Best laid plans

So, here it is Monday, and I haven't updated the blog.  Yesterday was eventful.  The weather was beautiful: warm and sunny.  Our park is adjacent to the famous Branson Landing, which is a shopping area of the upscale persuasion.  We walked about a quarter mile along the lake shore to get there. There is a nice concrete "board walk."

The Landing, as it is affectionately known, is like many other shopping areas we have visited.  Of course, it has a slightly Branson, MO bent about it. The one shop we stopped in was an olive oil and balsamic vinegar boutique.  They had numerous varieties of both.  We purchased a gravenstein apple white balsamic vinegar, which is delicious and will allow Jill to perform more magic in the kitchen.

After our shopping, we stopped at the White River Fish House, a floating restaurant along the board walk.  The ambience is wonderful.  The theme is "old fish processing plant meets antique furniture gallery." We ordered a blackened shrimp and scallop linguine to share. Yum!  The meal includes a small cast iron skillet with freshly baked jalapeno corn bread.  It was like dessert!

After lunch we went back to the trailer and walked the dogs, and then we headed out to see "New Jersey Nights," a tribute to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The show was a great nostalgic trip through my high school years and beyond! At least three of the four singers were able to mimic Frankie Valli's signature falsetto, and the production of the numbers was impeccable.

After the show, we returned home and walked the dogs again.  Dinner was a simple but delicious affair, which Jill whipped up from some sauteed veggies and German sausage. I did the dishes in gratitude, and then we got ready and headed back to the theater to see a show called "Puttin' on the Ritz," a tribute to the music of the '20s, especially the works of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and George Gershwin.

I was a bit surprised to see many of the same players from the previous show in completely new roles.  Nevertheless, this was a song and dance extravaganza, and the cast poured their souls into it. The singing, the dancing, the staging, everything was over the top impressive.  We came away thrilled and overwhelmed by the talent we had just seen.

After we arrived home, the forecast rain began to fall. We went off to bed, still humming, "If you're blue and you don't know where to go to, why don't you go where fashion sits: Puttin' on the Ritz?"

We drifted off, and the next thing we knew it was morning. The rain has continued all day, so we have done some cleaning; we made reservations for a park in Webster, WI for Memorial Day weekend. While we are there, we will be visiting our friends Ben and Shirley, who used to be part of our church home group in Clackamas.

Later we made a trip to Walmart for some necessary grocery shopping.  When we came home, we took the dogs out again, but they weren't interested in doing their business in the rain. I got a call back from the Wisconsin RV park, which requires a check for a retainer on the campsite, so I wrote a check and we headed for the post office to get it in the mail.  Afterwards, we spent some time in "Historic Old Town Branson," prowling the shops and soaking up the ambience of Branson.

Currently, we are hunkered down and debating whether to attend the show we planned to see this evening. The rain keeps falling, and we keep thinking it would be pleasant to just put on a movie, instead of driving in the rain and spending money on another show, as good as they are.

If we don't make it to a show, we will be fine, and tomorrow we are off to St. Peter's, MO, near St. Louis. We will be staying at Lakeside RV Park..."hmmmm," I hear you saying, "Isn't that the name of the park you are staying in now?" Why, yes. Yes, it is. Is there a problem? We like lakes, OK??