Day 6: Murfreesboro AR to Hot Springs AR to Branson MO

I got up this morning and Mari was still sleeping. So, went down to mom and dad's room to find out what was going on this morning and to see if dad had plans to go back to the Diamond Crater to do some more prospecting. Mom and dad were just stirring, Ryan was snoring away and grandma was already up and at the main building for breakfast. Dad decided that he had enough playing in the dirt and wanted to go on to the next city. So, I went up to the main building and had some coffee and toast with grandma.
After breakfast went back to the room and started packing to get ready for the next stage of our road trip. Michelle and her crew came into town from their cabin and were waiting down at mom and dad's rooms. Mari and I got the car packed and pulled down to mom and dad's room. In the short time that Michelle had gotten there Phoenix decided to go for a walk after waiting for his mother (Michelle) to go to the Dollar General there in town. Well Phoenix got tired of waiting for his mom and headed off by himself. Michelle got into her suburban and headed off towards the main road to the Dollar General to find him. She did find him about a half mile or so. We all headed out towards Hot Springs. Before heading out of town, mom informed me that she got a call that family member had died yesterday afternoon. His name was William Marion McKinney and lived at Good Samaritan Nursing Home with his wife Della (my cousin). The news was a depressing. Since we out of state my thoughts and prayers are for her in her time of need.

Not much of a drive from Murfreesboro to Hot Springs, at least we did not make any stops. Mari and I got into Hot Springs about 12:30. Check in at the Knights Inn was not till 3pm. So, we headed out to get gas for the vehicles and to find some lunch. Got the gas, and had lunch at Ci Ci's Pizza. Not bad. From there we went to Walmart. Mari needed to get a prescription filled. By the time we got there the pharmacy was closing for lunch. They got her information and said they would fill it after their lunch break. What to do while waiting for a half-hour, SHOP! We shopped at Walmart. Ha Ha

We went to the Knights Inn. My parents and Michelle had their rooms already. Michelle had two rooms. So, we checked out the rooms that she was going to share. We checked out one room and it was heavy with the odor of cigarette smoke. Talked to the clerk and he switched the room to a second floor room. Well the air conditioner did not work there. Mari called the front desk and the clerk came up and agreed and changed the room to a room next door. The AC worked a little better but not great but we decided it was better. The temperature here in Hot Springs was 96 degrees with the heat index over 100 degrees. This was frickin miserable. I have no idea why anyone would want to live this far south.

Mari went swimming and so I looked up some stuff to do on the computer. There is a Duck Tour of the area combined with Wax Museum, Miniature Golf and Winery tour for a combo price of $28. Since it was hot I thought this would be fun to do in the morning when it would be cooler. I went down to mom's room to get a game plan. Michelle was supposed to come down too. Got tired of waiting and headed back to our room and took a nap. Mari returned to the room after swimming and sun bathing. She took a nap as well. While napping the rest of the group decided to go do the Duck Tour tonight.
I decided that I wanted to head out to Branson and enjoy what they have to offer. So, I told Mari to load up the car and we headed out. We made reservations while enroute to Branson. We booked the hotel through Expedia.com. We compared prices first through AAA, which they did not have the best rate. The destination that I plugged into the GPS took us through the mountains which were very curvy and hilly. We left Hot Springs about 8:30 pm and got into Branson at 12:45.
Today we had traveled a total of 286 miles.

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