The Bunch Manage To Have Some Fun While At Nationals

Our KOA

Basketball brought us to Springfield, MO, but I was NOT going to let it be the only thing we did while we were there. The Branson area is my most favorite place to go and Springfield had some of the beautiful Ozark appeal, but only in certain areas. There was still plenty of stuff for us to do. I remember in one area we were driving around D mentioned that he did not expect there to be so many Mexican restaurants there. I looked around and I saw about 4 off the main road. Honestly, it took a second to realize we weren't in Texas because of all the Mexican restaurants and the majority of the license plates did in fact say Texas! It could have been any street in North Texas. The first two days in MO was jam packed with basketball. We had two games a day starting at noon and then early evening, which basically allowed for no time to go and have fun. However, after that we had only one game a day and we were able to go have a little fun. Unfortunately, a cold front came through on our second day there and the nights were in the teens and days were in the 40's. IT WAS COLD! Not only was it cold, but the cold kept us from being able to do any of the outside things we had planned on, which was most of what we wanted to do.

We ate at the mall twice. Charlie's Cheese steaks was so yummy!

We went to the mall specifically to check out this chocolate shop.

They had so much stuff. We spent $50 on getting different things to try, including a specialty rice krispie treat.

We had a good time. Too bad D wasn't really feeling up to it.

Our KOA was really nice and the laundry facilities were super cheap! It was $2 to wash and only $.25 to dry! We did have to fight for the machines a little since so many players were staying there and needed to wash their sweaty stinky uniforms everyday. Our first fun excursion was to Hy-Vee. Our Aunt, who lived in Nebraska, had the coolest HyVee by her house. It had everything, including a restaurant in it. I have not seen another one since she moved and was excited that there was one only a few miles from where we were staying. Unfortunately, it was not quite as awesome as our aunt's was, but we did enjoy walking around it and found lots of yummy Gluten Free stuff. I probably like HEB better, but I would happily take either one close to me.

Our second excursion was to Fantastic Caverns. D was really starting to go down hill by this point and this cave system worked out well since it was a ride only cave tour. We managed to round up several people from T's basketball team to go with us so we were able to get the group discount, which was nice. It was nicer for everyone else who had little kids and had a big discount, but T had fun with his friends doing something that wasn't basketball related. I think that was the first time that has ever happened! We enjoyed the tour. We have toured a lot of caves-it's one of our favorite things to do - and this one was nice, but definitely is no where near our top 5. Our number one spot probably goes to either Wind Cave in South Dakota or Longhorn Cavern in the Texas Hill country. Ironically, for as much clout as it gets, Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico is probably only third or fourth on our list. It was nice, but a little too developed and touristy for us, though we still had a lot of fun there. Fantastic Caverns also had a great little mile trail around the property that was really nice to get out and move on. They even had horseshoes. I beat T twice.😁

It was cold!

They are so goofy!

Not sure we were supposed to get in it, but it didn't say NOT to.

The walking trail was really nice.

I also FINALLY got to go to the aquarium I had to wanted to visit since 5 years ago when we made our first trip to Branson! I almost didn't get tickets though. It was $60 a person! I decided to splurge though since we hadn't been able to do a whole lot while we were there. The Bass Pro Shop that the aquarium is in is worth your time to look around at. It has several little museums inside and other displays. The Bass Pro catalog clearance area is an ENTIRE building located next to the Bass Pro Shop and next year we have some big plans to go there and look around for some really good deals. The tickets to the aquarium also include admittance to some sort of stuffed ( as in use to be alive) museum and a nature photography studio. The stuffed animal museum was kind of weird. Why would you try to promote conservation by having a bunch of hunted stuffed animals? There was hundreds of them of all shapes and sizes. It took us almost 45 minutes just to walk through this part at a hurried pace just to be able to get to the aquarium. At this point, I was pretty mad that I had paid $60 a ticket. However, after we finally made it through the dead animals and got to the aquarium, our visit greatly improved. We really enjoyed the aquarium and it made up for the dead animals... mostly. After the aquarium is the photography studio. It only took about 10 minutes to walk through, but it was interesting to see some of the amazing pictures of wildlife, most of which were blown up to movie theater screen size.