Checking Out the Area

Tuesday, July 5, 2016
The heat and humidity keeps climbing so today after much discussion (and review of brochures),

it was decided to visit a few places in the area which would take us inside into air conditioning.

The Thayer car led in our 5 car procession down the local roads first to Table Rock State Park where we visited the fish hatchery at the base of the dam that has created the gigantic lake we are staying on.  There we took the tour that was mostly indoors due to the high heat but did eventually get us outside to see all of the mesh covered "ponds" filled with trout and rainbow fish of varying sizes on their journey from birth to being weighed and released into Lake Taneycomo at the base of the dam so they can provide loads of fishing fun.

The water in all of the ponds is very cold.  While we couldn't put our fingers in to feel just how cold, we could walk by the pumping boxes the water was going through and touch them to feel it.  Here Noelle is cooling off herself as well

The kids had fun throwing in a bit of food and watching the fish battle each other for a morsel.

It was just too hot to walk over and see the fish ladder the fish climb to spawn but I did take this picture of a photo of it that was inside

We were then back into our cars and drove across the dam into Hollister to the campus of the College of the Ozarks where every student earns their way through "hard work U" by completing jobs on campus while they are in attendance.  We first stopped at Kemper Hall

where there is a hotel, huge restaurant, gift shop, ice cream shop (serving homemade ice cream created from cream from the cows in the agricultural area on the campus), bakery (they specialize in fruit cake and cookies), and various war displays (students go on trips with veterans to see points of interest from the world wars, Korean and Vietnam wars and hear first hand from those who fought and were captured)  Here we discovered a Bantam Jeep with an explanation of its history helping us to understand why Butler, PA(home for the junior Ledfords) still celebrates Bantam Jeep Week each year.

Once we'd checked out all that building had to offer we enjoyed some of the homemade ice cream before moving on 

Then we drove through the campus to the Ralph Foster  Museum which provides a huge variety of exhibits about all aspects of Missouri history.

One fun display was this car originally used in the Beverly Hillbilly's TV show

Janet's three children absolutely loved this taxidermy display with a tiger that roared if there was motion in the area.

All of us were amazed at the detail and beauty of the miniature of a tavern in England created by a friend of Ralph Foster who was behind the creation of this museum on campus.

Jason is peeking through one of the windows into the kitchen

After spending a couple of hours checking out the displays on all three floors we again formed our car "parade" and drove back into Branson to the Stone Hll Winery for a tour and tasting.

Most of the vineyards and wine making takes place in Hermann but a few types are bottled at this location.  We watched a couple of videos and got to see some of the original casks in which the wine was fermented and stored before bottling.  The winery was originally created by Germans who moved to Hermann, MO and dug the very deep cellars and made the wines.  During prohibition the government totally destroyed the area even chopping up the barrels and flooding the area with wine.

Here are Beth and Dean posing in front of one of just a couple of huge casks that survived that era.

Our guide took this picture of the family in the same area ( a couple of others on the tour tried to join in on the picture so that is the "eyes" you see off the shoulders on both ends of the pictures.

Even the kids got to participate a little in the tasting as they make several fizzy fruit non-alcoholic drinks and that is what they enjoyed.  Meanwhile the interested adults enjoyed a wide variety of tastes.

We returned to our places for supper and lots more relaxation time together before calling it a night.