Spontaneous Vacation Time!

I called a friend while driving home from work last night. She was talking about her 4th of July plans, and I was feeling a bit "blah" about my plans. Then I thought, I'd like to go back to Kirksville to visit my friends. I went home and suggested to Alex that we go to there for the weekend. He disagreed, saying he had no desire to go hang out in Kirksville.

I then thought, well we should go somewhere at least. The last time we were out of town at all was on July 28th last year, when we took off to Vegas together to get married. The 4th is on a Friday, so that's a long weekend for free (i.e., no vacation time spent). But where could we go within a 4 hour radius?

The answer is Branson Missouri. I've actually had little desire to visit Branson, even though I live fairly close (3.5 hours by car). But I was trying to find something to do, and checked it anyway. That was when I saw something I had forgotten about: Noah The Musical! I recalled seeing commercials for that and really wanting to see it, but I put it off out of the way, because, frankly, we've never taken a vacation of our chosing. Anywhere we've gone is to fulfil obligations, or for our wedding (but that wasn't a family trip). But here it was, my interest in it renewed.

Unless you get ads to visit Branson on your local televsion, you might not have heard about Noah the Musical. The awesome thing about this show is that it's in the brand new Sights and Sounds theater. The ark is 4 stories tall, and the wraps around the audience in a 300 ft wrap around stage. They have over 80 live animals and over 50 animatronic animals, as well as a cast of 50. The show has got to be spectacular!

So I called the center and luckily snagged one of the last 2 rooms available for the holiday weekend just a couple days in advance. We're spending Friday and Saturday night in Branson, and our package includes 3 tickets to the Noah show as well as 3 tickets to the scenic railway. The railway is a 2 hour, scenic train ride through the Ozarks and missouri & arkansas. The passenger cabins have a glass roof and sides so you can take in all the scenery as you go along. I chose that as our other ticket set because, well, Alex would shoot me if I chose "Hits of the 50's" or anything Elvis, and because I know experiencing the enjoyment Alexia gets out of it will be enough for me to enjoy it. And I've never actually been on a train before!

So, to wrap all this up, about 2 hours from first thought of leaving town I had our vacation booked, from hotel and shows to food everything in between. Now that's what I call a spontaneous vacation!