Moving On Down the Road

First, welcome to Nan and John.  I did not find a blog for you.  If you have one, please let me know.  I hope you find something interesting here and glad to have you as a follower.


With mixed emotions, we pulled out of Branson Lakeside RV Park last Friday morning, September 16.  Our first workamping experience had come to an end.  I say with "mixed emotions" because it was difficult to say so long to our fellow workampers, as well as the managers.  I am one of those people who becomes very attached to people, but we know in this mobile lifestyle there is a good chance we will see these folks again "down the road."  We had a great farewell dinner on Tuesday evening at Mr. Gilberti's Place.

We arrived early with our friends Ron and Susan.

They had our seating all set up and ready to go.

Soon the place was buzzing with our fellow workamping couples, as well as the park managers.

Mr. Gilberti's is known for its Chicago-style pizza; however we chose another Italian dish -- but I cannot remember the name of at the moment:(  However, it was very tasty with garlic bread and a dinner salad.  And we shared another piece of Karrot cake from Dino's...YUMMY!!  Sorry, we failed to take pictures of the food -- we were too busy scarfing it down!  Mr. Gilberti's is located on Acacia Club Road in Hollister, South of Branson and not far from the College of the Ozarks.  A good time was had by all.  

Prior to leaving Branson, the singing group SIX drove through the park in their Camaros.  If you remember, SIX is comprised of six brothers who sing with no musical instruments; however, they make the sounds of various instruments and they each drive a Camaro.  For more info on SIX, check out my blog post of July 7, 2011 under "Archives." 

A place we went for breakfast a couple of times was the Downtown Diner in the historic district of Branson.

The Downtown Diner is unique in that the Diner's mission is to share God's love through good food and service.  The men and women who serve at the Diner are members of the Church Army Branson Recovery Community.  The Church Army Branson is a non-profit Christian ministry designed to offer a way out of unhealthy and unsafe lifestyles through Christian based recovery, housing and spiritual growth opportunities.  The food is all prepared from scratch.  For more info on the Church Army Branson, check it out here.


Shortly before we left Branson, Alan got a job!  Another workamper signed on to change out signs atop Conoco and Phillips gas stations, as well as replace their credit card applications.  However, he was unable to complete the task, so he transferred his 20 stations to Alan.  We traveled the back roads surrounding Branson to get the job done.

Alan loads the car with boxes containing everything we needed to complete the job.

It took us two days to update the 20 stations.  Who would've known there are such jobs out there...we certainly didn't know.  It was easy -- just quite a bit of driving, but our Honda gets great gas mileage.  Now all we have to do is get that paycheck in hand!


Remember Jim Bakker -- well, while we were making our rounds at the gas stations, we found him -- at Morningside in Blue Eye, Missouri.   He has a TV show again, which is filmed from this location.

We left Branson Friday morning and headed South to Little Rock for doctor appointments and to visit family and friends.  As we traveled down Highway 65, we heard a loud pop and assumed we had run over something -- WRONG!  We stopped in Conway and noticed one of our slides had popped out at one corner.  Alan attempted to push it back in place but to no avail-- it was just barely sticking out at one corner, so we kept going.  We made it to the Corp of Engineer park at Maumelle a few miles down the road.  As Alan was leveling the MH, I noticed hydraulic fluid pouring out.  We called our roadside service, hoping we could find a mobile RV service like we did when we arrived in Branson four months ago with the same problem.  It was 4:00 on a Friday afternoon and apparently there are no mobile services in the area.  We scheduled an appointment for Monday morning at the River City RV Dealership and spoke with the service manager.  Alan further investigated and found the hydraulic hose -- not the one we replaced four months ago -- had come loose from its fitting.  We have been without our slides all weekend -- thank goodness we can get to most everything without extending them.


Early Monday morning we drove to River City RV in Sherwood.  We arrived before they opened at 8:00.  It didn't take long for them to replace the hose, but it took longer to get all the paperwork completed and submitted to our extended warranty company.  Thank goodness we have an extended warranty -- we've used it three times thusfar -- our part is $100 deductible...cannot beat that!


On Tuesday morning we were up early again as I had a 7:55 doc appointment.  By the time we grabbed some lunch afterwards, we didn't get back to the MH 'til after two o'clock.  It has been a long couple of days.

We even had a fire one night.

This is a sand barge going down the river at night -- guess I need a night vision camera...LOL!

By the way, we learned there is a mobile RV technician in the area.  Our neighbor gave us his card and spoke highly of him.  Hopefully, we won't have any more problems, but if we do, we now have a mobile person we can contact.  

Thanks for stopping by.  May God continue to bless our voyage, as well as our family and friends everywhere.

We're Still Alive!

Welcome to our new followers -- "Chuck and Anneka" of Chuck and Anneka's RV Travels -- so happy to add them to our blogger's list. Check them out here.

Just in case anyone was wondering, "Yes, we're still alive!"  Behind again on my blog, but I have a great excuse -- we've been busy...LOL!!  With over 45 rigs expected into the park for the Labor Day weekend, we worked last Friday from 5-11 PM, then Saturday from 1-9 PM and again on Sunday from 8-5 PM -- WHEW, we were tired, but not too tired to take in some of the Labor Day activities.

After work on Sunday, we walked from the park to Branson Landing to have dinner and see some of the Labor Day festivities.  The MDA telethon was in full swing and a live band was entertaining everyone. 

We were first going to eat at Cantina Laredo, but there was an hour and a half wait, so we opted for the San Francisco Oven instead.  We were joined by two other workamping couples -- Susan and Ron (up front) and Peggy and Ken (right of Ron).

We all ate fairly healthy -- salads and a half sandwiches or soup, etc.  However, we blew that when we  went around the corner for Dino's Karrot Cake and coffee. 

We actually got to meet Dino himself. 

Dino is an accomplished pianist.  After telling him, we were workampers at Branson Lakeside RV Park, he invited us to an unadvertised concert at his brother's small church next Sunday night.  We plan on attending.

I also had a friend visit last week.  Clara has been a dear, trusted friend since the fifth grade.  She and her husband, Michael, were celebrating their 46th wedding anniversary.  Clara spent the day with me while Michael attended a meeting in Springfield on Monday.  This is the only picture I got of Clara -- as we visited the chapel at the College of the Ozarks -- more to come on that in a later post.

I love Clara and am very proud to call her my friend!

I am not very happy with my camera  -- not sure if it's just the operator or the camera, but a lot of our pictures are blurry and just are not that good.  I'm thinking of purchasing a new one, altho this one is only a year old.  I hate to spend the money, but I am just plain not happy with it!  Maybe I just need to find the book and read to see if I can figure out what the problem is.  It probably is something simple -- like the person behind the camera!

While sitting on a bench waiting for me to do a little shopping on Labor Day, this butterfly decided to join Alan.  He rested there for quite some time.

We've certainly had a change in the weather -- YAY -- and Fall is in the air.  We actually had to turn the heat on this morning as  the temperatuare dipped in the upper 40s.  Fall is my favorite time of the year, so I am enjoying the cool weather.

Our time left in Branson is growing short.  We will be leaving here on the 16th.  We have enjoyed our first workamping experience and are looking forward to our next one in Bushnell, Florida, in January.  Two couples left last week and another leaves this week.  We will miss the workampers we have met here, but it's very possible we will see them again "down the road."  That's just one more reason this lifestyle is sooo great!

Until next time, may God continue to bless our voyage and watch over our family and friends everywhere.