City slickers

We went to Silver Dollar City a couple of weeks ago in Branson, Missouri, which is a little over an hour's drive from Eureka Springs. We drove a different way than usual, and ended up on the "Main Drag" of Branson, which looks much like what I imagine Las Vegas does (although I've never been there). There were many shows and attractions with digital signage outside luring passers-by to choose their show over all the other possibilities. Frankly, simply driving by was "show" enough for my kids!

The weather that day was cloudy and it looked like rain, but only rained about fifteen minutes the whole day. The park was very uncrowded and we actually got to ride several rides twice in a row without even waiting in line. The longest we had to wait in line was ten minutes for one ride! That's the way to go - we're planning on hitting Silver Dollar City whenever the weather is slightly crummy.

Lake Leatherwood improvements

There is a new group promoting outdoor activities in Eureka Springs, and last week they made some improvements at our city park, Lake Leatherwood. We went hiking there today and saw the trail maintenance improvements and the new trail markers. Today was one of those days where it would have been a crime to stay indoors. When you are given the gift of 70 degree weather in the middle of November, you take full advantage!!

Anyway, we had a very nice day walking around the lake and feeding the geese. As usual, the geese became a bit too friendly and one of them nipped my son's finger. But no worries, he was back to feeding them only a few minutes later with no tears shed. My husband is trying to start a new habit of spending at least one hour outdoors each day. I think that would be great, since he spends so many hours in front of a computer screen, plus the outdoor time is just what the kids need to release all that extra energy.

Roaring River

Last weekend, we went to Roaring River State Park near Cassville, Missouri. It was really neat and the kids really loved the fish hatchery. There were holding tanks with so many fish you could reach in and touch one! No wonder the people fishing in the river always have good catches. When I was a kid, we would go fishing all the time and never seemed to catch anything. One time I caught a big fish and my line snapped while trying to reel it in. Other than that, we never caught anything. We tried fishing on river and lake shores, standing in the middle of the river, and even boating, but nothing seemed to work. Oh well, we always had a great time just hanging out as a family.

The start of Roaring River is a beautiful spring where the water is an unbelievable shade of blue at the mouth of a cave. You can see the huge trout swimming in the clear water and the kids were pointing out which ones were the biggest. Then we went to one of the playgrounds to let the kids get some energy out before our twenty minute drive home. Best of all, this state park is free, so we will definitely go again. Once we all get fishing poles, we can take the kids on their first fishing excursion there.