Checking Out and Checking In

After several fun days at the resort, the actual owners (our NGF's parents and some siblings) decided they'd like to spend some time at their vacation home, too :) This meant we needed to shape up and ship out to an alternate location. You would think cleaning up a house after 16 people would be no problem, especially when 10 of them left to go shopping at Branson Landing for a couple of hours, right? Well, not when the bag of cereal didn't zip all the way and flipped into the dishwasher, lol! And not when the entire lower level is carpeted, but there is no vacuum. Caelan swept and swept. It did look better, but what a goofy problem to have! Cute place though, right?

After lunch, we packed up and followed our NGFs to a cabin in Rockaway Beach--about 30 minutes north. They had rented a cabin that sleeps 10 . . . so with the subtraction of her brother, that left five people needing a sleep spot. We could totally have made it work, except we discovered the six-person cabin in the same neighborhood was still available. Buck and I tried to set up a quick airbandb account, but it was a no go for an immediate rental. Our NGFs booked it for us, and then we covered our sleeping arrangement costs by purchasing meals for the crowd a couple of times. Like that very night at Lambert's Cafe!

What a fun place to dine :) Big food portions, but you mostly take that food home for the next day. The wait staff walk around with pots of southern dishes to share--black eyed peas, fried okra, tomatoes and pasta, fried potatoes, etc. etc. These they just plop on your plate if you so wish. Even more fun--if you want bread with your meal--you have to catch! They throw hot buns (really hot buns!) all over the room. If you catch, you win! Soooo yummy :) They also had a bucket of sorghum (molasses/syrup). Pre-Covid, I guess they would stick their thumbs in your roll and fill it with the sap. Now, you have to make your own sap hole. I tried to get a picture of Graysen getting his roll filled, but I missed it--a slow process, but faster than me!

After dinner, we looked through the gift shop, bought a few souvenirs, and then headed back to Rockaway Beach. It used to be part of the White River and a tourist hot spot in the 50's before Branson became a big deal. They dammed both sides of the river, so now it is a cold water lake with trout fishing. The kids of course were straight in, okay, the boys were straight in under the influence of C--my nephew's doppelganger. With the help of said boys, C snagged some massive crawfish, mudbugs, crawdads from the rocks near the shallows. Funny enough, his sister (Caelan's piano teacher) had an almost identical picture saved on her phone from four years ago to the day!

The rest of us watched Mr. NGF fly his drone over the water, following the flight of some water birds. Pretty neat!

After the "beach" trip, we settled in to the cabins (these were more like I originally pictured when the tent camping idea was proposed, however we were later informed that this was the nicest accommodation available in the tiny, tiny town, so there's that :). The boys got their air mattresses filled, the girls found their bunk beds, and Buck and I laughed at the bed (maybe full?) that was about half the size of the one we'd been sleeping at at the resort (big king). We followed the kids across the lawn to the big house and spent a couple of hours watching t.v. and hanging out with our friends.

Big plans for our last day, just ahead!