This morning we went to the Grand Ole Opry to buy tickets for today’s live radio show.
Then we drove to Centennial Park to see the Parthenon, the only full size copy of the original in Greece.
In the basement is an art gallery, and inside the building is Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom. She is 42 foot tall.
The pediments on the building are from casts from the British Museum in London. It is quite impressive.
Our next stop was the Belle Meade Plantation. We toured the main building, the slave quarters, the dairy and winery.
In the evening we went to the radio show at the Grand Ole Opry.
This was a wonderful busy day.
We are on our way home now. We voted already. Our neighbor had sent the ballots to our friends in Chicago.
We are gone now six weeks.
10-23-10
We left Nashville at 7:00 AM and arrived in Sherwood, Arkansas, near Little Rock, at 2:00 PM.
At 3:00 PM we were at the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Center.
The Clinton Library is high tech. There are many interactive stations. Even the full scale White House Cabinet Room Utilizes interactives to introduce visitors to critical decisions and how they were made.
We have now seen several replicas of the Oval Office, and each is different, just like the President who was using the office.
10-24-10
It rained during the night. It was still raining lightly when we left Sherwood.
When we arrived in Harrison, Arkansas it was summer weather again.
We visited Karen and Jim Faulkner and went with them to the Dixie restaurant.
We had left the motorhome at Walmart and had planned on continuing to Branson, after our get together with Karen and Jim.
Since we had such a good time with them, we stayed longer than anticipated and decided to camp at Walmart tonight.
10-25-10
It took us only 45 minutes to drive to Hollister, Missouri. The Escapee Park, Turkey Creek RV Village has full hook ups plus cable television. We chose a dry camping site though, since we will be busy in Branson, and will have very little time for television.
After lunch we went to Branson.
First we visited the Branson Craft Mall and then the Coffet Flea Market.
At 3:00 PM the Acrobats of China Show started at the New Shanghai Theatre. We had good seats, in the center of the fourth row.
The show was fantastic. Those young people had Doreen on edge. She was exhausted when it was over.
Unfortunately no pictures can be taken inside the theater, but the performers came to the lobby after the show.
10-26-10
In the morning we drove to Branson to pick up the tickets for the Rankin Brothers Show.
After lunch we colored Doreen’s hair. She has not seen a hair dresser for almost seven weeks and the gray hairs were showing up.
Then we did some laundry. At the RV Park they charge only 75 cents per washing machine load.
After dinner we went back to Branson for the 8:00 PM show. We never heard of the Rankin Brothers, and were pleasantly surprised how good their show is.
This is the last show we will be seeing. We saw a lot of the permanent Branson shows already in the past, including the Shoji Tabuchi Show, which is the top show in Branson.
We were lucky and missed the big storm and tornado which came through the Midwest yesterday.
10-27-10
We left Hollister at 8:00 AM and arrived at Eureka Springs at about 10:00 AM. After visiting the Passion Play Center, where the largest statue of Christ in America and part of the Berlin Wall is located, we had lunch on Main Street.
Eureka Springs is hilly and has narrow streets, There is no room for parking a motorhome.
We asked a shop owner, outside of town, for the location of the nearest Walmart. I told him I wanted to leave the motorhome there. He was nice enough and told me to leave the motorhome at his parking lot.
I had scheduled more sightseeing around Eureka Springs. We changed our mind though and drove to Checotah, Oklahoma, to a Passport America RV Park.
10-28-10
We arrived at the Moose Lodge in Midwest City at 10:30 AM. After lunch we toured the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum.
The museum is not a happy place, especially since also children died in the attack on the Federal Building.
The displays follow the events from a few minutes before the explosion to the trial of the terrorist.
This is the Survivor Tree.
There is a display of caps worn by the rescuers, police and fire departments. A Convair Fire Department cap caught my attention. Teams from several states were involved rescuing survivors. A team from California was there. I wonder whether a Convair Fire fighter was on the team.
Our next stop was the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. It is a very large museum. Besides a replica frontier town there is the Western Performers Gallery, a tribute to the shaping of the movie cowboy, including stars such as John Wayne.
The Native American Gallery is a collection representing American Indian life in Western North America.
10-29-10
We decided to stay one more day in Oklahoma City. The People are very nice here.
This morning we drove down town, to Bricktown, once a busy warehouse area, now the hottest entertainment and dining district.
While standing on a corner, a trolley stopped near us. We asked the driver for the price and it was a free trolley.
We went all over the down town area. The driver explained all the sites to us. When we came back we walked along the Bricktown Canal.
The Micky Mantle statue is in front of the ball park.
From Bricktown we went to the Oklahoma Land Run Monument. Here, in 1889, the government gave Indian Land to the people. 50,000 prospective land owners waited for the canon to go off and the run begun.
The monument is not completed yet, but already impressive.
