To Golf or not to Golf...

That is the question...

To continue our pursuit of culture on this mini-vaca, Tami and I were going to play a round of "real" golf on a "real" golf course.  I brought some clubs...(golf clubs...not cavemen clubs) and made plans to go to a course here in Branson.  I am a biennal(1) golfer so I have lots of experience.  Now, we tried this a year or so ago here in Branson and when we arrived at the "Don Gardner" golf course, it was closed.  So...yesterday when we loaded up to go to this same course, I made the comment that "it would be funny if it was closed this year."  Guess what?  It was!!  Too much rain...imagine that!!

So later in the day we went to "Greatest Adventures" mini-golf.  The golf gods were not smiling on me.  As you can see from the score card below, I was royally thumped by my beloved wife!  She insisted that I put this on the blog, so under duress, here it is...

Ralph Foster Museum

We decided to add a little culture to our vacation.  This morning we went to the "Ralph Foster Museum" on the campus of the College of the Ozarks at Point Lookout near Branson.  The "Ralph Foster Museum" is called the "Smithsonian of the Ozarks" and I was really impressed by the amount of displays and artifacts that were in the museum.  There are three floors of displays and collections so it would take a good week to really "look" at everything.  Because almost everything is under glass it was impossible to get good pictures so you will just have to go see it for yourself!

I knew I was adding culture and refinement to my life when the first display I took in was this.....

 Yepster...It was the original "Beverly Hillbillies" 1922/1923 Buick flat-bed truck.  Tami and I were so in awe, we had our picture made a-sittin' in the ole fliver! (stay tuned for pic)

There was also another neat car in the museum...

Our trip was also very educational.  You don't learn this kind of information in High school or College....

For all you gun buffs out there...one whole floor of GUNS!...every shape and description.  Even an original Gatling Gun!

Pedro the Polar Bear paused in his perusal for polar perch to pose with....me.

However...when we saw these bad boys we skedaddled outta there!!

If you ever get the chance, visit this museum.  It will be well worth the fee to go.

The Sons Of The Pioneers

Tami and I are on a much needed mini vacation in Branson, MO
Tonight, we attended "The Sons Of The Pioneers" Chuckwagon Dinner Show.  We had been to the Dixie Stampede a few times so we decided to do something different.  It started at 4:15 with the dinner triangle being rung and prayer over the food.  (About the prayer...I usually don't get too excited about public prayers in this kind of venue.  But they had a real prayer to Jesus our Saviour!  None of this watered down stuff so they won't offend anybody.  I was impressed!)
Then the meal started and boy-howdy was it good!  They came through with buckets of Roast Neers just passin'um out right and left so we grabbed a couple and started munchin'.

Then they dished out the chuckwagon meal.  We had smoked chicken and beef brisket, dutch oven taters, whistle berries (BBQ beans), dinner roll and apple cobbler.  Iced tea or lemonade was served with the meal.

 Then the show...It was just old-fashioned cowboy music with outstanding harmony.  My personal favorites were "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" and "I'm My Own Grandpa".  I got to talk with a couple of the singers and they are real down to earth guys.  Mark, the bass player asked me where I was from.  I answered "West Plains, MO" and he said "Oh, Porter Wagoner's hometown"...Our town is so distinguished!!

After the show Tami and I decided to rob a bank.  It has been a very good day!

Roast Neers! - Continued

The bedtime story would not be complete without mentioning our adopted sister, Brenda Galiher, that helped us shuck the Roast Neers.  I got all caught up in telling the story and forgot.  She really enjoyed it and is making plans to move to Nebraska...and help the Cornhuskers...and I'm just kidding...

Little Brother Ray enjoyed shucking the Roast Neers so much, he decided to go out in Mr. McGregor's Corn Patch and get some more Roast Neers!

The End

Roast Neers! - The Bedtime Story Version

Once upon a time there was a family named Riggs.  There was Big Brother Ralph and his family and Little Brother Ray and his family.  They lived in a wonderful place called "The Plains West of Thomasville".  However, some of the Riggs family had forsaken this wonderful place called West Plains and had moved to the far-off land of "Texas".  The Riggs Family had many pets.  There were dogs; Sadie, Sherlock and Lilly. And there were kittens; Jake and Izzy.  However, none of these pets belonged Little Brother Ray.

One of the things that the Riggs family REALLY loved to eat was Roast Neers.  They would go far and near searching for Roast Neers to eat.  One day they heard that there was an abundance of Roast Neers in a far off land called "The Bootheel"!  So Little Brother Ray hooked up the wagon to his powerful beast called "Ford F-150" and took off on a journey to "The Bootheel" in search of the Roast Neers.  They traveled many miles and finally found an abundance of Roast Neers!  They were not in "The Bootheel" but close by in a little meadow called "Diebold Orchard."

Little Brother Ray's wife, Tami was SO happy that they had found Roast Neers!!

So happy in fact that she wanted 600 Roast Neers!!!
 
Little Brother Ray and his wife Tami were very hungry after they had loaded the 600 Roast Neers.  So they decided to eat in a little village nearby called "Sikeston".  There were many places to eat in "Sikeston".  Little Brother Ray and his wife Tami were going to eat at a place called "Lamberts".  However, many, many, many people were standing on the front porch of "Lamberts" and not going inside so they decided the food must not be very good.  Little Brother Ray and his wife Tami decided they would eat at a nice place called "Dexter BBQ".

Little Brother Ray had the Large Rib Plate.

Little Brother Ray's wife Tami had the Beef Brisket Plate.

Little Brother Ray and his wife Tami were so full after they had finished eating, they wished they had stopped at a nearby restaurant called "Subway".

Little Brother Ray and his wife Tami drove the "Ford F-150" with the wagon load of 600 Roast Neers back to Big Brother Ralph's house which was east of "The Plains West of Thomasville".

Everybody was so happy that now they had Roast Neers to eat!  Everybody in the Riggs family helped shuck the Roast Neers.  One of the little Riggs', Claire Marie, helped out by shucking and taking the "hair" off of the Roast Neers!  She also helped Little Brother Ray by handing him the Roast Neers out of the back of the "Ranger".

It took two days for the Riggs family to shuck the 400 Roast Neers.  They shucked it, took the "hair" off, cooked it, cut it off the cob and put it in bags to put in the freezer.

Now what happened to those other 200 Roast Neers?  Well, some of the relatives of Little Brother Ray and his wife Tami named "Joe and Juanita Bean" wanted 100 of the Roast Neers.  Some more of the Roast Neers were sold at a bake sale in a beautiful building called "The Junction Hill Pentecostal Church".  The rest of the Roast Neers  were either given away or cooked by Big Brother Ralph and eaten by the Riggs family while they were shucking the Roast Neers.  The Riggs family was now very happy because they had lots and lots of Roast Neers in their freezers!

The End

Mississippi Mayhem.....

Since I posted a picture on my Facebook page, thousands of my Facebook friends are eagerly anticipating this blog post. The major news network may even pick this story up...you never can tell....

I am a duly licensed Mississippi Land Surveyor and “due” to that fact, I found myself in the Mississippi delta, on the south side of the metropolis of Marks, in the company of Ralph Riggs and Bob Shotts. We were surveying a “problematic” tract in a USFWS refuge area. We were going to “tie in” the center of a road for analyzation purposes when MAYHEM broke out!!

I pulled my truck (trailer with four-wheeler attached) to the side of the road...and the edge of the road caved off! Truck and trailer laid over in a 3'-4' ditch full of mud!!

 

(Ralph and Bob were following in Ralph's truck with trailer attached and so were spared being directly involved in this catastrophe)

Since the drivers side door was up in the air, I had to have help holding the door open so I could crawl out. We “surveyed” the situation and decided that Ralph could just pull me out front-ways. We hooked up and tried it but my truck only slid deeper in the ditch! This time I couldn't get out and was observing the beautiful clouds from the drivers side seat.

It was decided that we could probably pull out backwards...however...this involved getting the trailer off my truck. They un-hooked and pulled the trailer back, pulled the tongue out onto the road, hooked up and pulled it out of the way. Ralph hooked on to my back bumper, “poured the coals” to his Ford 7.3 Power-Stroke diesel and she came right out!!

There was a problem however...when we pulled it out backwards, the tail-pipe caught and wrapped around the axle! So... we hooked on to it (the tail-pipe) with said Power-Stroke diesel and bent it back straight as a pretzel...so Bob and I got the hack-saw and proceeded to “hack” the tail-pipe of right behind the muffler. We loaded up, hooked up the trailers and finished out the day.

 

I wish I could say that this was the end of the story....

Last night I drove home through Jonesboro AR and was gonna eat at Cracker Barrel. I pulled into the parking lot and completely forgot about the trailer being attached...Yep..I was gonna back into a parking spot and jack-knifed the trailer into the side of my truck!

 

 

The only bright spot is, that I was not trying to back in-between two cars and so was spared demolishing someone else's vehicle. I parked away from civilization, changed out of my sweaty shirt, put on some deodorant, used the Cracker Barrel facilities, got back in my truck and went to IHOP and ate!! (I may never eat at a Cracker Barrel again...) I pulled home, got out, kissed the ground, kissed my wife, took a shower and went to BED!!!