Continuing the Adventure East

Since you have had a number of days to digest my last post, I'm going finish our adventure home today. The sad part is I have no pictures to share with you so you either have to muddle through the prose, or just skip today's post. I promise not to bore you with a lot of minutia but just the facts. Yes, "just the facts, mam! Just the facts."

We left Salina, Kansas and headed for Branson, Missouri, which I was looking forward to seeing. I had visions of rows of music halls with top notch performers listed, and a special place to visit. Boy, was I mistaken. What a tourist trap. The music halls are spread out over a large area with no rhyme or reason, souvenir shops abound and worst of all, there is a "Ripley's Believe It or Not"! What a total disappointment. We had heard that Table Lake, just outside of Branson, was beautiful, but the road out to the lake was so congested we decided to skip it. So, it was back on the road again for Mountain Home, Arkansas. Thank goodness we have a GPS system.

As I had mentioned previously, I had researched the Mountain Home area for a possible retirement area. I will tell you I was not disappointed with the area. Bull Shoals Lake, on the White River of Clinton fame, is really beautiful, and there is plenty of view properties available. The major drawback? It's in the middle of nowhere. Mountain Home itself is a thriving little community. It reminded me a little bit of Santa Paula from when we were younger. Of course, it does have modern conveniences, but you know what I mean. We spent the night in Mountain Home and were pleasantly surprised at how friendly everyone we met was. A very nice atmosphere. No, we are not going to move there!!!!

Next day, we headed east again. Our GPS system made it easier to get to where we were going, as we were in the mountains of Northern Arkansas, on two lane roads. A very picturesque area, heading to Nashville. Once we hit I-70 again, our travels sped up. As I stated before, I was not going to "bust a gut" getting home, so after a very pleasant day of mountain driving, for the most part, we stopped west of Atlanta for the night. Very uneventful. Next morning, back on I-70 to Atlanta, I-75 South toward Tampa, I-10 East toward Jacksonville, I-295 to by-pass Jacksonville proper, and to I-95 South to home. How was that for a whole lot of minutia?

I have to say, we love going out west and seeing as many people as we can, but as the old saying goes, "There's no place like home!!!" Wow, was it great getting back to the old homestead. A lot of work to do but enjoyable. So, until next time, as they say here in the South, "Buye!"