BRANSON DAY 3

Hey it’s Donna tonight.

My son said Riggs has stopped running all over the house looking for us…now he is in the pouting stage.  Aren’t they funny.

Sam mentioned yesterday that we had lunch at College of Ozarks, the college they call Hard Work U. That is right on their sign at the entrance. This plaque is at a small area across from the dining hall.

This college was founded in 1905 as a Christian College. The students that attend must work on campus. They raise livestock, milk cows, grow most of their own food for the restaurant, bake all the bread etc. Besides instilling a good work ethic, it pays for their schooling.  They are a nationally ranked college so no one is short changed as far as the quality of their education goes, but they come out without be tens or hundred of thousands of dollars in debt.  The college can only admit one out of every 11 applicants.  The grounds are the prettiest of any campus I have every seen and all taken care of by the students.

Today we took a (now I know this is going to shock most of you) TRAIN RIDE! Branson Scenic Railway. It’s an  1 hr 45 min ride. The train is very nice. Runs from Branson into Arkansas and back.  MoPac built the stretch of track that is uses (uses only a small part). The original ran from Carthage Mo to Newport Ar , 239 miles at a cost of 12 million dollars and took 5,000 men to complete.  Along the way there used to be 284 wooden tressels. Railroad started replacing these in 1908 and the last one was replaced in 1980.  The track is now owned by the Missouri Arkansas Railway and the engineers of the trains are employed by them not by Branson Scenic. Mo-Ark run their freight trains at night and Branson Scenic leases the daytime.

We sat in the Silver Chef car on the the dining cars, built in 1956. Has been nicely restored and the ride is very smooth. Though at times it swayed just enough that I wanted to just get comfy and take a nap.

Sam  Pat  and Kathy.

A few good views but mostly trees and hills.

Not being an ace photographer like most of you, just noticed the other pictures reflected my sweater in the glass and looks like the hills are half covered in snow. Oh well. 

We went to dinner at a great Italian restaurant, Florentina. Was so busy eating the food forgot to get pictures of any of the entrees. Here is a pic of their nachos…special cheese blend (which was wonderfully creamy) tomatoes, olives, artichokes, and a couple of other things and drizzled with a sweet balsamic vinargette. The chips were the  lightest most flavorful I have ever had. Needless to say I couldn’t eat all this. Would highly recommend this restaurant if you are in the area

Well guess I have rambled on long enough. As Sam would say, Be Safe out there.