Crater of Diamonds

June 15th 2008 Sunday 84*

We left Branson this morning about 9am after having a free breakfast provided by the KOA and Heartland Rv's. I had scrambled eggs and sausage patties with coffee. Deanna had the same except she had milk. :) So we talked a bit with some of our new friends and then headed back to hitch up the rv and begin our journey to the Crater of Diamonds in Murfreesboro, Arkansas. The trip was about 6- 1/2 hours and 290 miles. Nice easy drive meandering along at 55 mph as most of the road was just 2 lane. No spectacular things to report along the way other than some great scenery, oppps yes there was! WE went thru an area that must have just had a tornado recently. Stuff was thrown all over and a big building like a grain building was pretty much crumbled to the ground. Lots of trees were tore up and then just a quarter mile away everything was fine.

Gotta say there was not a straight or flat road anywhere during that 290 mile drive! Twisty turny hilly, you name it! We got to the registration building and got out it was steamin HOT 90* and humid. There was a sign on the door warning you to drink lots of fluid and that the diamond mines surface was 110*! YIKES! We are going to try and go early in the morning before the sun gets to hot and hopefully the ticket is good for all day and we can go back in the evening. They even have a water park here and it was being well used!. The campground is not very big, I think 60 sites and half appear to be tent sites.

Saturday night was the catered dinner by Heartland which was roast beast or Pork with side dishes of beans (yuck) and potato salad (yuck) so I ate roast beast and then there were pies for dessert! I had Cherrie and Deanna had Apple. We were also provided entertainment by the Yearys a Husband and Wife team with their 13 year old daughter. There was an older gentleman playing the keyboard they called Grandpa who use to play with the Oak Ridge Boys for years. The music was a mix of mostly old time stuff and he was a Bass singer. We enjoyed the show and dinner and then went back to the trailer with Ken and Kathy and ate cake and Ice cream :)



Just one of the rally attendees being sung to :)






So that gets you up to speed thru Sunday night. Lets hope there are diamonds in our future. Actually I was sitting on the lawn chair and looked down and saw what looked like a diamond but I think it is a piece of semi round glass. You just never know!

Our campsite

Deanna's Day!

June 13th, 2008 Friday


Today was Deanna's Birthday! She turned............ :)

We were provided lunch by the Rv manufacturer today as part of the rally, they brought in 12 3foot subs from subway with chips and drinks. All but maybe a total of 1 sub was eaten! With several different varieties of subs there was something for everyone. After the lunch the factory held what they call a round table session in which users of their product can talk to the designers and engineers about what they do or don't like about their products and possible improvements for the next series of rv's. Then there were some seminars on different rv related products.

In the evening we went to a Factory sponsered show, the Dixie Stampede. This was a great show and you are given a four course meal during the show. It was fantastic, the show was well correographed . It started with being bussed to the show as there were about 120 people going, after arriving we were seated to watch a pre-show of a performer who juggled. He was pretty good. After that they send us into the show arena to be seated. Once seated for the show, they come around and take your drink orders and just continiously serve you. After the drinks they brought us a cheddar cheese roll, then came a creamy soup of some type, then a cornish hen (whole) .............well minus the head :) , then half a baked potato, then ear of corn, then after finishing all that they brought us an apple turnover for dessert! It as all great food and the show was really good. It covered the early history from indians to settling the west to the civil war to becoming a nation of one. Excellent !

The guy who put the rally together Jim Beletti, was called out into the arean to partake in a contest with another guy from the audience, they called it a sharpshooting contest. Well turns out to be tossing toilet seats like horse shoes ! LOL Was a great time and our guy won!

Jim receiving his medal for his win in the sharp shooting contest! LOL








After returning to the campground we walked the dog and relaxed a little then headed down to the conference room for some socializing. Had a great time. I posed for a picture for one of our new friends Lizzy, then she posed for us! LOL

Sightseeing

June 12th 2008, Thursday 88* sunny

Today was sightseeing day, first we wend down town to the river thingy :) lots of shops and it is right along the river. First job, get some lunch! So we went to Bar Louies, think we ate at one of those in Kentucky at the Aquarium. Great turkey club sandwich! Three of us has the turkey and the turkey had a hamburger :) . Good food though. Then we took to walking the shops and the river scene, they had a fountain that was spraying randomly and the wind was pretty stout so we could feel the spray from quite a ways. Didn't buy anything just browsed, hit an old time 5&10 store that was packed! The had on display up above the shelves were boards with old toys they used to sell. That was pretty cool.

Next stop was the trout hatchery. We went here three years ago with our friends Mickey and Patty, this time we took the tour. Quite interesting to see the tiny little babys to the 25lb'ers . They release like 70,000 trout at a time like once a month into the lake there and 80% of them are caught within 2 months! You can see the fish in different stages in each pool. Hungry little devils. Their cost to raise a fish to 10" is .60 cents. 70,000 trout are released into the lake once a month during the summer. 80% of those are caught within 2 months!

Next we took a quick trip over the Damn Dam to look at the lake. It is still quite high from the wet season they have had and said they can not release to much water because all the lakes below are also full.

Next stop was the Stone Hill Winery, they were giving free tours. Afterwards was a wine tasting session. We tasted probably 8 or 9 wines. Our preference is the sweet wines and we really liked the Concord wine. SO after the tour of course we bought a bottle. There was a guy there I affectionately referred to as Parrot boy due to his hair cut, he didn't care what it was they were serving he was drinking it! LOL

Time for our Potluck dinner so I will report more after the feedbag has been put away.

Follow up: Friday morning

Well the pot luck was great! There was soo much food, the hamburgers and hot dogs were provided but each couple brought a dish. That was 55 dishes of food! HOLY COW! Of course we ate way more than we should have but it tasted so good!

Wednesday night we had dinner with my cousin and her husband. First she wanted us to go get Japanese food with them but by the time we got there she had changed her mind to cooking out! So she grilled some steak and had fries and salad to go with it. Then they took us over to see their boys houses. Very nice! Big large for our standards of living in 270 square feet but fits them well :)
This is Becky and Rogers house from the front:

The Dancin Ocra Girl

Tuesday June 10th, 2008 Temp 84*

What a time we had eating out tonight! We went to Lamberts which is known as the home of the throwed roll. It has been featured on the Travel Channels best places to eat. Deanna had chicken and I had the catfish. Now for those who have not been there you will not leave there hungry, if you do it is totally your own fault. So you order what you want and that in itself is a full meal, but then these kids walk around with pans full of food to give you once you have your plate, today it was fried potatoes and onions, black eyed peas YUCK, basically golash and then the fried OCRA girl. Of let me not forget that the roll guy is firing rolls across your head ! Just raise your hand and yell HEY and he fires one at you! Its great, the drinks are 32 ounce so you don't have to keep asking for more refills also! SO back to Ocra girl, she was new and it was her first night, just a young girl and very pretty (we all know Im a sucker for a pretty girl :) ) anyway she keeps coming by and I am pestering her as normal, this is what I do best ! SO I am asking her does anyone really eat that stuff and how long has she been carrying that bowl around and is she just throwing it in the potted plants so they think she is working, she is taking it all in good fun. SO next time she comes by I call her over and ask her to dance for us. She is shy and thinks I am probably a loonie but she does a little jig, I offer to hold the bowl so she can do a dance big enough to attract attention and she starts blushing, UH OH, so I offer Ocra girl $20 if she dances. She does her little jig and walks away, I holler for her to come back and she does WITH reluctance! So I give her the $20, mean time the waiter comes over and is the spitting image of PEEWEE Herman! Now in all fairness, the OTHERS noticed who he looked like, I was just the idiot who opened his mouth! I said, Do you know you look like peewee Herman! LOL he is insulted I think! LOL SO I slip him $20 and introduce him to Ocra girl! LOL We had a blast, FRICKEN meal cost me $72 before I got out of there!

Now the interesting part is if you are not full they will bring you MORE of what ever you ordered! If it was Steak, they will bring you another steak! How cool is that!

Of course I was not smart enough to get my picute with Ocra Girl and Peewee but we still had a good time and I think they made out ok off the deal! Fantastic day!

Picture taken by PeeWee, I paid $20 for THAT! LOL~!!!








We then went to the Bass Pro Shop and lookedl at all the displays of animals and aquariums. We spent a couple of hours there and I bought a pair of sunglasses! LOL! Ken and Kathy had never been there so it was fun for them. Our friends Gunnar and Virgina took us there a couple of years ago and were also the first to take us to Lamberts, so we knew what it was all about! Blast doing it all over again! Pics to follow for what I got.


See, this is why I don't give any crap to my wife, she ain't scared of no 10'Brown bear! :)

Branson!

Monday June 9th, 2008 Temp 79*

Where we are currently

Well we left Terre Haute this morning hoping to be the next storm heading their way. The local channel was calling for another 2-3" of rain by morning. Our intention was to make it to Cuba, Missouri to meet up with our friends Ken and Kathy, by chance we stopped at the rest arear about 25 miles from our destination campground and Ken and Kathy were there! :) So we traveled to the campground together. From there it all started going bad, first they said they did not have our reservations, and I failed to mention that coming into the park it seemed like a really nice park up front, big conference center and 2 pools outside all trimmed real nice. Now back to the reservations, we made ours online a couple of weeks ago and so did Kathy, but of course when we get there they don't know anything about it but they will find a place for us. We asked for a couple of spots together, no problem they said. We fill out the paper work and get a map to our side and head off, well the first thing we notice is the farther we go into the park the crappier it looks. By the time we get to our sites we seem to be in a ghetto of alleys! None of the sites are paved but some have gravel, but the problem is there are already trailer sitting on our sites. Thats the FIRST problem, the second is the sites were to tight for us to get into anyway, and our friends have a 40' rv, hell the site isn't even that long! The guys say in a fine toothless manner, 'well we'll get a tuck and mov em fer ya', calls the office and tells em he's gonna move em and they call back 'ya can't the trailer on 106 is broke' NOW excuse me we just came from the office and there was no mention of any trailer sitting on our spots let alone a broken down one. Well OFF he goes to find us a couple of new spots and Kathy says "SCREW IT, lets just go on to Branson' so that was a great idea! We stop at the office and I tell them we are not staying and to cancel our reservations, I met Kathy as I am coming out and tell her I told them to cancel them and they said they would, She said 'did they confirm the cancellation? I said its as confirmed as our reservations!


Well we went ahead and made the trip which was another 170 miles. We got here about 7pm and upon entering the office we see they have a pizza place! ORDER US UP A COUPLE OF DEM DAR PIZZAS! $20 and they deliver them to the site! We got set up the pizzas showed up and we gobbled em down! At least now we are at our Rv Rally destination a day early so we can just relax! SO here we are, I will get some pictures posted tomorrow, to tired tonight :)

Oh, forgot to mention. On the trip today we saw a semi pulling doubles that ran off the road, a coyote standing in the middle of a once flooded field and have decided that Illionis needs to be called the land of turtles! I have never seen so many turtles hit on the side of the road as that state! I know we saw a minimum of 30 turtles. Don't know if the flood drove them to dry ground which unfortunately happened to be a highway or what, and these were not all small turtles. Actually I suppose they were probably tortoise's and some were the size of pie pans!

Pictures from Terre Haute Campground

When Keith and Mary redid their campground sheets they were trying to decide whether or not to use a picture of Keith or one of me, The kids voted for me

They used a look alike of me on the golf cart!











I have a funny story, Keith and Mary have a couple of horse's so I go back to visit them and Deanna is with me, I pick up some hay to give the horse, so I am leaning over and it doesn't want it so I drop it on the ground, but I hold my hand out and it comes forward to sniff with SNAP! WHAT THE HELL! Seems I was leaning on the electric fence and the horse's nose was enough to complete the circuit! YEOUSSSAAAAAAAAAAAA that hurts , FELLA"S! lesson learned.

Morning after soggy part DUEX

Same Sunday just later in the day! Temp 90*

Got started this moring about 9am, intentions to bypass Terre Haute and our friend Mary who owns it and head straight for St. Louis. Well things were going pretty well till we got to the spot where the highway was still closed from the flooding.This is about 30 miles from Terre Haute. The detour just took us a little north to Route 40 and then west. It took us through a little town called Brazil, not very big but not a burg either. Took 45 minutes to travel 1.5 miles ! YIKES! That slowed our progress down quite a bit. We got back onto I70 just about 10 miles from the Terre Haute exit so I called Mary and asked is she was open and had electric. She said YEP! So here we are, at our original destination for Saturday just a day late. Took a couple pictures along the way of some of the water left standing along the highway.







Left over flood water along highway.


Also took a picture of this moth the day we left Ohio, there were originally 2 of them but by the time I got back with the camera one was already gone. They must be like vampires and have to get out of the light










Here is Mary and Deanna hugging on our arrival!










Tonight we will take Mary to dinner to a Mexican restaruant.