Road report

Greetings from Branson! We've completed Day Three of our family vacation/monster road trip and have had a ball to this point. On Day One we left the house early and drove across Kansas, stopping at a park in Hays and moving on to Topeka. When we arrived in Topeka, we visited "Old Prairie Town", a little place with vintage 19th century buildings, an old mansion and a pretty botanical garden. The highlight of that stop was the Potwin Drug Store, where we enjoyed some delicious treats like Old-Fashioned Sodas (from a legitimate old-time soda fountain) and Malts. The candy wall had all kinds of old-fashioned treats, some of which we haven't seen since we were kids (and some of which our grandparents had as kids!). We picked up some Nik-L-Nips, some stick candy and a bag of butterscotch, plus a pack of Black Jack gum for Stacey's folks, with whom we dined later that evening. The rest of the evening consisted of playing in the hotel pool and dining at Boss Hawg's BBQ in Topeka.

Day Two took us from Topeka to Branson, with a fantastic stop at a Hidden Treasure in Bonner Springs, KS (just outside of KC). We discoved the Moon Marble Company, a great toy store with a bazillion marbles of all shapes and sizes and more retro toys than we've ever seen compiled in one place. They had some of the neatest old toys there! In addition to a 15-minute marble-making demonstration, we spent a couple of hours there just checking out the toys and picking out a few marbles to take with us. It didn't cost a nickel to get in (though it cost us a few to get out!), and was a great way to spend a couple of hours. We highly recommend it to families with children between ages 6 and 14 (and we've got three of those). After Moon Marbles and a bite to eat at Wendy's, we headed south to Branson and arrived at Stacey's grandparents' home. They live in this great house (used to be a bed and breakfast) with a private dock right on Table Rock Lake. They've really rolled out the red carpet for us, and we've had a great time! Stacey's parents brought the SeaDoos along, and we've had fun playing on the water for the last couple of days. I'm looking out the window right now and am ready to get back out there.

Day Three consisted of playing on the water in the morning and afternoon and heading into town last night to catch a show on the Branson strip. We saw the Hughes Brothers (or Hughes family?), an LDS family with five brothers, their wives and roughly 25 children (all under the age of 14). There was a lot of talent to share and the show was entertaining for the whole family (even Seth for a while).

The plan for today is to play on the water (a recurring theme for this trip) and then head to a show ("Six") in town tonight.