Up and on the road early (well, vacation-early not actually early) to check out of the hotel and head to Avery Island to explore the home of Tabasco.

Someone did not appreciate my running commentary 😁

And someone took the “Start Tour Here” a little too literally 🤣

The tour actually started in the museum where we all received a tiny bottle of Tabasco Sauce. The folks behind us were military, and they received special bottles each designated for their branch of the armed forces. 🇺🇸

Eventually we learned that Tabasco was committed to supporting our troops, shipping flavoring to soldiers overseas to make MREs more tasty. “They waged war against blandness!” The McIlhenny Family, who still privately own the Tabasco Company, have had members in the military dating back to Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders.

Tabasco started in 1868 by Edmund McIlhenny using 3 ingredients: tabasco peppers, vinegar and Avery Island salt. He started bottling his sauce in empty cologne bottles (all that was available at the time) and gave to friends and family. As the sauce became more popular, he continued using the same style bottles because they made it perfect for sprinkling on food.

We explored the museum and greenhouse… and made it through without any bear sightings, which apparently does occur. We did however almost witness a caning🤣

The peppers are harvested and mashed on the same day, and then the mash is placed in these oak barrels (covered in salt to preserve and prevent bugs) for 2-3 years depending on the level of heat. Despite the mash being in barrels, the smell of the peppers was almost overwhelming.

We couldn’t go into the salt mines, but the exhibit was crazy… imagine a cave made of salt? And its got to be true, because there’s a plaque!

The bottling area, although not running over the weekends, made us feel like we were on Laverne and Shirley.

Back in the museum, we sampled Tabasco Jalapeno vanilla ice cream (Yuck!) and raspberry chipotle ice cream (ice cream with a smokey aftertaste).

There were literally every imaginable kind of Tabasco souvenirs

The Jalapeno ice cream required an icee to remove the aftertaste 😝

Then we were on our way through the Jungle Gardens. The Jungle Gardens were a conservation area created by the McIlhenny family for endangered egrets and other birds, and housed some pretty weird gifts given to the family, like trees, animals and a giant buddha… because who doesn’t have giant concrete Buddha on their wishlist?

And look! The Jungle Gardens had a Mom’s Cafe location 😀

Lunches made and delivered, and we were on our way to Baton Rouge. First stop, the Louisiana State Museum: great exhibits on the history of Louisiana from the Louisiana Purchase (best land deal EVER at $0.04 per acre) to modern day Mardi Gras (I’m definitely decorating my lawn mower next year).

Then it was on to the Louisiana State Capital. We were quickly told that the Capitol was closing in 10 minutes. We replied “No worries, we’ll be done in five.”

Pictures of gorgeous ceiling ✔️

Senate chamber ✔️

House chamber ✔️

Family Picture ✔️

Once minute to spare… picture of a plaque ✔️

And found North Carolina in the steps listing each in the order then became a state ✔️

Now, if only government was as efficient as us 🤪

In all seriousness, the Capital was really beautiful. I hate to bad mouth my home state but everytime we visit different state capitals, I am reminded of how dreary and institutional the North Carolina state house is…

Next stop: Louisiana State University – Geaux Tigers! The boys were not really considering LSU and an 80° day in March solidified that. 🤣 But the campus is really nice and Tiger Stadium is the size of an NFL stadium! We especially love the placards along the tree line outside the stadium “They love nature. They love LSU.” 🤣 Besides, where else would you find a live tiger enclosure on a college campus!

After some downtime in the hotel, we headed out to dinner at Elsie’s Plate and Pie. Great food and desserts, and laughing! Mealtime is quickly becoming one of my favorite times as the boys get older and our conversations begin to shift from solely parent-child.

Tomorrow, we head to New Orleans, the World War II museum and whatever other adventures come our way…

One of my most favorite movies of all time is Steel Magnolias. Ask Mike, I can literally quote the entire movie from start to finish. (No wonder I can’t retain any new information, I have an entire movie on a loop in my head.) So, when we are in the town where it was filmed, oh yea. It was definitely a “just for mom morning” 😍

Natchitoches (pronounced Nack-a-tish) in central Louisiana and is the hometown of Robert Harling, an unknown playwright whose big break was a play centered around the loss of his diabetic sister, his mom and her eclectic group of friends. After the play’s success, the movie was cast and what better place to film it than Natchitoches!

We started off at the Rue Front (Rue is french for Street)… our photgrapher always manages to take a few selfies 🤣

YES – A Plaque! This brick wall stopped the town from being flooded during the Red River Flood of 1945, and the water reached this high!

And then we found Kaffie Frederick General Mercantile. Huge hardware store. The mercantile has been in business since 1863, and the 147 year old cash register is still in use! How many hardware stores can say they are listed in the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of Interior? The mercantile had everything: hardware stuff, kitchen items, toys, cookware – you name it, it was in there including little bottles of coca-cola ♥️

Re-Caffeinated and now back to Steel Magnolias…

The boys loved my quotations throughout the day…

Just the best day 💕💕 Very thankful my boys entertained their mama’s excitement!

Then it was time to fill the clothes cooler with supplies for Mom’s Cafe. And the boys made sure to show dad a little love in the middle of the aisle, which he loved!

We repaid the boys for being so wonderful during Mom’s morning… just make a right turn on the unpaved road by the Gater bus…

And welcome to Louisiana Gator Country!

This place a kitschy and corny and AWESOME!

Seriously, how many people can say they’ve feed hotdogs to an alligator??? Well, now we can!

Look how big they are??

And listen to them chomp and bellow!

Can you imagine seeing this monster smiling at you!?!?

We did think it was funny – how they chose a mate. The females lay on top of the males, and if she can’t push him under the water then he is an appropriate mate. If you can’t drown him, then things will work out.

They had other animals too – guinea pigs (who we think are going to end up as dinner), the fattest raccons we’ve ever seen, snakes, lizards, iguanas, and goats (we loved little Brownie who kept escaping from his pen)

But the gators stole the show. All of the alligators in the park have been removed from somewhere and since they clearly associate humans with food, they can no longer survive outside of captivity. However it doesn’t seem like they’ve got such bad of a life.

This is Big Lou. Currently, he is the oldest (70+ years old) and the Alpha Gator at the park. The managers did tell that a couple of the younger males are on pace to challenge him at some point. But for today, he’s the Alpha.

The tortoises we hilarious coming at a breakneck tortoise speed to get lettuce and eat.

Of course, getting to hold a baby alligator is pretty hard to beat!

We said goodbye to the gators, and headed out for our first stop at Mom’s Cafe – Cajun edition 😁

Bellies full, and still talking about the gators, we headed south to New Iberia, Louisiana. After checking into the hotel, we watched the first half of the Wolfpack v. Marquette, game, and then decided to treat ourselves to a true Louisiana dinner… Crawfish. R&M’s Boiling Point is a local favorite AND had TVs in every direction showing the NC State basketball game.

Great Dinner and Wolfpack Win – That’s about as good as it gets!

Tomorrow, we head out to Avery Island for a little spice and visit the home of the LSU Tigers.

Off we go checking off 2 more states on our Quest to 50! We are headed to Louisiana and Mississippi to fill in a hole at the bottom of our picture map.

This trip, rather than add another cooler to our cooler collection (seriously, Michael and Leo will never need to buy a cooler in college), I wised up 😉 … and packed my duffle bag and clothes in our cooler.

We got a few looks when we checked in at the airport… but once we told them the reason for packing clothes in a cooler, and then pulled out the travel notebook…

Well then they understood 😁

Bags and cooler checked… ✔️

Caffeine fueled thanks to Starbucks… ✔️

Running into our friend Karen…✔️

Onboard and on the way!

Landed in Charlotte, and did a little exploring while we waited on our connection… ever since our 12-hour layover in St. Louis last summer, we have made it a mission to find the “Pet Relief” areas inside airports. (Mainly because we never knew they existed until then.) So far, Charlotte definitely wins with most accommodations… sectioned off private areas per pet 🤣

And just like that… State #39 ✔️

Rental Car picked up and checked into Holiday Inn Express just in time to celebrate a Clemson win and anguish over a Tarheel loss 🏀. At least we can console ourselves with cinnamon rolls in the morning. Now to unpack the “Cooler” and pack the duffle bag.

Tomorrow we make our way all the way through Louisiana, including sometime in Chinquapin Parish 💕💕💕 (here’s a hint: if I were describing these hearts, I would say they are blush and bashful 🥰)

Fifteen hours after we walked into the St Louis airport, we walked out of the Raleigh Durham airport! What a day! We made it home, and its only 12:50am and Leo needs to be at drop off for camp in 6 hours

We made the best of a very long day, and after a life time (and sleep) this will be a great story 🤣. “Remember that time we were stuck in the St. Louis airport for 8 and a half hours!”🤪

And we saw an amazing sunset from the air

We made it to North Carolina!

Special special special thank you to Natalie who spent the last hours of her birthday (with her co-pilot Drew) driving to Raleigh to pick us up.

Regardless of today, its been a great trip! Only 12 states to go…

Here’s our stats:

One new cooler (the boys will never need to buy a cooler in college);

Traveled through 5 states covering 3,396 miles;

3 loaves of bread;

5.5 pounds of turkey;

1 pound of ham;

2 pounds of various sliced cheeses;

2 heads of lettuce; and

6 avocados.

Not to mention the bags of cookies, chips, hummus, salsa, cases of water, and other meals.

We stayed in 5 AirBnBs, 5 different hotels and ate fantastic food. We met some neat folks along the way and realized that as much as we like travel, I still haven’t found anywhere we like better than home.

In my ongoing quest to find positive things from the hot mess that today has become I’ve been doing a little exploring. Plenty of time to do that with 8 1/2 hours to kill in the St Louis Airport 🤣

First thing we learned is that Southwest has GOOD deals on day-of flying. It was actually cheaper than the American Airlines flight I booked in May. Now granted, everything we saved we have probably spent on the extra meals/food in the airport, but maybe we found a new favorite airline 🤷🏻‍♀️

Second thing we learned is that you cannot check bags more that 4 hours before you depart. Our choices became either stay in the outer area of airport… were there are no restaurants, few chairs and extremely crowded, or as the nice Southwest attendant suggested, if they’ll make it through TSA, just gate check it all. Try to picture us in the TSA line with Leo’s steamer-trunk of a suitcase, two average rolling suitcases and a cooler stuffed with laundry and souvenirs. A large bottle of shampoo/body wash caused a bit of hiccup, as well as bottles of Dimetapp and Robitussin, but we made it through… so here we sit, like vagabonds 🤣🤣

Third, did you know that every airport has a “Service Animal Relief Area?” I guess I never thought about it, but they will need to go too during a day of travel. I’ve never checked these out in other airports, but I am thinking St Louis may win the award for best one. This may be a new search item for me in traveling…

Fourth, I had no idea there is a Interfaith chapel in the airport. Again, I may start checking these out. It wasn’t huge, but listen, I about lost my religion in front of the American Airlines gate. So maybe this is just what I need.

And – I thought of another reason for sunshine in this mess… normally I wish the boys were little again. But not today! Can you imagine if they were 8 and 9 right now? We would spend be trying to keep them from bouncing off the walls??? 🤣🥴 Thank the Lord for YouTube and ESPN.com

Two and half hours to go…

It was bound to happen one day… we wake up on time, brush teeth and get ready for a day of travel. Arrange dirty clothes in a cooler, grab the hotel shuttle, check bags, start walking to your gate, and KA-BLAM! The dreaded your flight is cancelled email 😬

According to American Airlines inside the terminal it is due to weather in Washington, D.C. but according to the news networks, American Airlines’ CEO said it is due to staffing shortages. So… we waited in line and spent that hour online with Jonah the most unhelpful agent who kept finding great flights for us… tomorrow.

Me: Jonah, I have a child who needs to be at church to leave for camp at 7:30 tomorrow so I have to have a flight tonight.

Jonah: I see. Let me check. Extended pause... okay, so I have a flight to Charlotte at 6:30.

Me: Great! Lets book that for tonight.

Jonah: Okay so tomorrow will work?

Me: NO. Today, Sunday, July 9th.

Jonah: I see. Let me check. Extended pause... okay, so I have a flight to Charlotte through LaGuardia at 7.

Me: that’s perfect. Please book that.

Jonah: okay, so leaving tomorrow at 7.

Me: NO!!!

Finally found a Southwest flight to Raleigh that leaves at 7pm and arrives at 11:15. Bless Natalie for being our shuttle. So now we get to hang out in the St Louis Airport for the next 6 and half hours. And PRAY that no issues on Southwest.

But let’s be honest, and find a little sunshine in this:

1. We have traveled a whole lot, and we’ve never had a cancellation before;

2. We are all together, healthy and safe;

3. We were able to get another flight;

4. Leo will be home in time for camp drop off tomorrow. He’ll be really tired, but he’ll be there;

5. I love an adventure and time together… so were technically getting both… all about perspective; and

6. Someone somewhere wishes this was their only problem 😉♥️

Another update later…

We said goodbye to our little lake cabin and headed back to St Louis, going over the same bridge we went under yesterday.

As we made our way from southwest Missouri over to St Louis on the eastern border, we saw a hodgepodge of sights: an Amish buggy, a hitching post outside a convenience store (with horses getting water and food), and roads so hilly we thought we were on a roller coaster.🤢

But we found a Mom’s Cafe serving a little of everything… mini sandwiches on hawaiian rolls, one cheeseburger and salads (basically whatever was left in the cooler).

As we drove, we had one more stop we hoped to see from Aerial America – Elephant Rock State Park. From above, the huge boulders look like circus elephants lined up. These boulders were buried deep beneath the earth’s surface until erosion, shifting plates and time brought them to the surface. There are trails, picnic tables and playgrounds all around and best of all, you can climb on all the rocks.

The rocks were a little slick due to the rain, but we made our way around and to the top.

Never to be without some dash of adventure… As we were climbing, Leo’s croc slipped off and became wedged just far enough and high enough that we couldn’t reach. We tried branches and anything else we could find but no luck. Score: Elephant Park 1, Leo 0

As he climbed down, we texted Mike who saved the day and brought the shoes they bought for white water rafting, which have actually turned out to be pretty comfortable. No need keeping one croc…

We hit the road for our last ride into St Louis. We are staying tonight at the Hilton beside the airport since our flight is at 10am. Our plan was to check in drop off bags, go to dinner, return the car tonight and grab an Uber back to the hotel. Thankfully, the good Lord fixed our plan…

When we asked the front desk to recommend somewhere close by for dinner, he said the best place in this area was the restaurant in the hotel. So we unloaded, the boys and I took luggage to the room while Mike stayed with the car. Once we unloaded the luggage cart, the boys stayed in room and Mike and I took the car back to Budget rental, which was literally the parking lot beside the hotel. Thank you Lord for the re-plan, because the car rental return was a nightmare! 20+ people waiting 2-3 folks working… I say 2-3 because really only 2 were working the other was just present. Anyway… 90 minutes later, we got the receipt that car was returned. Can you imagine if the boys had been with us and waiting all that time!?!?

Back at the hotel, the front desk was right! The hotel restaurant was pretty good, and the service was great. Afterwards, we came back to the room to repack and adjust to make the cooler into a suitcase. And got one more beautiful sunset. Finally finished repacking, we played one more whole game of garbage (that’s 10 hands) and are packed and ready for one more day of travel.

This time tomorrow, we’ll be back in North Carolina!

Today was another one of those days that Mike and I will talk about when the boys are grown and out of the house. One of the best days ever! It will rank up there with the day that Leo met Captain America, when Michael researched and found Moss Beach, like the day we spent on Lake Payette in Idaho, or white water rafted in Glacier National Park on the 4th of July and a Bald Eagle flew by.. It was just the best day.

The boys have been looking forward to this day for the entire vaction, and when I initially looked at Friday’s weather, I was ready to cry. Originally, it was a little rainy… then it switched to isolated thunderstorms… then it was thunderstorms all day with “some severe”… then it was rainy… and then it was scattered rain, and when we woke up Friday morning… Thank you Lord for hearing our very specific prayers… Partly cloudy with possible rain after dark! Hallelujah!

We have rented a pontoon boat on Table Rock Lake for the day. The tubes and lilly pads are first come first serve, so the boys made sure we were AT the marina at 11am (when pick up started). We thought we would have a grill on the boat, but there was a bit of miscommunication, so we grabbed a bag of ice to keep the patties cool, and off we went. With a photo of our dock, so we could remember later, Capt. Brown was ready to roll!

Table Rock Lake is HUGE – 43,000 acres! We took of photo of the map, but eventually needed to use GPS later in the day…

This boat is awesome! It has an upper deck – only for use when not moving – with a slide! Sometimes we used the slide and sometimes, there were just bodies flying over the edge 🤣

The lake was beautiful and the temperature was perfect – like just slightly warm bathwater… cool enough to cool off but not so cold you didn’t want to jump in. And the color – it was like green-blue. Boys described it best, it was the color of Mountain Dew’s Baja Blast drink.

We would ride, and tube, ride and rube, ride and tube…

Even Mike and I tried the slide and swam for a while.

Then we noticed the sides of lake. We think it was limestone, but more importantly, we saw folks jumping off of it… Cliff Jumping? Heck Yea!

We took a break for a bit, and opened Mom’s Cafe @ Table Rock Lake. But then, it was back in the water. I wish I knew how many miles they covered on this tube. 😊

We would take a break and ride a bit, and then toss the tube in and take off!

We went under bridges and snacked. We found more cliffs to jump off. Some even had ropes for swinging! I’m not sure who put this rope WAY UP in that tree, but you sure made two boys from North Carolina happy!

Even I got in on the cliff jumping… although once was enough for me. Climbing the rocks was scary going up!

The boys admitted that that was one was a little scary because of the climb.

We tubed some more, and Mike got really good at bouncing them in the air.

We stayed on the lake for 9 hours 😁 finally bringing the boat in at 8pm. The sunset on the lake was perfect end to perfect day!

We headed back to our little cabin and started laundry while the burgers cooked and wings warmed up. This was one hungry bunch!

I looked up as I was typing this, and discovered that genetics run much deeper than just features, eyes and hair color… apparently, it controls body positioning too.🤣

Two hands of garbage was all we could make it through until we were just too tired to stay up any longer. Best capstone to a great vacation! Tomorrow, we have one more travel day back to St Louis before we head home.

Today was about as lazy as we can get on vacation. We slept in, enjoyed coffee and chocolate milk in our little Lake Cabin, and were just lazy… like didn’t get dressed until after 12pm lazy. And it was wonderful!

Finally, we decided to get dressed and headed down to the lake for a little swimming and exploring. Table Rock Lake is absolutely beautiful. It is a reservoir lake created by Table Rock Dam. It’s not a traditional circular lake. The lake is more snakelike covering 43,000 acres! The beach and swimming area are right down the road from the cabin and these two liked trying to sink the swimming lane floats. While Mike and I found seashells and rocks with seashells fossils imprinted on them. Pretty cool to find seashells in Missouri.

After the lake, the boys found another basketball court and ball behind the cabins, so we spent another hour playing parents vs. boys… It didn’t seem really hot when we started but good gracious, after playing the boys, it was hot!

After showers, we headed to Branson for dinner and the Queen Esther performance at the Sight & Sound Theater. The roads between Table Rock Lake and Branson are really curvy, so Leo took the front seat to reduce any car sickness.

The boys suggested Japanese for dinner, but we didn’t really want to go to a restaurant where the cook at the table since it always makes your clothes smell like dinner for the rest of the night… a few Yelp searches later, and we found our place, Mitsu Neko Fusion. Absolutely nothing to look at outside, but fantastic service and food!

Even saw the biggest Chicken we’ve ever seen. 🤣

We made it to the Sight & Sound Theater. This is the second Sight & Sound theater, the first being in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We loved the outside statues and buildings. The theater itself is HUGE!

We had to make the photo that everyone seemed to be making. One poor lady was waiting on her husband to park the car, and had gotten caught making everyone’s picture. But she was really good at photography 🤣

Inside the theater was amazing! It is really hard to explain the sets – they are breathtaking! Three dimensional with turning sets that move and change. And the costumes and voices were just incredible. The story of Queen Esther is one of my favorites in the Bible and this production brought it all to life.

At the end, the actors didn’t come out to applause and standing ovations, instead they came out and offered the plan of salvation for anyone who didn’t know Jesus or offered prayer for anyone who requested. It was definitely not what we expected but it was so sweet to see.

After we left the theater, we were headed home when 🚔🚨 Busted! Just kidding – no issue with driving, instead it was the license plate. The car we rented was new and didn’t have a license plate – instead it had a paper temporary license plate taped to the back window. At night with our dirty back window, you couldn’t see the temporary license plate, so we looked like an unlicensed SUV rolling down the road. The officers (oh yea, they called for backup so we had 2 police cars with lights) were very nice and after the ran Mike’s license to make sure he didn’t have any warrants, we were on our way.

Good lesson for the boys to be kind and respectful to the officers just doing their job… and also to not have outstanding warrants and wash your car windows 🤣

After we got home, we decided to play a little garbage, even though someone would only play 2 hands before he needed to go to bed.

Tomorrow we’ll have to get up and moving before noon because we have an adventure out on Table Rock Lake planned.

We woke up in Hot Springs, Arkansas and it absolutely lived up to its name. Good gracious! 90+° by 10am! All exploring today will be from A/C area to A/C area.

The hotel breakfast left much to be desired, like bones of an antelope after the lions finished eating… apparently arriving at 9:16am when the breakfast buffet ends at 10am is not a good idea. So, we decided to pack the car, explore and grab something on the way out of town.

Hot Springs National Park is one of the only National Parks in the middle of a city. It’s quite different from other National Parks where there is so much to see over so much land. Hot Springs is in a very concentrated area, which is a nice way of saying overcrowded. We started our exploring in the Fordyce Bathhouse and Visitors’ Center. The Springs have been around for years, at least as far back as Native American Tribes who believed in the healing properties of the waters.

Scientists believe that it take 4,000 to 7,500 years for rainwater of today to soak into ground and through limestone and then back up into the hot springs. Of course, I’m not sure how you test that theory, but that’s what the plague said, so it’s gotta be true.

The Fordyce was one of the original bathhouses, built around these springs.

People traveled from all over the country to have daily soaks and then steam treatment from the Springs. Doctors even wrote prescriptions for people to travel to the Springs for treatments. Even our military believed this, building a huge Army/Navy Hospital in Hot Springs.

They had rooms for folks who were paralyzed with a systems of pulleys, ropes and gurneys to move them to the pools for treatments. People believed that soaking in the Hot Springs could cure paralysis, and diseases like Polio. FDR even came for treatments.

Many modern physical therapy equipment had its rudimentary beginnings in Hot Springs.

After soaks, visitors would rest in the parlor or their private rooms – rented just to allow you time to rest/recuperate after your soak. (These people sure got tired easy… they needed a nap after soaking in water? 🥴)

If they weren’t too exhausted from soaking, they would go for a workout or massage or maybe to get their hair and makeup done 🤣 or again to lounge in their parlors

All jokes aside, the architecture in the buildings and tile work were beautiful! And the craftsmanship in the wood work was timeless… clearly since it is still in use 60 years later.

Outside the visitors center, we explored one of the hot springs ourselves. Coming straight out of the ground, the water is 140° degrees. Michael said “can you imagine walking along and bending down for a sip of cool water, and get this!”

Hot Springs National Park was definitely worth a stop but in hindsight this should have been a stop on the way somewhere else instead of an overnight stay. We covered the majority of the park in couple of hours and even if weather permitted a long hike, I still would have used as a layover stop… oh well, live and learn.

We left Hot Springs, grabbed a quick “brunch” at Starbucks and off we went to LIttle Rock, Arkansas. The keeping with our tradition, we grapped a photo in front of the Capital Building. We also went by Little Rock Central High School, the first integrated high school in the nation. It is amazing that the school is still in use, and while they have kept the front of the school as it looked in 1957, the back of the school is clearly a functioning school.

As we traveled from Little Rock to North Arkansas, we passed an outpost for the Civilian Conservation Corp that was still in operation. Normally, this is something you see back in the depression to give people jobs and to build National Parks and other areas. Honestly, I don’t think we realized that were still in operation until today.

The drive was really pretty but the roads were twisty turny from Little Rock to Eureka Springs because we, of course, were traveling on the Pig Trail Scenic Byway 🐷🐖. Thankfully our backseat passengers weren’t too effected by the turns 🤣

We were traveling to Eureka Springs to see the Thorncrown Chapel, a beautiful chapel in the woods that we read about and saw in tourism magazine. However (ugh!) when we arrived the Chapel was closed to the public due to a wedding… we (I) tried to walk up and get a closer but didn’t want to effect the wedding so we only got so close.

But hey, we did get to see a big metal dragon in someone’s yard 🤣

We finally made it to Lampe, Missouri to our cabin for the next 3 nights on Table Rock Lake in the Ozarks. The cabin is so comfortable with a bedroom for boys (with thankfully 2 beds) and for us, a washer dryer and nice screened in porch.

We have a pool and playground right outside the Cabin, and are also within walking distance to Baxter Marina and swimming area in Table Rock Lake. After we put some chicken wings on to cook, we took a walk to check everything out.

Tomorrow, we having nothing to do until we head to Branson for a play later in the afternoon, so the plan is to sleep as late as we want to be lake lazy all day.