We took a long weekend to drive down to Southwest Missouri over the kids' Spring Break this past week. We took our time driving down to Springfield, MO on Saturday morning...
The kids enjoyed the quiet time - reading, coloring, playing on their Kindles and watching movies. Evidently Will didn't want his picture taken...
Unfortunately, this is the view for most of our drive through IL and northern Missouri. It was cold and rainy...
We drove south on 65, past our hotel and into Branson. We really didn't have a plan for our time in the area, so we thought we would explore Branson a bit to see if there was anything we "had" to do while there.
We did search, unsuccessfully, for a few letterboxes. While at this spot, Will's camera broke so I let him use our nice one for a bit. He captured a BUNCH of nature pictures. Here are a few of the better ones.
One of our goals for the trip was to eat at Lamberts (Home of the Throwed Rolls) in Ozark, MO. We knew that there was always a long wait but didn't anticipate it to be too bad so late in the evening. We were VERY wrong! Driving back towards the hotel from Branson, Becki called Lamberts to see how long the wait was and to see if there was reserved seating. We were told 1 1/2 hours (we called at 7:30!!) and no, it was first come first serve only.
We discussed our options and decided to give it (the long wait) a try. We got to Lamberts and put our name on the waiting list. The kids played checkers for a while...and then they got a hold of the camera to help pass time!
We were all very hungry and ready to settle in for the evening!
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| Will was near the end of his patience! |
When we were finally sat for dinner (which ended up being closer to 45 minutes, thankfully!), Will assumed this position and pretty much stayed there the whole time! At Lamberts, one of the waiters walks up and down the aisles with hot rolls. Instead of delivering them by hand to the tables, he throws them! The next few pictures are a bit blurry from movement, but you can see the sequence (see the flying roll beside the Wisconsin flag in the second picture?). After Will caught it, he quickly realized how HOT the roll was!
Here are Kaitee and Maddie trying to get "Rolland"s attention...yes, we named the bread guy "Rolland". At one point in time, Rolland threw a roll and it landed beside Matt, aptly taking the camera with it...towards the floor! Matt quickly grabbed the roll and the camera (wedged them against the wall) and was able to recover both with little issue. However, in the meantime, Kaitee was still signaling for a roll. So, she got rolls! Another 3 to be exact! Each roll came flying at her, one landing behind her and hitting a little girl in the booth behind us, one landing beside Becki and falling to the floor while another decked Kaitee in the head! We couldn't stop laughing! We look over at Rolland and he was laughing too. Aw, memories!
We left Lamberts around 9:45 and headed to the hotel for some much needed sleep. We called it a night, knowing that Sunday held a full day of driving and sight seeing.
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We woke up to SUNSHINE on Sunday morning! What a huge relief as we were starting to wonder if our trip down had been in vain! We loaded up and headed south (again) on Hwy 65 towards Branson and the Arkansas border. On the agenda for the day, Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
We saw the beautiful landscape the day before, but it was so much more pretty in the sunlight! The drive from Springfield to Branson has to be one of the prettiest in the country!
We arrived in Arkansas and have the picture to prove it!
We got off the highway and started headed southwest towards Eureka Springs. Lots of twist, turns and tummy hills! We lost track of how many cows and horses we came across. We finally arrived in Eureka Springs and drove around a bit, checking out the area and looking (again, unsuccessfully) for a few letterboxes.
Our first stop was the
Thorncrown Chapel in the Woods. After seeing pictures of this chapel in magazines, Becki decided that this was something she wanted to see! We weren't disappointed. It was a beautiful and serene location and to sit in the chapel, it did your soul good.
We walked across the parking lot and admired the outside of the worship center which was closed for the day. As we were walking back up the stairs, we heard "Hey, it's the Harts!" from a car window! We all looked at each other wondering what the heck was going on! One of the kids said, "I think that was Dick & Karen from Awana!" Sure, enough we saw them getting out of their truck and found out that they were visiting Eureka Springs for 2 weeks to help with maintenance on the grounds of
The Great Passion Play. Small, Small world!!
We said our goodbyes and headed downtown Eureka Springs. We looked forward to seeing the town, visiting some of the springs and finding a few letterboxes. Our first stop was at Sweet Spring.
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| It was a little sunny! |
We finally started finding some letterboxes! We had success at the Chapel and the different springs that we visited.
Some fun tidbits about Eureka Springs...
- Some buildings have street-level entrances on more than one floor
- There are no Traffic Lights
- No two streets intersect at a 90 degree angle
- Of the original 62 Springs, over a dozen of them have been restored and can still be seen
- Has been called "The Little Switzerland of America" and "The Stairstep Town"
- The Crescent Hotel (formerly Baker Hospital) is said to be one of the most haunted buildings in the country. See the next two pictures...one from their website and one from our visit.
We decided to get out and walk a bit after driving by the Cresent Hotel. We saw these beautiful grounds and walked through the stations of the cross, ending our time walking through St. Elizabeth's Church. While walking along, we saw lots of coins on top of the gift shop...prompting the kids to try their luck.
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| This chandelier was in the church. It was huge! |
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| Crescent Hotel on the left, St Elizabeth's Church on the right. |
At Harding Spring, we enjoyed the view and landscape of the spring then headed up to find the letterbox. Unfortunately, this little guy was guarding the rock and the letterbox (see upper right corner). Matt waited for him to move along so that he could grab the pouch.
The house was built into the rock - literally! Absolutely amazing!
As we drove around Eureka Springs a bit more, we came across some more neat things! Check out this beautiful, stately house as well as this pink door out in the middle of nowhere!
Magnetic Spring was the last spring we visited. This spring supposedly magnetizes any metal object with which it comes in contact.
Our last stop in Eureka Springs was at the The Great Passion Play. How amazing this play must be! We will have to plan a trip sometime to see the play in person. We drove around the grounds and admired the huge (65 ft tall) Christ of the Ozarks statue.
Time for a late lunch - much needed to refresh our weary bodies! After eating, we headed back towards Branson to be real tourists (in other words, embarrass the kids by making them hop out at all the statues and take their picture in front of lots of people!!). We promised the kids Andy's Ice Cream if they cooperated with us...
We did a quick drive through in the Dixie Stampede Parking Lot and saw all of the horses for their show. Alex, Will & Becki jumped out and walked around, looking at the horses up close. Alex was in horse heaven!
By this time, the kids were getting a little crazy!
We made the kids run around the van a few times to burn off some extra energy
WE FOUND WALDO!!! Well, all but Alex!
I can't believe we all fit in there! It's okay that some butt cheeks aren't in, right?
We drove to a lookout and enjoyed the view - albeit a bit dreary.
Notice our Christmas gift (on top of the van)? Becki received this gift from work for Christmas! What a tremendous blessing it was to us this trip and will be for many trips to come!
We stopped at Andy's for a yummy ice cream dinner.
Maddie and Will stayed in this spot, watching the Go Karts the whole time.
We surprised the kids with rides on the Go Karts. They had a blast! It was so nice to not have to stand in long lines - as I am sure it can get crazy busy during the summer months.
We left Branson around 10 to head back to the hotel. We were tired but our day was an amazing one! So many beautiful things that we saw together and we had a lot of fun making crazy memories! We got up Monday morning and packed our van (yes, it was raining again!). We ate breakfast then hit the road - finding a few more letterboxes and being sure to stop at the Candy Factory and World's Largest Gift Store (it's a good thing they had a dozen signs every mile to alert us)!
