What $50 dollars can get you. Part two.

Part two of my mini 4 day vacation. So I drive on up to Branson which is about 45 minutes outside of Springfield. All the way up in them thar hills. Now Branson is considered a hot place for those with families or are over the age of 60. A place where people can go for wholesome entertainment without the supposed sin and debauchery of Las Vegas. Yeah, it's a pretty boring place. But thousands of other people don't agree and that is evident by the fact it took me over an hour and a half to drive 3 miles down main street. So aggraviating. Just stop and go, stop and go. Sometimes, when I am in traffic like that with no way out, I just want to drive my car into a tree.

But, I didn't. And first things first, I needed a place to stay. I wanted to keep it cheap again and while I was driving 2 mph down the road I caught a building out of the corner of my eye. It was in the shape of a giant riverboat. One side was flat, the other side all rooms with little portholes for windows. I knew that was place for me. So I pull up to the front office and get out. By that time, the temperature outside was a heat index of 112 and my Old Navy flip flops started melting into the asphalt. I go inside and get a room for one night at 50 dollars. I climbed up three flights of stairs (This is not a hotel for the handicapped) and go to my room. It wasn't bad at all! For some reason I had two beds, but the AC was just under the window so I had no problem reaching it. The only problem was the lock. It had a little door handle lock and the other lock was a chain lock that you hooked up. But, the chain was gone. So it was just the little door knob lock. This time though, I had a chair in the room so I simply put the chair up against the door that night. And, when I looked out my porthole, I saw this:

If you can't tell, its a scaled back version of Mount Rushmore with John Wayne, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe and Charlie Chaplin. At least I think it's Charlie Chaplin. It took me awhile to figure it out. I kept thinking it was either Bozo the Clown or Adolf Hitler but then I finally figured out he was wearing a bowler hat.

I had some time to kill before meeting up with my friends and I decided to do something incredibly touristy: The duckboat tour. The tour takes you down the streets of Branson and then into Table Rock Lake. Here is a picture of other Duck Boats getting into the water after us. They are WWII relics put to good use. I got a seat all by myself which was a good thing because it was so hot. What was annoying & embarrissing though is that everyone was issued a duck bill whistle that when you blew into it, it quacked. And all the stupid kids in the duck boat blew their duck bills all the way down main street and into the lake. Just imagine, your sitting in a WWII era boat/car in 112 degree heat with little kids blowing on their honkers all the way there, and all the way back.

I survived the duck boat and spent a great night sitting around and talking with my friends. The next day, Sunday, we decided to do something fun before I had to take back off for St. Louis. We decided that a showboat cruise out on Table Rock Lake would be it. It vaguely reminded me of the ferries I would take as a little girl and that always makes me happy. It was an all encompassing tour. We actually got a stage show (so korny), three course meal and a two hour lake cruise. We actually skipped the second stage show and just spent it out on the upper deck of the boat looking out at the water. It was a nice ending to my mini vacation. So, after the cruise I drove back home for four hours and prepared for a full week of work.