Month: October 2019

A beautiful sunrise today!

Yesterday’s sunrise (Thursday October 17th) below:

It was kind of a different sunrise as it was very misty and cool outside.

Reminded me of a pastel painting.

I also received a nice photo from my Son-in-law who is camping with my daughter and grandson up by Two Harbors this weekend.

Wow gorgeous!  Thanks Lyle! Wish we could have gone with you.

Lemme: Are you done now?  I need to get on your lap so put the computer away!

Fidget: Yeah, I got tired of waiting so….

Happy Friday!

I know the sun must be out there somewhere, but not here.  Rainy and gray here today.

So…more on our Fall vacation I guess…

One of the places we stopped while in the Ozarks was:

An interesting place, beautifully kept up.

Some photos follow:

 

The parking spots were divided by Fish (on a hook). Weird choice,  just the Fish would have be better in my book. 🙂

Below is the main building. You had to pay a pretty penny to just get in.  Then there was a whole list of activities you could do but the prices were ‘huge’. So we just walked all over where we were allowed without further payment.

Beautiful place.

Inside:

 

They also had a nice restaurant, so we had lunch. They actually did a pretty good job in the Gluten Free area.

After lunch we went out and walked all around the place. BTW it was HOT there, in the 90s with a heat index in the high 90s and low 100s the 5 days we were there the first part of September.

 

If you ever have watched the show where a company builds dream tree houses for folks.  I think a lot of them are built by Treehouse Masters.

This was a multi-level tree house that was built up in their trees.  In we went.  I actually took more photos, but they don’t do the place justice, so I will post one to give an idea.

We were up in the trees a lot on a rope bridge shown above.  It bounced a lot which made me uncomfortable, but it was really pretty.

The shot above was taken from one of the little balconies of the tree house.

Nice water fall and rock formation. Very pretty there.

After walking all around, we took off to see other things of interest and ended up on a lot of:

Yes, very hilly, windy roads.  Went through a National Forest and though it was a nice area, we were not overly impressed.  Guess we have been through enough beautiful places that we just weren’t overly struck by this area.

This is a pretty spot though.  This is Table Rock Lake. There was supposed to be a nice place to eat up around this lake, so we ‘kind of’ looked for it. Didn’t find it but we did find this Vineyard and Winery.

Lindwedel Winery.  A nice, quaint little place. Seems to be very popular, so we stopped and hung out later that afternoon.  Bought some wine and a platter of nibbles.

They had their Blackberry wine just out – it was pretty nummy!

This place was way up on a hill and provided some breathtaking views!

You could pretty much see all of Branson and then some.

They had a great musical duo there. They played all sorts of music, really great guys.

Again, super hot, but up high there was a bit of a breeze which was nice, and they had the most beautiful wall of flowers on one side of the deck we were sitting on.

One of my favorite stops in the Branson area.  Nice folks there too.

And I will stop there for now.  Plenty more to add in future posts.

Lemme: Yes, please stop! Your typing is disturbing my beauty sleep.

Fidget: Well now, if it is bothering Lemme, I think you should keep going.

Uh huh…, Fidge, you just want him to jump down so you can have the spot!

Happy Tuesday!

Such a beautiful sunrise this morning, I couldn’t stop at just one photo.

Below was the look of the morning on Saturday:

Yes, the first snow of the season which has since melted…thank goodness.  More Fall please!

We also were in Maple Grove again this weekend and hit Nadia’s Cakes once again.

There were 4 in the plastic carrier, but you can see one had already pretty much hit the road before I thought to photograph them.  Then I realized I didn’t take any photos of the inside…well it is pretty cutely decorated, but not sure when I will get back there. Normally I don’t go by the place.  And you can see why – there are still calories in cupcakes that are gluten free. 😉

The one I was eating was the Chi cake and it was really very good.  The other one with the orange sprinkles are the candy corn cup cake.  Then I think one …ack, can’t remember. I think the one in the back with the white frosting is the gf cookie dough cupcake and not sure what the chocolate one is anymore. Might be the Birthday cake cupcake.

They are all good so whatever you try, you will like, if you go.

Lemme: Wait, were you gone….?

Fidget: You were gone?  When?

Well it is always good to know you been missed. 🙂

Happy Monday!

Yesterday’s Sunrise…. today – no photo as it is just grey and rainy.

A progression of the sun rise looked like this:

 

 

Look closely! Yes, even Fidget kitty enjoys a beautiful sunrise.

The Day before yesterday – Tuesday, October 8, 2019 the sunrise looked like this:

 

And last but not least, Monday, October 7, 2019 is below.

Hummm, sometimes the mornings look remarkably the same. 😉  Except for the clouds in the sky, they are always different…or not there.

Anyway, moving on to last weekend.

Saturday met with the kiddos for some dinner at Willy McCoys

MN Gophers foot ball was on and had the attention of just about everyone.

 

Food was pretty good. We usually like what we are having and they are good with the Gluten Free options so I am always glad to go someplace that knows what I am in need of and does a good job of it.

Above is my gluten free flatbread pizza.  Hawaiian style, first time I have had it. Really very good.  However, normally it comes with cheese curds on it and those are fried and breaded, so they were left off.  They brought them in a small dish for my Grandson or whom ever wanted one. To be honest I couldn’t even imagine those being on this pizza, how would that taste. I think it would have ruined it.  We are talking large chunks of ham, pineapple, tomato…I mean the thing was loaded.  I will be getting THAT again! So good.  I had to bring half of it home though, just a lot for one person to eat.

It was VERY loud there so hard to hear those on the other end of the table. I think some of that was because the Gophers were winning.

After that they kids went their way and Bruce and I went to Maple Grove to return something. We also play Pokemon with them (and without them). So we did a little of that and found ourselves going to a place that makes the most wonderful gluten free cupcakes.  Nadia’s is the name of the place and they have won the Food Channel’s Cup Cake Wars with their Gluten Free Cup Cakes.

They also do wonderful cakes and other baked items, both gluten free and regular.  I believe they also do some nut and dairy free ones. Never had those though.

I should have taken photos of the cup cakes – very impressive both in decoration and taste. I had the apple cinnamon one – red one.

I got a 4 pack, cheaper when you purchase more. I also got the peanut butter one that is the back 2nd to from the right. The Triple chocolate with is the back 3rd from the right. Then also the salted caramel one which I THINK looked like the first on the right – middle row. (wish I’d taken some photos!). I took some another time we were there and I could only find one of from back then of the Nightmare Before Christmas cake (photo below) they had made. But the rest of the photos you can find on their website, Nadiacakes.com  along with  a LOT more.

If you are near her shop there in Maple Grove, stop in. They also have hot and cold beverages. Very nice staff there as well.

Sunday I got a photo of the sunrise:

We ran a lot of errands on Sunday and also dropped by the 101 Market where they are currently having their Fall Festival complete with Corn Maze, corn pit, games and all sorts of things to do.  I think it is happening each weekend through October.  Here – I will throw in the website for that too. 101 Market Corn Maze and Fall Festival.

Didn’t get there until the end of the day and the weather was pretty cool, drizzly and windy.  So not a lot of folks still there. Didn’t take a lot of photos because the kids were not along and we’d been there before. But the ‘display’ below caught my eye.

Not sure what they had been doing there, but ‘Glamping’, funny.  That is what some folks call what we do with our 38 ft. coach.  I can’t deny it. I am long passed those tent and sleeping on the ground or cot days.  Pretty cute and it would have been interesting to get there earlier and see what this was about.

And that about sums up this past week.  Nothing on the vacation here today, but I will get to more of that eventually.

Fidget: You’re putting me to sleep, Mom. Call it a day please!

Okay Fidge….

Happy Thursday!

First things first!

Sunrise!  This is as much as we are going to see this morning.  After the photo the clouds finished their work in keeping the sky nice and grey.  This week has been pretty much the same.

Last Saturday –

September 28th, 2019 saw the a pretty beginning.

It has been on the cooler side here, except for Monday when it went up over 80 degrees for just one day.  But the rest have been rainy and in the 50’s – 60’s range.

That said I will continue on with our September vacation.

To continue from my previous post, we arrived at Branson then went into a campground called ‘Musicland Kampground’.  A place saying they were ‘big rig’ friendly which wasn’t so big rig friendly.  It was… okay, no photos, should have, but there was nothing there worth noting except that we had to take the car off before winding through to park. We were a little concerned that the camper stuck out too close to the road as we filled the entire spot with little room to spare.  It was not even, so we had to put the driver’s side of the camper up on blocks due to the fact that the uneven-ness was so bad that the lifters alone wouldn’t handle it.  Then leaving we had to wait to put the car on at the exit due to the tight turns trying to get out.  All in all we won’t be returning to that campground. Also, we have no plans to return to Branson as it just wasn’t our ‘jam’.  However, we are glad we went.

As soon as we got situated into our spot we left to go to Dolly Parton’s Stampede.  Had to hurry as they were last minute tickets.  (We were not real happy at the time due to everything happening on the trip and not being very happy with the campground.) So we got ready and hustled over there. The folks there were not real organized, which you would think strange because they’d been doing this for SO long.  But we finally ‘did’ get in and seated.

It is a dinner and show. Fortunately they were able to accommodate the Celiac in me with a gluten free items.  First course was Dolly’s homemade vegetable (think it was) soup.  I got some raw carrots and broccoli in a cup.  Then there was roast chicken and ham, along with corn on the cob – both Gluten Free. Seems like there was something else…potato?  Can’t recall. And I think there was also dinner rolls. I didn’t have one, so my memory might be off on that.

During this time the show was going on:

Riders and riding contests – you can also see the folks in front of us with their drinks – coffee, Lemon-aid, Coke or water, and food.  Dessert was this luscious looking apple turnover. (I got a little GF sugar cookie in the wrapper). I will mention that the ham and chicken were very yummy.

They did a whole thing historical ‘thing’.  Buffalo, Indians, Settlers….

And worked in ‘gimmicks’ to liven things up. Of course lots of music and some pretty ‘campy humor’.

Lights on dresses and horses.

Very patriotic.

This is a photo of the way out which leads to a HUGE gift shop, at which we got nothing, it was really crowed.

I personally enjoyed seeing all of the show horses on the way out most of all, as interacting a little with them made my mood lighten.

 

This little plot of flowers in a butterfly design is right outside, didn’t get time to take a photo of it on the way in, so it was getting dark when I finally got a chance to snap it.

It was another ‘meh’ for me on the experience, but still glad I got to see what it was.

Not much else going on that evening so we roamed the ‘strip’ a little before going back to the camper.

Of course Branson is a Huge tourist area with all sorts of STUFF… we didn’t go into them except for Dolly’s Stampede. We were more interested in the Ozarks and things not quite so gimmicky.

 

A Car museum.  We didn’t go in, but there were some on the outside.

Who ya’ gonna’ call? 😉 Just seemed like a place where you could drop a lot of bucks on hokey stuff if you wanted to.

A cool mural.

Somewhere along the way with going around this area we picked up a nail in our car’s tire, and spent Labor Day looking for someone who could repair our tire so we could leave the next day to go down to visit my Dad in Florida.  Also, during this time, Hurricane Irma was giving the Bahamas a good thrashing and threatening the area we were supposed to be traveling to.  So we were trying to keep an eye on that to see if we could get down there – but that comes later in the story.

Next post will be other things we did while in the Branson /Ozarks area. Not crazy about Branson, though I know some folks are. But someday we may revisit different parts of the Ozarks.

Happy Thursday!