Camping Trip, Day Two

Thursday, Nov. 4



Today is Granddaughter's birthday. Happy Birthday, Granddaughter!



We awoke to a sunny, but windy-cold morning. After breakfast and getting ready for the day, we went to the Amish store, where we bought cherry and peach jellies, spices, soup mix, and a bag of homemade noodles.



From there, we went to a craft mall. This is a large mall, so Mother rode in her wheelchair. Here, there were several artisans at work, including a candle maker, a stained glass artist, and a guy building a dulcimer. There were lots of beautiful crafts, but we didn't find anything we wanted.

So we returned to camp for lunch and to rest for a while before going to a 2 p.m. performance of Tony Orlando and the Lennon Sisters.

Funny: when I planned this trip, I planned it around this performance, the ticket vouchers to which I understood expired on this day. Well, when I looked at the vouchers, I saw that yes, they expired Nov. 4, but in 2009! These were tickets I bought from our local radio station...obviously, neither we nor they noticed the expiration date.

But we paraded up to the ticket counter, anyway, and explained our dilemma to the clerk. No problem, she said, all I needed was my confirmation number, which I had...in the truck. So Hubbie rushed back to get it, and we were issued tickets.

Mother had stayed in the truck while we got the tickets, because the parking lot was steeply inclined. Once we had things squared away, we went back and got the wheelchair to take Mother into the lobby.

We had good seats in full view of the stage, and there was a place designed to stow wheelchairs, walkers, and the like, nearby.

The performance was very good, of course. The three Lennon Sisters who performed were the younger ones of eleven siblings, and even they were grandmothers. In fact, toward the end of their performance, they brought out two granddaughters, one about ten years old, the other six years old. The girls performed with their grandmothers, and it was obvious that they are going to carry on the family music tradition.

Tony Orlando, my age, is still strong of voice, and still able to command an audience. He looks much the same, except for a generous spare tire around his middle.

We were back at camp around 4:30, following the performance. A neighbor camper called to us that another camper had raised our awning, because a strong wind had come up that the neighbor feared would rip it off.

We thanked him by giving him four certificates to get into the veteran's museum. The neighbor is himself a vet, and vets are admitted free to the museum, but he said he could use the certificates for his family. We toured the museum last year, so we were glad to find someone who could use them.

We relaxed after supper until time to go to an 8 p.m. show. I had one reserved seat to this show, confirmed through the Branson Tourist Center, but I failed to realize that I needed to call the theater directly to be sure we had accompanying seats for the two tickets I bought at the radio station. So I called earlier in the afternoon and managed to get three adjoining aisle seats in another section of the theater.

The show was "Country Jubilee," which is a music and comedy performance. Before the show began, they scanned the audience with a video camera, stopping at this person and that to make comments about who they looked like. When it honed in on us, the host called us "Three's Company." Then the camera focused on Hubbie, whereupon a bare chested body builder torso caricature was superimposed over him. Good for a laugh.

This show, like all of them during the week, was a Christmas performance. On our way out of the theater, we overheard a guy tell his wife, "Halloween was a few days ago, and now here we are celebrating Christmas already."

It was after 10 p.m. by the time we got back to camp, and nearly eleven before we were ready for bed. A long but fun day.