Happy Thanksgiving to everyone

We wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.  Sad that we're not there, but we will be soon.  We are working today, covering for the managers.  It's a very busy day, with lots of check ins and a full park...Branson is one of the premiere shopping places for Black Friday in MO.  Yesterday afternoon/evening, we were under a watch for tornadoes, straightline winds over 60 and hail over 1-1/2".  We didn't get hit...but today, we are under a winter advisory with freezing rain/sleet/snow mix until 6 pm.  Tonite, it'll get down to 19 with a windchill of 10.
But then we're back up in the 50's after that.....go figure !
We are moving to our "winter" site on Sunday, where we will stay until it's time to leave in the spring.
I'll end this posting with a picture of Branson Landing, the fire and water show, which  goes on every
day.

SIX !!!!

SIX !!!  What can I say, Six won entertainer of the year 2010 for Branson....and justly so.  The lead of this group, Jak, is one of the folks I was working with at the Owen Homestead/Eagle Scout project.  Matter of fact, one of the eagle scouts was related to him.  Well, ended up he gave me v.i.p. tickets for their show.  We went yesterday.  They are a vocal band, with no instruments at all....holy cow, what a show !
They are six brothers...each has a car just like this one, only different colors.

Nice seats !!

Second half of the show was their Christmas program.  I videoed a short

clip of them.  If you listen closely, you *think* you hear a lot of instruments

in the background...you don't, it's the voices of the two on the right and the

two on the left.  video from my phone certainly doesn't do them justice...but

when we get back to NY, I'll let you hear their cd.  Fantastic !

Gatlin Brothers and Debbie Boone

Nice show, really nice show.  This was at the mansion theatre, which is a huge, beautiful place.  Here's a pic with the horse sculptures out front.

Here's a pic of the backdrop/stage.  Very nice.

Here's the Gatlin Brothers.  Great show with front row tickets.

Gatlin Brothers and Debbie Boone

Debbie Boone...great voice, great show !

Owen Homestead Phase II

This past Saturday, I worked with the scouts again on the Owen Homestead.

I installed the trellis' that I built for it, then pulled the gutters and hardware off of

the barn.  I used these to replace the trashed one's on the house.  Interesting brackets/

hardware for the gutters.  Designed to be used with no soffit/facia, the brackes mount

right onto the side of each roof rafter.

Then I did an evaluation on the roof damage that is the next big concern.  There is a busted

chimney going thru the roof, and next to it an area about 10'x15' that is sunk in about 12".

Someone had nailed several misc. pieces of plywood right over the shingles to stop the leak....

they only made it worse.

At day's end, the Scout's project was pretty much done.  4 Scouts and volunteers had

logged 360 manhours on this project in two saturdays.  I'd estimate over 5 acres was cleared of

overgrown brush/trees, stone walls mended and the work I did on the house.

These Scouts should be very,very proud of their work here !

I will meet with the city this week to discuss if anything further needs to be taken care of.

My conservative estimate is $55,000 to $75,000 is needed just to basically secure the home

against further rot, bugs, animals, etc.

Here's the end of the house.

Same end, close up.  Please notice that some of the rocks

stick out much farther than the others.  Dr. Owen had

an office in that little upstairs room.  He built those protruding

rocks as steps...for a fire escape !

Replacement trellis' installed.  They are exact replicas, except

I made them out of pressure-treated wood.

Foggy morning view from the porch of the home.

Picture of whole house.  It is about 1100 s.f.

Here's the video of the tree.  Sorry, I can't flip it !

Silver Dollar City

Silver Dollar City is quite an amazing place......here's a link           http://www.bransonsilverdollarcity.com/

Part of it's an amusement park, most is an old world setting with alot of craftsmen and really nice shops, etc.  All the craftsmen (blacksmiths,cabinetmakers,glassblowers, etc.) run off of steam, water and fire power.  I'm going to guess....the "city" sits on about 20+ acres which is nothing compared to the parking lot.  It extends 3/4 of a mile down the road and they run opencar shuttles up to the entrance.  Each shuttle holds about 40 people, and they run several of them constantly. 

Now they are doing their Christmas gig, so we went yesterday to view it all.  Over 4 MILLION Christmas lights with a center tree that is about 45 feet tall !  I hope to upload the video I shot of it...the tree lights are synchro'ed to music and it's unbelievable.  Here's some pics of our trip there.


                                                    This is the "courtyard" area

Here's the 45 foot tree in it's "red" mode.

This is the wilderness church.  Seats about 50, timberframe construction.

I'll try and get the video of the tree uploaded by tomorrow...right now, I'm off to the Owen Homestead to work with the scouts and the city.

Oak Ridge Boys

Well, last night we got to see the Oak Ridge Boys.  I had 3 tickets, so we took a friend of mine.  Front row seats, fantastic show !  They have their own theatre (actually TWO theatres)...this is a life size bronze sculpture in the lobby.

Here's a pic of their stage screen

Here's a pic of how close we were to them.

Can you say "Big Screen"?

Next stop, Silver Dollar City on Friday for the Christmas Lights,

then we'll see the Gatlin Brothers next Tuesday.

Kayak

Our "bosses" here are Jim and Sherrell...dang nice folks for sure.  Jim's a fascinating fella.  He wanted to build a kayak.  Now, he's never built a kayak...but he found a guy down here that would teach him.  Using rough sawn lumber, cutting down each individual slat, he built...by hand...the kayak in the picture below.  I'd say he's a pretty talented guy !  Built out of cedar...forgive the photo, as I took the picture of a picture in the newspaper.

Update on Owen Homestead

I finally got a few more pics uploaded of the Owen homestead.

Playing Pranks

Well, it's fun and games time.  One person I've met down here is Carl...he's a hoot, and we've become pretty good friends.  A few weeks ago, he and his wife were leaving to return to "Gawgeea"...you know, south of the mason-dixon line.  For weeks, Carl's been giving me crap about being from north of that line...so I couldn't let him leave without a fitting "farewell".  Carl's pretty well off, and his RV is a massive Prevost coach.  Sooooo...the morning he was leaving, I placed a sign in front of his fancy Prevost at 630 a.m.  A few of us stood back to watch what happened.  we weren't disappointed !

                                                  Here's his rig with the sign in front

Here's a close up of the sign.

Veteran's Day

Veteran's Day is HUGE in Branson..and I do mean HUGE !  Literally thousands of Vets descend on Branson for a week of events.  The toy run, the traveling vietnam wall, huge parade, ceremonies...wow.  I also chose this timeframe to finally take care of my flagpole....never been happy with the old one, I devised a new one that holds 3 flags.  It rotates with the wind, and is very solid/stable.  It is built out of pvc, lined with metal conduit, mounted on a 3/4" masonry stake 3 feet long.

The Owen's Homestead

I found out about a fascinating place...the Owen's Homestead.  While it is "in town", it is in a City Wilderness Area.  The city purchased it from the kids of Dr. Owen.  Built back in 1911, it's a 7 acre estate complete with a stone home, barns and massive stone fences and stone planters.  He even built stone steps down to Lake Taneycomo...which is extremely steep and about 1000 feet down.  Anyway...there are four Boy Scouts here in Branson going for their Eagle Scout award.  As a part of that, they are working with the City to help Restore this estate.  Being abandoned for many years, it is in a sad state of disrepair.  I volunteered to help with this project, and yesterday we began.  I worked on disassembling the porch screens and doors, and then moved on to restoring the gutters.  I've been put in charge of building a pair of trellis' for the front to replace the one's that are not in any condition to repair.  We'll be back there next Saturday to complete the Scout's portion of the project.  Here's some pics.......

                                                              The view from the Owen House

Boonanza !

Well, the City of Branson does some really neat stuff.  One of those is they put on a big halloween party for kids.  Hay rides, maze, air rides, pumpkin carving....it's huge, and it's really nice for the kids.  I volunteered to help with it, and was lucky enough to be put in charge of the pumpkin carving !  We had over 750 kids attend, in full costumes....here's "Darth" !

Toy Run

Last weekend as part of the Veteran's Week Celebration, there was a toy run.  Sort of a Toys for Tots gig.  We had over 600 bikes, just about all Veterans....the police blocked off all intersections on the main drag of Branson for us, and we rode about 30 miles over to the town of Forsyth to the VFW hall.  We all brought either toys or winter coats, all going to the families here in Taney County.  The VFW fed us lunch and we all had a great time !

Ok, we've been here about two months.  To date, we've seen about 20 shows.  Everything from Andy Williams to Paul Revere & the Raiders.  Due to our position here, we generally get front row tickets or some very close to that with few exceptions.  Here's some pictures.

Andy William Christmas

Paul Revere & The Raiders

The Temptations

Eagles Tribute

The Cat's Pajamas

The Rankin Brothers

Shows, shows and more shows !

Wow....ok, it's like being in Vegas without the casinos.  On any given night there are over 30 shows, during the day there are countless breakfast, lunch, afternoon ones as well.  Not just shows are here....museums, malls, "sights of interest", ziplines, copter rides.  The list goes on and on.  Heck, we even have the Titanic here !
Here's a picture from our seats at the Blues Brothers Show.

Let's Roll !

OK, we'll be backtracking here for a bit as I have two month's worth of "adventure" to catch up on.

We left Ohio early September.  Stopped off in Utica, Ill to spend a few days visiting Judi's brothers and families.  We then proceeded on to Branson, Missouri arriving on September 14th.  We are in an RV park here that is owned by the city and it has about 160 sites.  We are right on the shores of Lake Taneycomo which is one of the premiere trout fisheries in the U.S.  I spent a day or two getting us set up here...we will be in our site until a little after Thanksgiving.  Then we'll move to a different site here, where we will be until we leave in the spring.  We will move for several reasons...we are currently under the trees, so we want to get out into the sun for that "solar heating system" which will help a lot in the winter months.  So now that we're all settled in, let's start taking a look around and seeing some sights......