Well, here's day two in Branson, Mo. We started the day with breakfast with Red Skelton. Tom Molika used to work as a writer for Red before his retirement. Now he impersonates him. The first picture is Little Critter with his favorite Red Skelton character, Clem Cadiddlehopper. I have video of Little Critter when he was really little, running around the house with one of my old felt fedora-like hats crammed on his head and an oversized shirt (one of mine) talking like he was Clem. It's hysterically funny. The second picture is Tom Molika. He even sounds like Red Skelton when he's not in character!! And he was so funny, I couldn't breathe! I had to pull out my inhaler and use it...I haven't had to use an inhaler in years!!!! (I always keep one handy for just in case scenerios.
Trips to the ER are expensive....lots more so than a generic inhaler for asthma!!!!)
After we finally got our breathe back after Red Skelton...we took Little Critter to the Talking Rocks Cavern. It was incredible. This is a picture of one of the group of stalagtights called curtain stalagtights. Of course the young boy behind us had to remind us they were also called Bacon Stalagtights to the point I finally turned around with a grin and said "We're Jewish. We don't have bacon and certainly don't crawl thru it!! They're curtains!!!" He just looked at me a minute and then he and Little Critter in unison chimed out 'bacon, bacon, bacon!!!!" The two little rats.....it was really funny. But then again, we were 200 feet underground by that point, so most likely a lack of real air was beginning to make everything silly to us!!!!(Not to mention the fact that we were deep into a small tight place I could not readily get out of!!!! Which was only half as bad as the natural bridge we walked across....the one where Little Critter says so excitedly "Mom look! I can hardly see the bottom from here!" Of course I looked.....silly me....then when the vision returned to my stunned eyes I remembered I don't like heights either!) Little Critter loved the cavern....Dodi thought it was wonderfully fascinating.....I did it because I love my son. (I hate small, tight places and walking on very narrow, slippery natural bridges miles above the bottom of the hole we're crawling thru.....Next year-NO CAVERNS!!!!!) Wink, wink.
Once we finished panning for jewels (which we were guaranteed to find...once we bought the sand to pan with) we drove back to the hotel and walked over to the Titanic museum. This picture is of Little Critter in front of the Museum. It's one of the coolest museums we've ever been to! The whole thing is built like the front half of the ship Titanic. You walk thru a man made ice berg with a real ice berg inside (out of the heat of course) to pick up your boarding pass and ticket. Then you find out which of the real passengers from the Titanic you are. The rest of the museum you walk thru various compartments of the ship and read all sorts of fasinating info about the people, building, launching and sailing of the Titanic. Little Critter was John Jacob Astor-the richest man in the world (in 1912 of course), Dodi was the head mailman on the ship and I was one of the women. Needless to say, I was the only survivor. We had little scavenger hunt pages to fill out that I'd downloaded from their website and all had a blast looking for the answers to the questions on the hunt. For instance, did you know there were 12 couples on their honeymoons on Titanic's maiden voyage? There were. And there were only 23 female staff members of the 432 employees on board. We all learned some neat facts about the ship, the crew and the passengers. Mr. Astor was there with his second wife on their honeymoon. (Which was probably a good thing since she was 5 months pregnant with his child....ooops) Mr. Astor was 47 yrs old ( I think) and his new bride was 18. She survived and the child was born later. Mr. Astor perished. I believe I remember reading there were only about 12-14 crew members who survived and they were all rowing the life boats. It was a beautifully well done and really family friendly museum with great things for kids to do hands on. At one place they could put their hands in water cooled to the 28 degrees the water was when Titanic sank and then punch the clock to see how long they could stay in that cold water. There was also a place were you walked along the promenade in front of the captain's deck and the air temp was about 32 degrees. Boy that one felt good!!!! Even in our shorts and t shirts!!!! All in all, this is for sure a place to visit more than once. It was great.
After Titanic, we went back to the hotel and went to bed. The next morning (Friday 6-19-09) we hit the road again....but that's for another post. On the road again....just gotta get on the road again... sorry, couldn't help myself.
Well my friends, I pray that as you travel on your journeys whether to new, exciting places or even if just to the local grocery store you take the time to see the wonders that surround us. Learn to savor the moments, make beautiful memories, enjoy the wonders around us. And always look for Papa's love letters to you....they're all around you. If you look. Shalom, until next time. Spitfire
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