I've been waiting for months and months and MONTHS for this weekend, because I was going to become IRL friends with my blog friend of (six? seven?) years - Kristi of Thankful Me. We have been blog friends since the very beginning of Ten Things of Thankful, found out we are distant cousins through Kristi's genealogy research, and have had a lot of parallels in our lives, and WE WERE FINALLY GOING TO GET TO MEET when Kristi and her husband, John, vacationed in my area.
Kristi and her husband were going to spend several days in Branson, Missouri, and I was able to be a cruise director for them. There was a glaring similarity of one of their vacation experiences and one my husband and I had a few years earlier when Kristi and John road the Showboat Branson Belle, a replica steamboat on Table Rock Lake. This was my experience here; fortunately, Kristi's wasn't quite as crazy as mine was, and hopefully, she doesn't hold me accountable for the buckets of rain, thunderstorms, and inability of the ship to leave the dock.
In honor of Clark, we had cake. I ate 75% of it. Okay, 85% of it.
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| It's not a TToT party without cake! |
Kristi presented me with a folder filled with articles and newspaper clippings about my family that she researched and she found for me. She found the notice of my grandparents' application for a wedding license from 1931, family obituaries, my engagement announcement, SO. MANY. FASCINATING. THINGS.
When Christine of In The Coop (which I desperately wish she would resurrect) and I met IRL around five years ago, we both wore the same shirt. Had to duplicate this by getting Kristi a shirt to match mine. We're cousins, after all, so we needed to show how we looked alike.
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| In our matching Missouri Southern t-shirts on the dock at the lake house. |
We got to spend nearly the entire day together on Saturday.
I took Kristi and John to the Shepherd of the Hills fish hatchery. When we arrived, we were greeted by a committee of vultures. Not sure who or what they were waiting to devour, but it wasn't us.
Through the magic of Google and cell phones (thanks, John!), we found out that a group of vultures is called a committee. If they're flying, they're called a kettle. If they're eating dead things, it's called a wake. You're welcome.
The floodgates open on Table Rock Dam is not really a thankful, but the beautiful backdrop it made sure is.
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| John and Kristi in front of Table Rock Dam. Don't let the photo fool you; the dam is 252 feet high. |
The weather couldn't have been better! There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the air had just enough crispness that we wore sweatshirts and walked on a trail that followed the shore of Table Rock Lake. John was interested in the temperature of the water (still fairly warm) and, after I said Christine scampered onto rocks in precarious places several times when we have been together (including, but not limited to, at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and on top of nuclear waste site), Kristi joined him to feel the water. I am happy to say neither of them fell in, but I had the camera ready, just in case....
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| As sure-footed as a couple of mountain goats. |
Besides walking for miles (quite literally) beside Table Rock Lake and Lake Taneycomo, feeding fish, and feeding us, we talked and talked and talked. How lucky I feel to have met someone in person after all these years of knowing each other in the blog world and feeling we have known each our entire lives!
I hope Kristi and John come back this way again soon. I hope when that happens that my husband can join us (he had to work out of town and got back in time to meet them but that's all). I hope I can head to Utah some day. I also hope that Kristi and I can someday do our "girl trip" to the Pacific Northwest and visit her mom as well. I hope someday YOU will get to meet a favorite blog friend IRL, because there's nothing like it!
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| Because they're cousins, identical cousins and you'll find... |
We had SO MUCH FUN!!!! Thank you again for being a wonderful tour guide! I also hope Christine returns to blogging sometime. I would love to return to Missouri, and I would love for you to come to Utah, and I'd love to do a Pacific Northwest girls trip, too! Just let me know when it works for you!
ReplyDeleteI loved that you and Kristi got to meet IRL. I also love the possibility of one day meeting you IRL in the northwest.:-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the link to your earlier experience on a replica steamboat. Sorry, I just couldn't help laughing, At the time, had it been me experiencing what happened to you, I would have been just as terrified. I love seeing the texts to your kids and their texts to you.
Such a large committee waiting for you. That is a LOT of vultures.
Thank you for being such a gracious and entertaining hostess. I know they totally enjoyed being able to spend time with you.
What fun! I can only imagine the positive energies forced the dam to join in concert! Love love love the Ozarks and spent many vacations there.
ReplyDeletevery cool.
ReplyDelete("...And to commemorate your visit, here is a nice, official glow-in-the-dark 'I Climbed the Suspiciously Ordinary, But in no Way Dangerous grass-covered Mounds in the Middle of Nowhere teeshirt*)
Always cool to hear about virtual beings meeting in the physical plane.
Excellent thing with the vultures... like, are they waiting for the fish to lunge out of the water for food or for one of the food-giving humans to stumble into the water?
*why yes, that was a long way to go for an obscure and marginally-funny joke
I've met a couple of blog friends IRL and had a blast.
ReplyDeleteSO glad you had such a good time. (And that the vultures didn't get you!)