They're really keeping us hopping!

Yesterday, while the guys were at their technical seminars [yawn], a bunch of us ladies got to learn basket weaving. This should come in handy when we're in Ohio visiting the Longaberger Basket Company in a week or so! Heck, they might even offer us a job! Actually, it was quite frustrating and took awhile to get the hang of it, but my basket turned out pretty good, considering. Or it will if I ever finish it, we ran out of time! A lot of ladies gave up on theirs and others bought extra basket kits. It was an interesting experience...

There was an ice cream social in the afternoon near the show coaches. My goodness, all we do is eat around here, good thing I lost 10 pounds over the summer! I took Gabbi for a walk instead and it is amazing how many of us have dogs and some have really big dogs. Where do they keep them inside their RVs? Turns out most sleep in their owners' bed with them... Gabbi has free reign in the front of our coach and seems content with that. I'm afraid I'd roll over and squish her if she slept in our bed!

Last night, we held our chapter dinners. We have 10 chapters ~ each chapter president picked the restaurant where their group would dine. Our chapter only had two member coaches [one of them was ours] as we have the farthest to travel, not many attend. Usually, we combine with another chapter but this time we decided not to. It was a small, intimate group of four people for dinner at Cantina Laredo Gourmet Mexican Food at Branson Landing. Every 30 minutes we got a fire and water fountain show just outside our window on Lake Taneycomo. We could actually feel the heat from the fire. The food was outstanding! They prepare fresh guacamole right in front of you at your table. Our server, Amy, was from Idaho and was very friendly and attentive. It turned out the wife of the couple we were dining with, was having a birthday that day which made it really special. Oh, and the Spanish Coffee was realllly good!

Today was extremely busy. We were up early and on a bus by 9am headed for the Titanic Museum [ http://titanicbranson.com/ ] not far away. We filled three very large buses! The museum looked just like the Titanic on the outside and we were greeted as though we were a guest boarding for a cruise. The museum employees were dressed in the clothing from the time period of the actual Titanic cruise. We were each given a boarding pass with details about one of the passengers. We would be looking for information about what happened our "character" as we took a self-guided tour throughout the museum. In the end, we would find out if we were one of the survivors or not so lucky. It was a somber experience and we learned a lot about what happened and saw a lot of artifacts that were recovered. We dipped our pinkies in a barrel of water that was supposedly the same temperature as the water that those, unlucky enough to end up in it, had experienced. It was about 28F, brrrrrrrrr. We touched a replica of an iceberg, also brrrrrrrrrr. We had our photo taken on the grand staircase, a nice memento.

A few hours after heading back to the campground, we boarded buses again, this time for Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede dinner show [ http://dixiestampede.com/branson.php ]. What a neat experience! Great food, great show and if you ever get a chance to go, don't miss it... It was the North against the South. Our group was designated as the North and after all was said and done, we won! It was very entertaining and one man from our group was chosen to participate in one of the contests on the show floor: horseshoes, but using toilet seats as horseshoes!  He'll never live that one down.

Unfortunately, neither of the places we visited today allowed cameras so I have no pictures to share until I'm able to scan the photos we bought. We got a group shot of about 70 of us, they even managed to squeeze Dolly in there! I'll leave you with this shot from our campground:


They mean business here...point taken!