Trip Report, Part 1

Is that really George R.R. Martin sitting across from me? The world may never know.

Let me start this weird, mini-vacation recap with a confession. I never meant to go to Branson in the first place. Ever.

I am not their target customer. Every few weeks, a telemarketer calls offering me a free trip to see the wonderment that is Branson, Missouri. I’m afraid I got snarky and mean on the last call. I told them we hate Branson and we’re Disney people. Then I hung up, feeling superior, because, hey, how many freaking times can they call and have me explain that, no, we’re not interested, thank you.

So, you know, I already had the shame of that bit of mean-spiritedness hanging on my head when we slunk into town for an overnight adventure.

To be fair, Branson wasn’t where the plan started. My husband made a comment about Fantastic Caverns, and I said I’d never been. We decided it would be fun to do a little road trip to Springfield, since it’s only about three hours away. And, hey. We’ll stay the night. My husband went to book a room, declared the Springfield Marriott to be boring, and booked the one in Branson, an hour away.

From there, the mini-vacation of kooky touristy stuff was born.

So. Let the recap commence.

Day one was actually pretty awesome. We left in the morning, grabbed some Dunkin’ Donuts, and listened to various Disney podcasts on our way out. Googlemaps took us the back way to Fantastic Caverns, but that was part of the adventure. The caverns were gorgeous, educational, fascinating, and dark.

I would like to make a comment here about the bathrooms. While they were quite clean, I found the gaps between the stall components to be extra wide. I mean, really wide. From where I was sitting, I was able to make eye contact with two of the people waiting in line for my spot. Seriously. I had the fleeting thought that I was actually home asleep and having one of those dreams again.

It reminded me of a time when I was a teenager and my best friend and I were using adjacent stalls in a restaurant bathroom. We both happened to look up at the same time and realized the ceiling, for some strange reason, had a large, shiny metal plate attached, and we were looking right at each other. (Hi, Murffy!)

But I digress.

On a side note, I think George R.R. Martin was on our cavern tour with his family.

Fantastic Caverns fridge magnet. Just because.

(See picture above.) Man, years from now he’s going to look at that souvenir picture and say, “Holy crap, honey! We were sitting with R.L. Naquin that day and didn’t even know it!”

True story. In my head anyway.

In the gift shop, I bought a rock and a magnet for the fridge. And when we left, we went on the main road instead of going the back way we came.

A half hour or so later, we arrived at our second stop, Lambert’s Cafe. Home of the “throwed rolls,” where good grammar in advertising is optional.

And I think I’ll tell you all about that on Friday. Because, yeah, I can milk a lot of blog posts out of this strange little trip we took. We’ll talk about urban fantasy and paranormal romance another time. You know, once I’ve gotten all the mileage out of this thirty-six hour trip as I can.

See you real soon!