The Trip to Branson Through Brandon's Eyes

On the day we left for Branson, Rachael and I were both up by 6:15am. We spent the morning finalizing trip plans, packing bags, and loading the car. At 7:15am, we were out the door. We took Elizabeth to my parents where she was going to stay the next several days. After dropping Elizabeth off, I went to school to make an appearance, turn in a essay packet, and get the assignments for the weekend. Rachael borrowed my parent’s car and went to Wal-Mart and ran a few other errands. We both met back at my parents, said bye to Elizabeth, and were on the road by 9:00am. Not bad!!!

The roads were a little iced because of light, freezing rain that had been falling for the past several hours. It was hard to see out the window. The slick roads made I-35 traffic horrible! We spent almost an hour just trying to get out of Oklahoma City. Finally, we made it to the TurnPike. Traffic had just started to pick up. I could see the exit that would take us 90% of the way to our final destination. Just as we were about to change lanes, Rachael picked up her purse and gasped! To my disgust, Rachael had forgotten to return my parents only set of car keys that she used to borrow their car this morning. It is one of those electric keys that cost a pretty penny to duplicate.

I bypassed our exit to turn around. Rachael called my dad who was willing to meet us half way. (Side Note: Combined, the entire family have probably spent enough money and time to pay for 5-10 copies of that key driving around the city to pick it up. We should have all pitched in in the beginning for a duplicate.) We now had to fight our way back through traffic and meet dad at Auto Zone. Then we decided we needed new wiper blades from the weather. My dad graciously gave his time to help pick them out and install them onto our Isuzu.

When you calculate the time we spent sitting in traffic, turning around, replacing wiper blades, and returning back to the turnpike, it took us 2.5 hours to get from my parents house to Turner Turnpike (a total distance of 17.5 miles). If you do the math that puts us traveling at a blazing 8.5 miles per hour. At this rate, we would reach Branson, MO in 38.7 hours. What a start.

We ended up making better time and we arrived at our final destination by 5:00pm that evening. Our trip was very refreshing, relaxing, and renewing. I enjoyed the time I got to spend with my Rachael LeAnn.

-Brandon