Navy Reunion - Branson, MO - Day 5

And, we're up at 6:30 AM. Almost forgot how early that really is. We managed to walk the dog, get dressed, "perdied" up, go down for breakfast, go back to the room to walk the dog, AND be at building A to meet the bus for our first show by 9 AM.

The show this morning was the Doug Gabriel Show. A cute little 2-hour show of musical medleys with his wife, Cheryl, and their three kids performing their hearts out for us.

Here's a couple of pix. I had trouble with the camera in the dark with bright lights in the background, so many pictures are not that great.





Doug's father ran a muffler shop when Doug was a boy. So, his father made Doug a guitar out of a muffler. He calls it a muftar. Only musical instrument to be written up in Popular Mechanics.



His two sons play drums, his daughter sings and dances, and his wife, Cheryl, sings and emcees. Their elder Labrador retriever stole the show. But, the only half-way discernible picture of her is when she was dressed in a patriotic outfit--good luck trying to figure out which end is which in the blurry picture.



Naturally, one of the USS Princeton guys, Burke, was pulled up on the stage. Here's his "before" picture.



Here's his Elvis impersonation picture.



And, here's his motion picture debut.



After the show, we decided we'd eat a late lunch/early dinner. So, we sought out a more Branson-type restaurant, if there is such a thing.

We ended up at McFarlin's restaurant. We enjoyed an appetizer of fried green tomatoes, French fried sweet potatoes, and fried green beans. I tasted the Traffic Jam pie. It was a combo of strawberries, cranberries, blackberries, and rhubarb. I thought it was really good, but no one else would try it. They missed out. I should have taken what I couldn't eat back to the room for a late snack.

We returned to the room for a while to pretty up for the next show. We were to arrive at building A to board the bus at 7 PM. When we arrived for the bus, we were told that the show scheduled for tonight had been swapped with the show that was scheduled for tomorrow night (because of some scheduling mixup some how). Now, for the four of us, this creates a problem. We had opted not to attend the show tomorrow night, but to instead go to a show on our own. That meant, we'd be out of luck for the show we paid for. Humm. So, I called the Greyline organizer and requested we be allowed to attend the show that we had not chosen that was being swapped for the one we did choose. The show we did not choose was the Jim Stafford Show. We didn't choose it as the group was going out for dinner first and the combo of the show and dinner was $70 per person. We had already missed the dinner, which we weren't interested in, but thought the Jim Stafford Show would be great. So, with a phone call and a beg, we got in. We drove our car to the show and we just blended right in.

The show was great and we were glad we swapped the Dutton Family Show for Jim Stafford. He's really a comedian and musician. I heard rumor he used to be with the Beach Boys for a short time.

Here's Jim Stafford. He had us laughing so hard, we couldn't keep our eyes dry. It was a great show. He also had his two teen children (son & daughter) in the act. Both played the piano exceptionally well. His daughter also played the harp and his son played the fiddle. Great talent.



My duty when we return to our room is to take Kalli for a walk. Well, tonight's walk was much more than we anticipated. She saw a cat. I never knew a dog could get out of a harness, but she was out quicker than grease through a goose. I couldn't believe it as I was trying desperately to hang on to her. But, she's quite the escape artist. I tried to call Dave on his cell, but it was turned off. Then, I tried to call information for the hotel phone number. First, somehow my primary language on my phone was set to Spanish, so who knew what the operator was telling me. She realized I only spoke English so proceeded to speak English herself. No such listing for this hotel. Geez. Now what? I remembered that it used to be called the Settle Inn, so asked for that number and prayed they had not changed their phone number when they changed the name. Success. Got Dave. He now had to get out of his PJs and get dressed, round up the cat, and get out to help me corral Kalli as fast as he could.

She will not come when she's set "free." She bolts for hours or until she's good and ready to return. Of course, she has her collar on with our cell phone number, her tag stating she is microchipped with our contact info, and her rabies tag. I was not as worried about losing her as I was her getting hit by a car. Poor Dave, he walked at least a mile around trying to shoo her back to the building we were in. Soon the security guard came out to see what all the ruckus was about, because of course, I am calling Kalli constantly. I was really nervous someone reported me making too much noise, but he said no. He tried to help get Kalli. Then, the president of the reunion group came out with his dog; he tried to get Kalli. This all started around 10:30 PM and she finally decided she'd had enough around 11:30 PM and came back for me to let her into the building.

Needless to say, all three of us were exhausted! At that point, I decided we were not getting up at 6:30 AM tomorrow for breakfast. We would sleep as long as we could (7:30 AM) and eat some of the protein bars I had brought with us. What a day!