Our Midwest Trip, Part 2: It's All Relative

Our reunion at Lake Ouachita was a hit!
We had story telling, game playing (dominoes, horseshoes, corn hole, name-that-family-member fun facts game,) homemade ice cream making (and more importantly, eating.)  One of our favorite reunion traditions is the silent auction.  We all bring thing to sell. For a couple of hours the bidding is open and we are welcome to place our bids on a sheet of paper in front of the items. The auction proceeds pay for our reunion activities.  It can get pretty intense sometimes but it always seems all grudges are off by the time the next reunion rolls around.

Our turn on the boat rented for the reunion:
 

Some were brave enough to go tubin' and some weren't.  

We all had a great time! 

What's that behind the trees?

Testing, testing, ding, ding, ding!
The first item to be baked in our oven is cinnamon rolls for breakfast!

Now that I think about it, this was the only time I used the oven on our entire trip.  I brought lots of non-perishables but warm meals in the trailer just didn't happen this trip.  Maybe we'll do more hot meals in the trailer as the weather gets cooler.  For the duration of our trip the outside temperature was at our near 100.  Our air conditioner did a pretty good job but mostly we found ourselves seeking a nice cool place for dinner where someone else did all the work (and dishes.)   Plus, it is just too tempting to try out the local restaurants when we're in a new place.

We took a small break from the reunion to check out our smallest National Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  The Fordyce Bathhouse, which was in operation from 1915 until 1962 serves as a museum for the park.

The details in the bathhouse were so extraordinary that they reminded us of the Biltmore!  Lavish decorations weren't the only means for attracting customers: bathhouse owners also hired "bathhouse patrons" to ride trains and persuade potential bathers to come to their particular bathhouse (sneaky!)

After the reunion we headed to a tiny town in north Missouri to visit my aunt. 

The kids were delighted when her cat Tippy came to visit us in our trailer.

she has the best critters:  cats, horses, miniature horses, geese, cows;

Not to mention all the other fun stuff we did: four wheeling, meeting local folks, eating ice cream, going for a Can-Am ride, and watching rodeo practice: calf roping

Before heading toward Kansas City we had one last stop in the morning, the cattle auction.  If you're ever in Green City, Missouri on cattle auction day I highly recommend stopping for breakfast.  The biscuits and gravy were the best I have had in a long time!  After breakfast we slipped into the auction room to watch for a few minutes.  We weren't sneaky enough; before too long we heard a hardy hello from the auctioneer to "the fine crew with [my uncle]"   I guess it's kinda hard for us to slip in unnoticed.  I don't know why.  There were plenty of other trailers in the parking lot.