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Well, I sit here right now, in a very good mood right now? Why, you ask? Because I'm a terrible child. As of right now, I'm one the good Dell computer in my Grandpa's office room that I was told not to go on, and right now I'm doing the equivalent of laughing in his face. And for what?
Everything I could hope for. twisted
A nicer computer, a lovely one at that, and the fact that at this moment, every little second I've wasted in this boring a** city is worth it, because I'm IM'ing Josh, because XP Computers come with Windows Messenger ready and waiting. So I'm keeping my sanity as of now, and will probably spend the next hour or so concluding Day 7 and 8 of this trip.
As I told you before, we were leaving for Branson, Missouri, to go see Kelly's father and his wife Rhea, and hopefully see Kelly's Grandma Bailey, making another Great relative for me, I have such Great people in my family. xp
Well, as far as I know, the trip started out basically just as that. Of course, I had that stupid kid thing where if your parents tell you about something or somewhere or someone, you imagine it of course to your liking, and of course my version included them having a computer with Internet Access. It was going to be a 5 hour drive, so we stocked up on essentials, and we loaded in. The whole 5 hour thing had me worried, since we'd have to keep things straight with Sophia. And since on the plane ride here hadn't done as well as we'd hoped, I didn't have very high expectations. From what I know though, she slept most of the trip, because about and hour into the drive, I fell asleep for two hours. I don't think I've ever fallen asleep going somewhere before, that's gotta be my first time, I only do it going home.
Regardless, we hit a pit stop to fuel up on some gas, then we hit Burger King to get something to eat, and so Kelly could change Sophia and all that. I guess I wasn't all that hungry, cause I opted for those new Chicken Fries, and they got burgers. Kelly didn't seem to have a very good time with Sophia in the bathroom, because when I was in the men's, I could hear her crying through the walls.
Anyway, we got our food, and I'll tell you right now, if you haven't had the Chicken Fries, don't bother with them, they're nothing but miniscule little Chicken Tenders trying to look hip and saving BK some money at the same time. I did manage with a nice Strawberry Cheescake Milkshake though, to compensate for the chicken disaster.
We got back on the road, and from there, it was to Branson. There are a lot of nice canyons in Missouri, and going down some of those hills, you get real nice views of nothing but trees and trees as far as you can see them. It's nice, especially when I had seen it later that night.
I've been noticing a lot of these strange restaurant names, that everyone's telling me are pretty popular here in the Midwest, like "Steak n' Shake" and "Cracker Barrel". I did get a real good laugh I shared with myself, when I spotted a Country Kitchen Buffet, and noticed it was full of old people. There were some really nice churches, including one that looked really small and almost run-down, but it's name was a nice reminder, "Twilight Church".
But like I said, it was going through a bunch of hick bumkin towns, and I'm not just saying that. We were consulting the Missouri map left and right, thank God Joan and Craig loaned it to us. We went through all these crazy hairpin twists and turns to find her dad's house, and I'll just say it wasn't what I expected.
Ok, I won't say that, I'll go into detail a bit without trying to sound nasty. The place had kinda gone to hell. I was suddenly missing Staunton a whole lot more than I thought I ever would. Don't get me wrong, it was livable, but it definetly needed some sprucing.
Her dad wasn't what I expected either. The whole time, I was trying to do that little equation, where you add the parents to equal the child, and I guess my calculations were wrong, but things weren't adding up, but Kelly told us later he'd gained a lot of weight and had taken up smoking again. That was one of the things I'd noticed first. It reeked of smoke, and the ashtray piles said no more to me.
John is a very nice man however, and I'm certainly glad I met him. He treated us very well, and Sophia took a liking to him, especially when he played a bit on his guitar. The man knows his way around the strings, and when he played a little for us, Sophia's eyes were glued to him, she was mesmerized. He even had some homemade chili cooking up for us in a crock pot, and that almost won me over, since you know I'm a sucker for a good bowl of chili.
The problem my parents had though was with the smoke, and the place was rather unkept. Her dad is retired, and I guess he's not doing much, but I spotted two cobwebs in plain sight, each with a spider on them, so my heart stopped when he offered to let us stay here. Somebody loves me though, because they declined his offer, and after some pictures and footage, we were out of there.
We drove out to a little place called Celebration City, which is a bit like "The Strip of Missouri" with little theme parks and souvenier shops. We stayed at the Georgetown Inn, took a little rest, and went out for some exploring. I definetly could have gotten used to that hotel, especially the bed, since I'd hadn't slept in a real one in nearly a week.
We got some Baskin Robbins, and they drove me around the shops to see if I could find some gifts for you guys. But you know what, I just couldn't see anything I wanted to give any of you. It's the same s**t in Las Vegas, little trinkets that you give to people with the city's name on it so it's like they can rub it in your face that you went somewhere and they didn't. It's not like these things are gonna be treasured, they'll collect dust on your shelves. Which is why, if everything goes according to plan, you'll just get the same kind of gifts I got Jen and Sonja.
I did stop at the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum. They had a little tour, but I passed on that, cause it was $15 and supposed to last an hour and a half, so I headed for the gift shop hoping there'd be something. But I ended up settling on getting myself a book of Ripley's things to believe or not, and some sunglasses with a special lense that you see what people are doing behind you.
After that, I headed back to the hotel, plopped down, watched Sci-Fi for a while, and read the book until Kelly and Dad came in with Sophia, and we all plopped down for bed. We were supposed to see Grandma Bailey in the morning in Nixa, Missouri, so we had to get up early, cause Grandpa John and Rhea were coming too, and Rhea has to go to work at 1 in the afternoon.
So I got my own bed, and enjoyed the best sleep I'd had all week...
Edible Substance · Fri Sep 02, 2005 @ 07:01am · 2 Comments |
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