eating a total of 4 Thanksgiving dinners this week, so I’m hoping to not pack on more than 10 pounds. Wish me luck!