Shopping around Branson

It's always nice to sleep in late on vacation, even if you're retired. We slept late today, but not too late to go to The Farmhouse for breakfast. That was a great choice - Randy ordered pancakes and I had biscuits and gravy - and both were very good. 

Now, what to do? Well, just down a few doors was Dick's 5 and 10. Wow, what an fun store!

This store, which was full of people all the time, is chock full of cute stuff from several past decades. Candy, of course:

And they have ton of other old-fashioned things across all genres, including Little Golden Books, paper dolls, granny panties, embroidery patterns, Slinky Dogs, and Stretch Armstrong. They even have the old foldable baskets that I vaguely, vaguely remember from a long time ago. 

Overhead are plaques about Dick Harley's life and WWII memorabilia. And an electric train runs around the store on an elevated track. 

SO much fun! We bought some candy - not that we needed it after that big breakfast, but we have to support this family-run store in some way!

Just a couple of doors down is the beautiful Victorian House, where all my dreams live....

I would love to live in a place that looks like this, all pink and white and lacy and flowery.

But I didn't find anything that would fit into our luggage for the flight back, so I had to leave it all here. We walked across the street to Dino's Cake Store, famous for their Carrot Cake. Probably $5.50 is not too much for their cake, but since I was still full of biscuits and gravy and since Randy makes the best carrot cake ever, I decided to pass. Anyway, the real reason for crossing the street was to get to a thrift store. And it was a lovely thrift store, full of old stuff. But again, nothing there seemed worth the challenge of packing it to get home.  A short walk to a second thrift store yielded the same results, so we left empty handed but entertained.

Randy R wanted to take us for a ride on their boat. It's a pretty boat and would have been lovely to cruise on, but there was some trouble with the fuel line. Since this area was badly flooded from the weekend storm, the water was running high and fast, and it didn't seem like a good idea to go too far in a boat that wasn't operating at 100%.

No problem, there are other things to do. Like wineries! We went to the Mount Pleasant winery where, as usual, Randy had to do double duty, drinking my samples. 

Afterwards we stopped at H & H to get a few groceries and went back to the condo, where Randy, assisted by Randy R, made dinner of pork chops, potatoes, corn and brownies. Aaron had arrived by then and contributed some of Glenda's Texas cake. Glenda wasn't able to join us (boo) but her cake was appreciated. 

We finished the day in a food coma, watching True Grit and texting. What a great day!