Abbie's Real Life Blog

I am looking forward to a fun weekend with my family in Branson, Missouri!

We leave tomorrow and we’re staying at some huge vacation rental, and the plan is mostly: go-carts, mini-golf, board games, junk food, football game, outlet mall shopping, and an IMAX movie.

With the exception of the IMAX movie, it’s pretty much how we spent last year’s trip to the Lake of the Ozarks, but Lake of the Ozarks is about three and a half hours closer than Branson.  So there’s the fun of driving there, too.  My sister and her notboyfriend (who, for those of you playing along at home, is not my sister’s boyfriend but is pretty much my brother-in-law at this point… he’s just family) and my ex Tracy and my brother and sister-in-law are all heading down from Kansas City, so my parents and I will drive down separately from Columbia tomorrow.  I’ve been promised a stop by a couple of Springfield antique malls.  Yay!

But I haven’t done enough mental preparation for this trip.  I do have tonight available, which is good.  I have to do laundry, run errands, pack, and get through some last episodes of Battlestar Galactica so that I can return what is now an overdue DVD.  So I have my work cut out for me tonight.

Branson is such a funny place.  I have only been there once, and we just kinda drove through it.  It represents a very different part of Missouri than the part that I call home, and is mostly looked on derisively by people I know, which, I guess, is kind of sad.

I mean, I like to be proud of all the wonders of my home state which sets us apart from other Midwestern and Great Plains states, so why be so discouraging about Branson (once the number one tour bus destination in the US)?

Is it because it’s part of the Springfield/North Arkansas/”Buckle of the Bible Belt” thing?

Is it because it seems to be a less classy Nashville, and a Christianized Vegas?

So what?

Yet, I have taken pains to point out to people that my family trip there is somewhat ironic.  We’re not going there to enjoy an opry show, Andy Williams, Yakov Smirnoff, ventriloquist Todd Oliver & his talking dogs, or the Dixie Stampede.  In fact, we’re going mostly to gawk at those things.  That seems kind of uncharitable, now that I think about it.

Maybe I will go to Branson with a more open mind tomorrow.  Well, either way, we’ll have a fun time.

A couple of updates on my bloggy projects: On the photo blog, I’ve posted some of my 365 Project photos from this week.  So far, this is going to be a good project for me.  On the retro blog, things have been slow lately, but I’ve been trying to find stuff to post.

It’s kind of crazy to be running three blogs, but there are so many reasons to keep them separate, really, and it’s not like I’m posting every day.

And, in other news… well, there’s not much other news!  I am looking forward to the weekend and then I come back next week and it’s work work work again, right?  Right.  Without the work part, anyway.