April 22, 2003 - Branson, MO - 7 (from 4/2-3/03 - Dallas Arboretum)

And then the domestic side of life.  Youngest son Rick and his wife Lynn are expecting their first in early July. Barb's been working on this baby afghan for.....well, for a while now. The completion pictures will show up when she's done.  And Rick, if you happen to be reading this, don't you say a word to Lynn, or my life will be shorter than either you or I wish.  And hey!  Look at the dates on those photos!  The same month we're in.....which means catch-up is about to happen.

And speaking of domestic......how's this for the ultimate RV?  Must be, as we're nowhere near Roswell, NM; this appeared to be an actual home.  And then another recommendation.  The Dallas Arboretum.  The event of the day was called the "Dallas Bloom."  Mostly tulips, but beautiful enough for this bride.  She's the one in the white.  The white dress that is.

All kinds of eye-pleasing things to enjoy.  Too bad you can't see the net stockings.  And the lady wasn't the only thing with the layered look.  These gardens are as professional as any we've ever seen.

Man, could those toads spit!!  And that adorable young fan in pink was intent on telling Barb all about it.  Whatever "it" was.

All kinds of squirrely things around here.  These are the "test gardens" where they attempt to make sure whatever they're trying to do will actually work in the "real gardens" I guess.  The colors were spectacular, and these were the first fuzzy edged tulips either of us had seen.

The sign reads:  "Our charming cottage is reminiscent of the well-known Stratford-on-Avon home of Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway.  Before marrying William in 1582, Anne lived in a twelve room thatched farmhouse known as "Hewlands."  Thatched cottages and farm buildings were the norm in rural Britain for a millennium or more.  Today, there are only 150,000 thatched buildings still standing throughout England and Ireland.  Thatching is an art still practiced to date by some 1000 thatchers throughout the world.  Irishman William Cahill thatched our cottage using one quarter million individual ayres (or strands) of South African roof thatch.  Customary to thatchers, the ridgeline across the top of the roof is where they leave their personal signature marking the job as his alone.  Look closely and you'll see a scallop over each window and a crisscross stick across the top!"

The formal plantings were offset by the totally natural.  These little white blooms just popped out of the tree and we had to look carefully to make sure they weren't just stuck there by some humorous gardener.  They weren't.

How is it that my bride can catch me so often pondering the imponderable?  In this case, "How'd those scratches or tears in the bark get so far up there?"  The rabbits were quite willing to just sit there posing for us.  And everybody else as well.  They're bronze, after all.

The man-made blends so well here with the natural.  Here Barb caught someone stalking the fish, and then the beautiful pots.  They weren't moving nearly as quick as the fish were.

Wisteria.  When we lived on Mercer Island, in WA, we had a huge Wisteria vine that was slowly strangling a huge Douglas Fir as well as lifting shingles off our roof.  But it sure did look beautiful.   The intricate work on the wings of the bird were interesting as well.

Some Dave-sized wind chimes, and some kid sized deer.  That's White Rock Lake in the background.  We had to watch where we were walking all the time.  We'd either get run over by some young mother pushing a stroller, or we'd run over some nice little old ladies.  The place was full of both ends of the spectrum.  Not many men there, except us retired guys, and we were badly outnumbered.

Look carefully at the boat-tailed grackle in the picture on the right.  You'll see more of them.  This one was intent on catching a bug that was in the hedge there.  Took him more than one jump to get it though.

Ah, the beauty of moving water.  It was all around us.  And then there's always one, isn't there.  That little rebel who stands out.  The class clown.  The "scruffy elephant" if you will.  I wasn't called a scruffy elephant  (like I thought) by my second grade teacher, I'd been called a "disturbing element."  And I wasn't nearly as pretty as this one starkly red tulip among the rather bland yellow/white ones.

The anatomically correct statuary was a bit of a surprise to us.  Not unpleasantly so, either.  The wagon rides were $2 each, so we just watched.

Don't let the picture fool you.  This little pond doesn't drain into the lake, nor is is a part of the lake.  It's actually a good 12-15 feet above lake level, and drains into a catch basin to be brought back up to the pool.  A rather well thought-out optical illusion.  And another boat-tailed grackle caught Barb's camera eye.  She tried several times for a profile shot, but each time the camera would make its little "I'm about to go off" sound, the bird would turn and look right at it.  Drove her nuts.

I'm pretty comfortable there with the naked lady who's breasts are tipped with shiny bronze, but you should have seen the middle-school kids with her!  The giggling and pointing would make you think they'd never seen a naked lady before.  Thank goodness for that, eh?

So much beauty and so much joy.  The small groups of mothers with little kids having picnic lunches on the lawn.  The lawn was so soft and well groomed, it made me want to take off my shoes so I wouldn't soil it.

First time for us seeing an outdoor fern grotto.  The misters gave a special humidity to the area that the ferns and orchids love.  The azaleas didn't mind either, nor the Japanese maple, or the.......on and on it went.

The pleasure goes on and on.  And then there's the grackles again.  This time it's a small group of females, and they're pulling at these stringy, vine-type roots trying to get them for what we supposed was nesting material.

The root would enevitably snap and the bird would jump back startled, and then she'd pull at it again and jump again.  Barb was laughing so hard she had trouble getting good shots.  And then there's the quieter area for us older types to enjoy a nice lunch.  Tables with proper chairs.  There was a nice cafe next to the ubiquitous gift shop.  It got to raining, so we ate our home-made  lunch in the Jeep.  Again.  We've done that often of late, haven't we.