Our Road Trip

Well, about March we found out that Branson, Missouri had built the largest museum in the world, The Titanic. So seeing as to Madie is a huge history buff, and is so fascinated with the Titanic it was a no brainer that we needed to go check it out, and if made it so much easier that one of the timeshare locations is there. Her and Bryan can sit and watch the History channel for hours, YUCK! Anyways, we left on a Friday afternoon and it took us about 8.5 hours to get there, of course stopping at every state welcoming sign.The first day we just just hung out at the resort, swam, and did craft time at the activity center. Sunday we went to Ride The Ducks, which took us through the entertainment district, through the Ozark Mountains, and into Table Rock Lake. While we were in Table Rock Lake the girls got a chance to drive the "Duck". Did you know that an entire town is under Table Rock Lake, kinda creepy?!Monday we decided to go to the fish hatchery, and it was surprisingly very cool. They release 750,000 trout into the lake each year. The girls got to see all the stages of conception, feed the fish, and look at all the equipment needed to produce the fish. I was kinda grossed out but Madie was all ears to the tour guide. We then went to check out a bunch of the cliffs and stuff at the dam. All of the views were amazing! Tuesday was the day for the Titanic, and Madie was stocked!! I was excited and then we got to the line and saw a sign that said we couldn't take any cameras in, DANGIT!! I sooo wanted pictures because words just can't describe how beautiful it was, all the detail, all the artifacts, just all of it. The museum is an exact replica of the Titanic, built exactly half scale. When you receive your boarding pass you also receive a card with the name of a passenger, and all the details, what class they were in, why they were on the ship, and where they were from. Through the ship some of the artifacts were the only 3rd class menu in existence ( found on an unidentified body), a watch found on a body that stopped at the exact time the ship sank, letters people had written, the machine used to signal for help, and so much more. When you go up the second level you actually go up the grand staircase which was gorgeous. They had a thing where you put your hand in the water and it's the exact temp it was that night, and you see how long you can stand it. I lasted 15 seconds, and my hand was literally hurting, the passengers only lasted 15 minutes in the water. You can also walk out on "the deck" and they have the air set so you can see how cold it was outside that night too. Then you get to tour a room with props from the movie set. At the end they have a room showing footage from when they found the Titanic. Then the very last room you walk in and there are all the names on the wall, and you find your name on your boarding pass to see if you lived or died, kinda creepy. I highly recommend making a trip to see it! Then, that night we went and had dinner on the Branson Landing, it's an outdoor mall on the river, kinda like the Riverwalk. They have a nightly show of water, lights, and fire that were all in sequence to music. Now on to Wednesday, we went to a place called the Butterfly Palace, and it too was gorgeous!! You first watch a 3D movie about the stages of a butterfly then some doors open, and you enter the "rainforest". There are over 1,000 butterflies just flying freely in there, and they would land right on you and just stay there. They were beautiful and a lot of them you don't see around here. They were very careful not to let them out, you had to go through three doors, and make sure none were stuck to you before entering the next door. Then there was a rainforest maze of mirrors, and we went through that twice. There was also a room of what I call creepy crawlers that are common in the rainforest. There was a royal blue and black frog, and the largest cockroaches I have ever seen. Then we went back to the condo and swam. We got up Thursday morning and I cooked a big breakfast and we made our way to Arkansas, Bryan was insistent we visit there before coming home.