With all of our work done on the house and Connie’s work relating meetings finished on Thursday we were ready for the road Friday morning. After breakfast, coffee, reading the paper and a leisurely pack and hitch session we pulled around the back of the factory to dump our holding tanks (good thing, the gray was at 96%) then hit the road. We had programmed the GPS to avoid the toll going into Kansas City as the toll for the house is pretty steep so after about 60 miles or so we got off the freeway and got onto us-40 which was really one of those over the river and through the woods kind of roads. Lots of curves and some small hills but not too bad. Our first stop was the Home Depot in Olathe, KS…not that we needed anything from Home Depot but it was a good place to stop and leave the house while we got lunch. We did run in and purchased a couple things we needed so we could say that we were shopping and then headed over to our lunch destination…Oklahoma Joe’s BBQ. We ate at this place when we were first looking at the New Horizons rigs although last time it was at the original location in the old gas station. We were going to go there again but Neil noticed that they had Joe’s #2 and Joe’s #3 and it turned out that #2 was actually across from where we had planned to park. Score!! We got there about 1230 and there were maybe 50 people in line for lunch…but a 10 minute wait and we were at the counter to order.  

Lunch was outstanding just as it was last time. We had a couple of pulled pork sandwiches…tender, smoky, lots of bark and pink smoke markings in the meat…delicious. We also got half a smoked chicken and a pint of potato salad for dinner after our arrival in Branson. After lunch we hit the road again and had a pretty decent drive on down to Arrowhead RV Park in Osceola MO. Bill the owner was a really friendly character and as advertised when we talked to him on the phone Thursday had plenty of available spaces. Cost us a whole 20 bucks for the night…we had a nice full hookup pull through so didn’t even unhitch…dropped the front jacks and hooked up water and power and we were done. Dinner was a pizza we had gotten from Walmart a couple days beforehand just for that purpose. Watched a little TV and then went to bed.

It rained some overnight…we woke up to a pretty serious rain shower about 0300 or 0400 but by the time we got up about 0630 it was clear. Bagels and coffee for breakfast and then we got ready and hit the road about 1000 for our leisurely 110 mile drive (gotta like those short travel days). The first 10 miles or so were another curvy country road, the middle 80 were pretty flat and on four lane highways or interstates, and the last 10 were on the interstate but it was getting pretty hilly as we were getting into the Ozarks. Once we were off the highway it was only a couple of miles to our site at the Turkey Creek RV Park which is an Escapees park…but we had to make a really serious right hand turn in downtown Branson…very little room between the road and a power pole, lots of traffic, it looked pretty ugly. Neil just drove over into the wrong lane and turn lane a bit and then we were clear. A half mile later we crossed the river then pulled into the park. Got registered and parked in site 6D for the next 5 nights…scheduled to leave Thursday morning.

We’ll have a nice rest this afternoon and then dinner will be the smoked chicken we picked up yesterday…good thinking we had. We have a couple shows this week to go see and might get the kayak into the water tomorrow if the weather is nice.

Cyas.…