Finishing The Branson Story

So, I mentioned yesterday that I would tell you guys more about my trip to Branson earlier this week. What I didn't realize at the time is that there's really not much left to tell. After leaving Silver Dollar City on Sunday night, we ran down to the new Branson Landing to see all the pretty lights and freeze our butts off by walking amongst all the closed stores.

Then we headed back to the hotel and got all warm and cozy in our pajamas. Mom made fun of me because I always completely destroy hotel beds when I sleep in them. I don't know why, but I hate sleeping under a sheet. Blankets only for me, thank you! I also hate sleeping in a bed where the covers have been tucked into the sides. It seems to make it harder to toss and turn, which I do a lot of. So, while Mom simply turned back the covers on her bed and hopped right in, I had to rip everything completely off of mine and then grab the blanket off of the floor to curl up under.

I had not been to sleep since before I went to work Saturday night. In fact, I got up at 3:30 Saturday afternoon, so by 09:30 Sunday night after walking up and down the hills in Silver Dollar City, I was ready to go to sleep. Mom, of course, had only been up since Sunday morning and was not as tired as I was. She had turned the TV on and was watching the National Finals Rodeo. It only took me a few minutes to start dozing off, but I was apparently curled up in a way that prevented her from seeing that my eyes were closed because I would feel myself start to fade out and she would say something like "boy, he didn't stay on that bull long, did he?" I was trying to be polite and not ignore her so I would answer her even though I hadn't seen anything. "Yep, that was pretty short."

Silence for several minutes. I was starting to dream when suddenly I hear "That guy will be lucky if he didn't break a bone, won't he?" I try to snap myself back awake long enough to reply "Yeah, that looked pretty painful." In reality, I hadn't even seen what she was talking about. Then several more minutes of silence would pass and the old familiar grogginess of sleep would invade my head again. Suddenly there's "Wow. That was a good ride. I bet he's in first place, don't you?" I scramble for some sort of coherent answer. "Yep" is all I could come up with. I close my eyes again and try to remember what I was beginning to dream about when I hear "That bull stepped on his leg, do you think he's OK?" Once again, I wake myself up long enough to try and politely answer her. But all I could do was laugh. I rolled over towards her bed and giggled while asking her to please shut the heck up because I was trying to sleep. She laughed back and said that would explain why it kept sounding like I was snoring. Then she turned the lights and TV off and the rest of my night was good.

In the morning we had breakfast at Denny's and then spent the day participating in much shopping madness. Before heading home we filled our bellies at Cracker Barrel and that concluded our time in Branson.