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Published: January 9th 2015
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Chad had a few days of vacation left that he had to use before January 31, 2015. So he took a mini vacation from December 31 - January 6. Most of the time he spent working around the house. We are adding a room on to our house, so he spent a lot of hours working on that. But of course, the weather didn't want to cooperate. Over the weekend, it got down to freezing temps during the day, which is unusual for Oklahoma. So on Sunday, we were sitting around the house watching tv when we decided to go on a road trip.
We hopped in the car and decided to head towards Bartlesville, OK. This was about 1:00 in the afternoon. We drove through Osage Hills State Park which is always beautiful no matter what time of year you go. We love just driving through places and seeing the scenery. When we got to Bartlesville, we were both hungry, so we found a little Mexican restaurant, El Maguey, that we had never ate at. It was pretty good and not bad priced. Then we decided we would drive up to Dewey and hit some junk stores. I love
Antiques and Junk stores!! My son, Aaron, collects Zippos and other old lighters. I found him a really small one that was from Rocky Mountain National Park.
After we went to a couple of junk stores, we decided to head East. Jokingly, we talked about going to Branson. Branson is our home away from home. We love going there. We usually end up there several times a year. We were just there in October for our annual Fall in the Ozarks trip. (Every year since we've been together, Chad and I go to Branson in the Fall. No kids are allowed to go with us! It's become our tradition. We get our yearly family Christmas ornament every year in the fall when we visit Kringles at the Grand Village in Branson.) Well, even though we were both joking, we both knew we were going to end up there. We had no clothes, no toiletries, nothing with us. We haven't been able to do this in so long!! Chad's grandma came to live with us about 2 1/2 years ago. It was so hard for us to go on spur of the moment trips because we always had to have
someone watch her while we were gone since she couldn't take care of herself anymore. She passed away in October. Although we miss her very much, there is a sense of relief and freedom to be able to do things again without worrying about her.
We drove to Vinita and got on the turnpike there since it was already getting dark. I got on my phone and booked a hotel in Branson. This is the off season there, so hotels were cheap. We pulled in to town about 8:15. There is something about Branson that makes Chad and I smile and laugh while we're there. I don't know what it is, but we do. We just love that town! We found our hotel and checked in, then hit a Walmart to buy some shampoo, deodorant, toothbrush, etc. By then we were getting hungry again. So trying to find someplace to eat on a Sunday night about 9:00 in a town that's all closed up wasn't easy!! Luckily, the Applebee's was open and had quite a crowd. We had some big juicy hamburgers and I had a HUGE margarita and Chad had a Large beer!! We made our loop around
Branson to see everything then headed back to the hotel, where we finished off our Razzbarita's that we had bought. Even though there was nothing going on in Branson, we were still having a great, relaxing time together.
So the next morning we get up and check out of the hotel. We decide we're going to drive the back roads. The Ozarks are beautiful even in the winter. When there's no leaves on the trees, you can see so much more! Driving through the winding roads in the Ozark mountains is such a great time to Chad and I. I know a lot of people always ask us, why do you go over there so much? What do you do? Just being there is enough. I don't know how to put it in to words. There's just something about the two of us driving through the Ozarks that is so relaxing and beautiful and makes us both laugh and smile. It brings us closer to each other.
We hit highway 76 and drove through the winding hills. We ended up at Roaring River State Park. I'm still in awe of this place every time I go there.
We didn't do any hiking on the trails because it was so cold. But we did go see the Spring and took some pictures. The ice hanging down off of the cliffs was beautiful. We fed some of the Trout. They were jumping out of the water to get the food!
As I was looking at a map on my phone to see which way to go, I realized how close we were to Washburn, MO. I have been doing a lot of family genealogy research and I knew that my great, great, great Grandfather had died in Washburn. So we decided we would find the cemetery there and see if I could find his grave. That's something else that we love to do, walking through old cemeteries. We found the cemetery and we walked around it for quite a while, but were didn't have any luck finding my ggg grandfather. I'm trying to find more information about him now to see if maybe he's buried in a different cemetery. There were some really old graves there. Some of them were soldiers in the Civil War. There were also some graves there with big rocks piled around them. After
doing some research on the internet, I found out that those were graves of slaves from that area. When a slave died, the family would ask the clergy if they could be buried there. If they were allowed to be buried there, they would not be allowed to have headstones, so they would pile up these rocks to mark the grave.
After leaving Washburn, we drove down Highway 90, which is very much a winding road. It took us through Noel, MO, which is our other Home away from home! We go there every summer to float the river and camp. I've been going there since I was 2 years old. I've been taking my kids there since they were old enough to float. I can't wait to take my grandson there! When I was a kid we had our family reunions there every year. Chad and I even got married on the river bank at Wayside Campground in Noel. Then we floated the river with our family and friends after the ceremony. Lots of good times there! I just love the bluffs there, they are so pretty! Especially with the ice on them this time of year.
After leaving Noel, we drove to Grove, OK where we stopped at a little Mom and Pop style restaurant and ate a good ol' home cooked meal. It was about 2:00 in the afternoon by this time. Of course, we love driving over Sailboat bridge in Grove. It's just one of those landmarks that we love seeing. When we hit Vinita, we decided to go to a couple more junk stores.I can sure lose track of time in those places!! It was almost 6:00 by the time we left there. We decided we better head home, since Aaron would be home for the evening after spending the weekend at his dads.
We got home about 8:30 that evening and spent the rest of the evening hanging out with Aaron and watching tv and talking. It was such a great road trip! Like I said before, we haven't been able to do that in so long so it felt so good being able to do it again! I love a good spur of the moment road trip! But from now on, I'm going to leave a bag packed in the car, just in case!!
Now I'm counting down the
days till our cruise in February!! 7 days of fun and sun to Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Cozumel on board the Carnival Freedom!
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7 Day Caribbean Cruise
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