We got back from our traditional yearly trip to Branson, Missouri on the Fourth.  This year we left on Wednesday at noon and came back Saturday, which gave us two and a half days at Silver Dollar City, which is usually our sole destination.

The weather was great, with temperatures in the low 80s.  Saturday was predicted to be in the 90s, but it ended up raining a bit which kept the temperatures down.  And the kids and I did all the water rides that day anyway, so it could have been 110 and the kids and I wouldn’t have noticed.

This year, with Robin being pregnant, I was on kid ride duty.  Luckily, the kid rides at SDC are a lot of fun, and listening and watching them whoop and holler on the rides is quite a bit more fun than going on rides myself.

Although Thomas is tall enough to ride the rollercoasters now, he’s convinced himself he’s scared of them, so we didn’t go on any.  I did get him to stretch a bit by going on some other rides he was reluctant to try, so I consider it a success.  I still think I can get him on Powder Keg next year.

The food was generally good.  It’s the best theme park food I’ve experienced, but it is theme park food and eating cheaply or completely healthily is just not in the cards.  We did bring in a pack of carrots this year to mitigate the lack of vegetables, which was a good idea, just not sufficient in and of itself.  The saving grace was the motel continental breakfast, which has improved over the years to the point where I can almost eat a big breakfast there and wait until dinnertime to eat again, even with the energy expended walking all over the park.

So it was a great trip, with lots of fun to be had by all.  And we got back in time for fireworks on the Fourth and still had Sunday to decompress before the week.  Unfortunately, we forgot the camera, so we have few pictures.  Robin took several on her cameraphone, but we are still working on how to get them downloaded.  I’ll update when we figure it out.

Update:  We did figure it out (it wasn’t hard) — but the photos are at home and I haven’t uploaded them yet.  I’ll post in the next couple days with the best ones.

Tags: Branson, Silver Dollar City, Vacation