Summer Vacation

I know, we are retired, so why do John and I need a summer vacation?   Well, we do still have the travel bug, so it is necessary for us to get out once and a while and hit the road.  Our daughter and her family had a small window of time between their son’s various summer camps to get away for a week, so we chose to join them on the first week in July at Table Rock Lake.  When we embarked on planning for this vacation at the beginning of this year we failed to take into account that many vacation rentals had already been booked.  We did find one available condo in Kimberling city, which is part of the Branson metropolitan area.  I was quite concerned as to whether we would find enough to do with our young grandchildren at a fishing resort, but it turned out to be a good week with them!

We found a scenic train at the Branson train station (actually an elderly Amtrak train from the 1950s) which took us out over the rolling Ozark hillsides two hours out and back.  Our 5 year- old grandson and 2 year- old granddaughter enjoyed that a lot- the dome and snack cars were their two favorite sections of the train.

Moonshine Beach is located on Table Rock Lake.  Nathan and Clarissa had been asking to go back to the beach in Florida, so this beach satisfied that desire.  Another day we went blueberry picking at Persimmon Hill farms- the cinnamon buns with blueberries at their bakery are quite delicious.  All five of us dove into one bun with our forks and it disappeared very quickly. 
And just because we were in a small town did not mean we missed fire works either.  On July 3 fireworks were shot over the lake, we had seats on a grassy hill near our condo- did not even have to take our car out for that.  Our two grandchildren also had fun trying out their fishing poles- patience is not a strong suit for children at this age! 

  We also toured Cosmic Cave with the children, that experience will be in my next posting.