The Adventures of Team Daniels: Summer Fun In The Missouri Sun

Although Abe and I took a separate summer trip than the kids earlier, I couldn't let summer slip by without a family vacay. So on the way to Kansas, we scheduled a stop in Branson.

One of the first things we did was stop for some yummy concrete ice cream .

Next up was the Titanic museum.

The actual RMS Titanic carried 2,223 passengers and crew. Of the 705 who survived the collision with the iceberg, 2/3 of those were first class passengers. In comparison, around 15% of total passengers that boarded were first class. Less than 25% of the third-class passengers survived. The museum is fashioned to look like the front half of the Titanic. The actual ship was the length of three football fields, making it one of the largest of its day.

Upon entry we were each given a 'ticket' of an actual passenger aboard the Titanic with a short bio. At the end of the museum you can find your passenger's name on a wall, discovering if you survived the fateful evening or not. Three members of our family survived, which beats the odds of the real passengers.

The grand ship sped across the Atlantic for four days before the ominous accident. Each day, the ship's 175 'fire men' shoveled 600 tons of coal into the furnaces--about the equivalent of 100 elephants.

Titanic was a very luxurious ship, even by today's standards. A first class ticket cost a minimum of £30, which is over $4000 in today's money. First class passengers were able to enjoy private, spacious suites with a dressing table, sofa and washbasin and multiple beds: 11-course meals in the elaborate dining room, cafes, a swimming pool, squash courts, a barber shop and a reading and writing room.

A second class ticket included sleeping accommodations with two or four beds, a sofa, storage facilities, a sink and a mirror. The price of £13 (almost $2000 in today's money) allowed the passengers to walk along the outdoor promenade, relaxation room, library and a fancy dining room.

A third class ticket was not cheap; it cost £7 in 1912, or more than $1000 in today's money. The facilities were much more basic, but it was still a luxury boat at the time. Three meals were served in the dining room daily. Cabins slept up to ten people, and each cabin included a sink and a mirror, like the room below, but there were only two bathtubs for all 700+ third class passengers to share.

The unsinkable Titanic was designed to close off different compartments of the ship if they filled with water. However, the iceberg scraped along the side of the boat, rupturing four compartments at once. As the Titanic sank, the bow, or the front, went down first, causing the stern, or the back, to rise out of the water and into the air. There were a couple different displays that created the slope of the ship as it sank. At 2:00am, the final tilt caused the ship to break in two, plunging all those still on board into the freezing cold ocean. We were able to put our hand into water that was 28.4°F, the temperature of the Atlantic that night. I could only handle it less than 30 seconds. I read that most people wouldn't have survived in the water more than 15 minutes before freezing to death

The plaque says after the ship was sloping that much, it sank two minutes after.

This is the actual size of the life boats. We all know that they were not at full capacity; an interview from someone who survived said at first people didn't believe the ship was going to sink so they refused to get in. Abe's passenger was a crewman who wasn't in a boat, but someone slipped off an overturned one and he took their spot, thus surviving.

After the Titanic we explored our condo grounds whilst looking for the pool.

Found it!

This little guy scurried past me on my morning walk. Marmots are members of the ground squirrel family but are described as large rodents with characteristacally short but robust legs--a little like one might describe me.😆

This day was lake day! My favorite kind of day.

We rented a pontoon boat with a slide to cruise the lake.

Captain, my captain.

Everybody was all smiles.

The morning started cloudy with rain forecasted. But it passed, the sun came out, and it was a beautiful day!

We spent the day exploring, cruising, stopping, swimming, and sliding.

Tablerock Lake has more than 800 miles of shoreline, which is more than the California coast.

Eli was happy that we found ducks.

Such a fun day.

During our down time we watched a movie,

played shuffle board

and foosball.

Then it was time for the magic! No photos were allowed, so this is all I got.

Reza entertained us with his wit and humor as he performed illusions with people, various props, a motorcycle and even a helicopter.

The next morning was spent at the Promised Land Zoo.

The parakeet cage let us get up close to feed them off sticks. My mother would have freaked out because there were little mice running around snagging the crumbs of seeds that the birds dropped.

We purchased the VIP+ pass. That enabled us to view, touch and hold a few animals, like the armadillos,

a joey who was about a month old,

an albino python,

and a prairie dog. Texas claims the record for the largest prairie dog town--250 miles long by 100 miles wide, housing 800 million little doggies! That many prairie dogs ate as much a day as 3.1 million cattle. Because of the grass depletion, their holes that injured the horses and cattle when they stepped in them, and diseases that the fleas from he prairie dogs carried, among other reasons, prompted the ranchers to hunt and deplete the town. It still exists today, but is drastically smaller.

We also got to be unclose and personal with a few animals. The boys chose the spider monkey and lemur. Lemurs are a type of prosimian, which means they are primates that evolved before monkeys and apes.

Spider monkeys were given the name because they resembled spiders as they hung by their tails from trees. The spider monkey's tail is the most mobile tail of all primates. They can easily support their body weight plus objects they may pick up whilst hanging from their tails.

The monkey was infatuated with Abe's hat (he actually stole it) and the lemur kept licking his neck.

Daisy and I chose the two-toed sloths.

Sloths spend most of their time hanging from trees with their long claws; they feed, sleep, rest, mate and give birth in trees. Their digestion is super slow, therefore they potty about once a week. Going potty is one thing they do not in trees--they slowly make their way to the forest floor to relieve themselves.

They were much less active than the boys' experience, but we had to keep our eye on one of the sloths because we were told he would bite if we weren't careful, and he did make his way towards us.

Daisy and I caught these animals watching us from the outside in. 😆

After our totally cool close encounter, we walked around the small zoo. Some of the inhabitants included antelope, zebra, kangaroo, big cats, baboons, spider monkeys, lemurs, deer, capybara, porcupines, and lots of goats, and alpacas.

It was pretty hot, so we were glad to drive through the 2-mile safari in the comfort of our air conditioned car. We observed bison, elk, deer, llama, alpacas, camels, antelope, horses, emus and more.

Our final activity was a dinner show on the Branson Belle Showboat.

First we enjoyed dinner,

followed with relishing the view of Table Rock Lake.

You can't tell from the pictures, but it was incredibly hot on the deck.

The Branson Belle is a paddle boat fashioned like those from the 1800s. It is powered by twin paddle wheels.

Next it was showtime! Again, they asked for no pictures. That is a picture of the boat on the screen. It stands 112 feet tall and has three levels. We were almost the very last row on the third deck.