Those passes put such an urgency into our weekends! Can we squeeze in a trip on Saturday and still be back home for dinner? Can I just take E as a special girls only trip? Can we pack a lunch and sport a backpack and spend no money all day? As soon as we bought those tickets, we started planning our trips and it's only snowballed since then. Trips with neighbors, trips with the kids, trips to see the Christmas lights and even trips just to shop inside the park.
But the trip I made to Branson this past weekend was different than the others. There were no kids to rent strollers for. No kids to bring diapers and juice boxes for. No kids whining they were too hot, too cold, too tired, too thirsty, too hungry to push forward to the next ride. No, I went with 7 friends to spend 3 days relaxing without any of those kid-related factors to consider and it was a great time.
We arrived on Friday in time to do a little shopping (okay we only made it to 2 stores in 3 hours, but that's beside the point) and then we visited the Titanic exhibit.
If you haven't seen it, it's money well spent if you don't have little kids with you. It requires a lot reading to get the full experience of the exhibit, but the building is packed with trivia and hands-on exhibits that will make you feel like you've experienced a tiny bit of what the passengers must have felt on that fateful voyage.
After we finished up at the museum, we headed back to the condo for the evening. We didn't even cook! We all just brought our favorite dips and snacks. As long as no one had to make PBJ sandwiches or mac and cheese for kiddos, we were all happy.
Saturday we got up and headed to Silver Dollar City. It really is a different park when the kids aren't there to corral. We had lunch, did some shopping, rode a few rides and toured the cave.
The cave was my favorite part of the day, but a few of the moms in our group didn't like it at all. It required a treacherous 50-story climb down a series of stairs and ramps to get to the bottom of the cave and after we got to the bottom, we snaked through the tunnels that sometimes got so short and narrow we had to twist and turn to squeeze through. We climbed down a steep, narrow staircase that flanked a huge waterfall and then had to cross a tiny bridge caked with slippery mud to head back up to daylight. It's definitely not an activity for people who are claustrophobic, have vertigo or heart problems, or for people wearing shoes that won't grip the muddy or water slick surfaces. Of course I didn't have my camera that day but I'll probably go through the cave again sometime.
Sunday we packed up and checked out, but instead of heading home, we loaded up for the outlets. We definitely shopped 'til we dropped and by mid-day, we had several husbands calling wanting to know why we hadn't left for home yet. Eli was the only one who didn't seem to be pulling his hair out and he encouraged me to stay as long as I wanted. He had given me a gift card for the outlets and I had also saved the money I had received from my family for my birthday and he knew I was probably having a lot of fun spending my birthday cash. And I was - I bought a couple new outfits, some sunglasses with more bling than I've ever worn, a new purse at the biggest sale I had ever seen at the Coach store, as well as a few things for the kids. But, since I was one of only two drivers for the weekend and most of us had managed to spend every last dollar we brought, we wrapped it up and got home about 7 that night.
That's my version of the weekend. To see Eli's funnier version of his weekend with the kids while I was gone, check out his blog here.
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