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Heading north from Harrison,
Arkansas we entered the
southwest corner of Missouri. Branson,
Missouri has a population of just over 6,000, but
supports 80 to 90 various live theaters.
Examples are "Acrobats of China", "Dolly Parton's
Dixie Stampede", "The Gatlin Brothers", "Mel Tillis",
"Mickey Gilley Show", "The Oak Ridge Boys", "The Jim
Stafford Show", "Pam Tillis", and "Yakof Smirnof".
Other big name performers come in regularly, also.
Most of the shows are open 5 or 6 days per week and
some are even twice per day. We went to see
"The Baldknobbers". They are a musical group
(country, gospel and mountain) with "hillbilly
comedy". This group has been performing in
Branson since 1959 and they now have some 3rd generation members of the original family
performing. It was a lot of fun. At
intermission, they
came out and sat on the stage to sign autographs and
pose for pictures. As you can see below, I
posed with one of the comedians. (I am the one
on the right!) Further
north, we stopped in Springfield, Missouri to visit
one of Jackie's cousins; Betty Marie and her husband
Ivan. We had a very nice visit with them and
their 3 Basset Hounds. Three years ago a
tornado destroyed their home while they were
protected in the basement. It took 5 months,
but they rebuilt the home right there as it was.
This past month, they have gone to the basement
twice due to tornadoes in the area, but thankfully did not receive any damage.
While in Springfield we also
got to visit a GMC dealership again. As I
mentioned before, brakes have been the Achilles heal
of our Suburban and they are once again acting up.
Since it has only been 5,000 miles since we had the
brakes worked on, this was not a stop we wanted to
make. However, we do have another 3,000 miles
to go before we are home, so we did not want to put
it off.
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This braking system just does
not hold up when pulling a heavy trailer.
Our Suburban weighs in at about 6,500 pounds and the
trailer weighs in at about 7,500 pounds. The
trailer does have electric brakes, I did replace the
controller just before the trip, and we do adjust
them. Nothing seems to really help. I
have been told that newer Suburban's have a better
braking system. Of course, the $400 (total)
that we put into brakes this trip is less than one
monthly payment on a new vehicle.
As we got ready to leave
Springfield Saturday morning, another storm hit and
we had lots of thunder and lightning again. We
drove west, right through the end of it, coming out to
great weather and drove 310 miles to Enid, Oklahoma.
Enid is where a special
friend of mine grew up. Mike, you never told
me this was such a big town! It was about
94 Saturday in Enid and the whole southeast is just
begging for rain. Too bad the west coast can't
send some rain over this way! Sunday morning
we went to the Easter Service at the First Assembly
of God in Enid. It was a great service.
By 1:00pm Sunday, we will be leaving Enid and again
heading west.
Well, as you can see this a
much shorter version than what I have sent in the
past. I think our minds are already home.
Also, we have not had an Internet connection since
Monday, so we have to update whenever we find a
connection. If you have actually been reading
all of this and looking at all of our pictures, I
applaud you. Of course, being an ex-teacher I
feel we need to have a final exam in a few weeks.
So... stay sharp!
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