Sunday, November 18, 2012

2012 Lake Trip - Day 4

Monday, Day 4 and the plan is to drive the mountain roads and visit some quilt shops in Missouri.   I love to drive curvy mountain roads.  I particularly enjoy the roads that climb and climb and it looks like you will drive right into the sky.  There are lots of roads like that in NW Arkansas and SW Missouri.  

My quilt shop app on my phone had 3 quilt shops in Missouri in less than 50 miles from the house. There are more out towards Branson, but I am not heading that way.

The first stop on the list - Bittersweet Quilts in Joplin, Missouri.  What a great shop!  They had a surprisingly large inventory and the customer service was outstanding.   I purchased a quilt kit, and some fat quarters.  

Next stop was Block by Block Quilt Shop in Carthage, Missouri.  Very bright, cheery shop with excellent customer service.  Some very unique fabric choices, and the walls were decorated with lots of samples.  My favorite part was that each sample was labeled with information on where to find the pattern in the store.  I purchased some buttons, snaps, snap took, a book, a pattern, and a couple of templates.

The third stop was another quilt shop between Carthage and Missouri.  It really did not have anything I was interested in so I moved on quickly.

A stop for lunch at the Olive Garden in Joplin fueled me for my drive back to the lake house.  I took a moment to pray for Joplin and its residents after the 2011 tornado.

I did get tickled by a few signs in Missouri.  My favorite was "Hit a Worker, $10,000 Fine" - is that all that happens?  What kind of hit? If I jump out of my car and slap a worker is that a $10,000 fine?

You can get a mini gastric bypass at a strip mall in Joplin.

There was a place on the highway with 3 dead wild turkeys.  Were they so despondent over the thought of getting shot for Thanksgiving they just decided to end it all?

Once back in Bella Vista it was a trip back to Lake Avalon and the heated fishing house.  The weather had changed and a very cold wind was blowing, there was no way I could fish out in the open.  Nothing was biting in the fishing house, so I stepped outside to throw in a few times.  The fish weren't biting so I gave the rest of my baby crawlers to another fisherman and headed back to the house to pack up for the drive back to Texas.

I was surprised once I returned to the house to get a text from an acquaintance I hadn't heard from in a year.  That was a nice way to end the day.

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