For the second year in a row, my family and I traveled down to Missouri to spend a week at a resort there. Thing is, my parents are friends with the people who own it, so we get to stay for free. My sisters and I count these perks as payback for the fishbowl existence we endured as daughters of a well-known pastor. Our husbands thank God (again) that they married into the Lutzer family. And the grandkids? Well, all they know is that this is the most fun week of the year for them.
I'll try to describe this place to you: it's on the banks of the Lake of the Ozarks; sort of a farm, but not to grow crops. There are woods and fields and herds of the most gorgeous draft horses you've ever seen. The owners like to buy exotic animals and raise them, so you'll find camels, a zebra, and emu, llama, and ostrich cavorting with each other. The house we stayed in this year - with my youngest sister, her husband, and daughter - was looking right over the fields where the animals live. I figured this out after my daughter kept asking to go out on the back porch - turns out she was looking right down at the horses, sheep, and feisty donkey.
The lake is naturally the center of activity, so we spent hours swimming, boating, and jet-skiing. It's definitely a way of life for the people who live there, and one that's a little unfamiliar to me since I didn't grow up on a lake. (Lake Michigan was close, but not quite in my backyard).
Last year when we were there, our hosts took us across the lake to a restaurant called The Jolly Roger. It's kind of fun to pull up to the dock and "park" there. It's a great place with a huge playground for kids, delicious food, and a wonderful atmosphere. I was hoping we could go there again, but we were all astonished when we heard that it burned down the second night we were there. Someone evidently left a stove on and something on the stove caught fire.Thankfully it happened at night so no one was hurt.
We all took our jet skis over to take a look at it the next day, and sure enough, where The Jolly Roger stood were just piles of still-smoldering rubble. Quite sad. The owner has vowed to re-build, so maybe we'll be eating there next year.
One of the nicest things about being there is that the grandchildren all get to play together, and since they're all close in age, they really have a great time. My middle sister, Lynn, has a son who's just a little older than my son, and then both my sisters and I had girls within a year of each other. My mom makes the most of the situation by buying matching clothes for everyone, and taking thousands of pictures.
On our way to Missouri, we decided to take a small detour through St. Louis and spend one day there. This was just for our family; I've been to the St. Louis Arch but Bruce and the kids haven't. So, we spent a few lovely hours enjoying St. Louis. The kids, to my surprise, were really excited about riding to the top of the Arch, and weren't afraid at all.
After that, we hopped over to the City Museum, which we had heard about from several people. But nothing prepared us for how amazing it was. Basically, someone took an abandoned shoe factory and turned it into a children's museum while preserving its basic structure. Then, they took found objects - pipes, tiles, pieces of concrete, pillars, marble - and integrated them into the museum as decorations and embellishments.
But the crowning glory has to be the aerial playground right outside the museum, where metal coils, abandoned airplanes, towers, platforms, and lookouts intertwine to create the most intricate, elevated climbing structure I've ever seen. It was unbelievable! You can take a photo tour at their website, but even that barely does it justice. You've got to see it and climb it yourself.
Here's a picture my husband took of the "Gotham City" area: six stories of ladders, slides, and tunnels:
My son, climbing through a metal coil 40 feet off the ground:
The kids were fearless and wanted to climb through the whole thing, so my husband and I basically took a deep breath, said a prayer, and hoped that the people who welded the thing together knew what they were doing. Quite an adventure!
P.S. The title of this post is a phrase from the catchy song "Oh Shenandoah" and it popped into my head when I sat down to write. I say "catchy" because I've heard this song approximately once in my life, yet I think it goes through my head every so often and I could probably sing the whole thing.
