Surviving July’s heat

OMG, I’m sorry to have taken more than a month off of this blogging thing. I know I’m getting older, but it sure seems like we haven’t done anything but work, sleep, work, sleep, & TRY TO STAY COOL. Branson has had triple digit temps for something like six weeks or so, & as the humidity grew (slowly since we’re included in the Midwestern draught & haven’t gotten much rain), just breathing & walking outside took some concentration!

Funny how cooking for lots of people four days a week seems to have taken the fun out of it for Jeff. . .so, we go out to eat on our days off — spending my tip money in the community. And of course we NEVER get anything to eat that is available in the campground café. I’ve become somewhat addicted to the shrimp enchiladas at a local Mexican restaurant (NOT Tex-Mex) called Tequilas. AND also to getting a chocolate malt from Andy’s Frozen Custard. Many decades ago when I actually cooked some, I’d make homemade ice cream starting with a cooked egg custard base. Whalla – frozen custard! Tastes like what I remembered ice cream tasting like. I even carry my own nutmeg along in the truck now for our malt runs. If you don’t know about nutmeg in a malt, then you didn’t grow up going to the local drugstore soda fountain.

We did manage some more sightseeing tho. A day trip thru Roaring River near Cassville MO, & south to the Pea Ridge National Military Park.

The displays/movie in the visitor center are excellent (& free). Driving around the battlefields costs but is free with the National Parks Senior Pass. That little $10 card has paid for itself many times over. The fascinating thing about Pea Ridge (for this native Missourian) was Missourians fighting on both Union & Confederate sides. Although Missouri officially became a “slave” state, it never joined the South. I even heard the Civil War started between MO & KS since Kansas wasn’t a slave state & caused lots & lots of bad feelings in both states. Wild times back then. Anyway, the Union troops from MO came from the south to clash with some Confederate troops from MO near Pea Ridge.

Then we headed east, drove over Beaver Dam & visited Thorncrown Chapel near Eureka Springs, AR. The architecture alone is amazing but in that wooded setting makes it just fabulous!

The next week, we finally took a ride on the Branson Scenic Railroad south into Arkansas so saw quite a lot of that state in a short time. Unfortunately, lots of dead or dying trees are speckled across the wooded hillsides. No one knows if the trees are just trying to survive & going dormant. . .or if they just died.

 

Jeff had to visit a local dentist a month of so ago as he thought a crown came loose. Actually, his tooth was breaking off along the gum & needed to be pulled. He decided the time had finally arrived to have his remaining upper teeth pulled & get a denture. Although he got his full upper denture the same day his teeth were pulled, his gums hurt too much for him to wear the dentures all the time. Or to eat solid food comfortably yet!

Now the good news about surviving a hot & busy July at a campground is that we get an actual ‘vacation’ in August (cause business gets really slow). Besides needing to wash the trailer after sitting five months under lots of trees, we also had to figure out what to pack to take with us & what to move to our storage unit cause we were actually going to get out of Dodge!