Our lake adventure

This Labor Day weekend we planned a trip with our friends to Lake Of Ozark’s. I have never been there before even though we lived here for more than 8 years. So hubby thought it’s high time he takes me there. Guys started looking to book the hotels. Both of them were on the phone for almost 3 hours, only to find out that it was booked for wrong weekend! J Well, after trying for a week they were able to shift to the correct weekend.

I looked at the two routes that we were able to take and one was passing through Jefferson City. Capital of State of Missouri. So we decided to take that route and make a pit stop to see the capitol. By the time we reached Jefferson City it was almost noon, so wanted to look for the food joint first. But as soon as we took off the bridge we came right in front of the Capitol. I am asking my friend to look for directions and she was busy clicking pictures. :o) At last we found there were quite a few joints just a block away, parked and relished on the sandwiches. Walked over to Capitol, even though we couldn’t go inside, just enjoyed the building architecture from outside and left for Ozark’s.

 

Fun fact about Ozark: Lake of Ozark’s is not really a lake to begin with. It’s a large reservoir created by impounding the Osage River. The lake has a serpentine shape to it and is nicknamed “The Magic Dragon”. Aerial view picture from wikepedia -

Our hotel was right by the bridge, with a beautiful view of the lake. After a good nap, we let the men handle 4 kids and went on shopping trip at the outlet mall. It was a fun girl time for both of us. Kids had as much fun at the bumper carts and then diving in the pool, topped with the hot tub. After having dinner we all crashed out for next day’s parasailing adventure.

Highlight of the whole trip was my little dare devil!! My 2 year old baby girl decided she would do Para-sailing with us. I tried to talk her out of it, but she was adamant that she would come with us “Flying”! Son backed out and we thought it was good decision after we went up… Coz there was no way to signal us down if we wanted to.!!!

It was a beautiful view up above.. Sitting up there I was wishing I had a camera with Me to capture that view.! As soon as we went up though, my daughter (who was tied so that she could be in front of me) started calling me softly, saying.. “Mommy can we go down now?” I told her we will be done soon and started showing her boats, bikes, houses, trees, and even birds. I had started to get worried that she might be feeling the same queasiness that I was feeling in me. We just had breakfast and had come over there! But she held on. She did not cry, her face showed she was little scared initially. Then I asked her to close her eyes whenever she felt scared. So I watched her close her eyes in between and then open it to see outside.

They made us take two dips in the water. We had asked to just soak our feet.. That was the fun part! The bad experience of parasailing was their photo package. We told them at the beginning that we didn’t want to take the camera, so we would be buying their package. When we came back home and checked, it was very bad.. Pictures were blurry, not in focus, too far out. So be careful when you would buy any pictures. View first before you pay for it!

Next day we rented boat and took it for a spin on the lake. Though all the kids took turn to sit with us to actually ride the boats, two kids couldn’t handle the ride, we came back half an hour early. The ride itself was fun. Hubbies kept trying to ride it faster and kids would scream at them to give the control to mommies. Eventually kids voted that I should take the control, coz I was the safest. ;o)

Disappointment: After getting instructions from local restaurant and driving 15 miles on inside roads, ended up at Osage State Park rather than Osage beach. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the beautiful evening by the lake. Kids got to do their daring acrobats on monkey bars!

Honorary mention: Hubbies who kept losing their way ALL THE TIME. :o) We had to take two vans since none of us had an eight setter. We girls and hubbies drove separately, exchanging the vans depending upon who is driving. Hubbies kept losing their way even when they were following us! If we were with kids, kids would always ask, "where is Pappa going?" Classic one – While coming back one night, we stopped near our hotel to make a left turn. They were right in front of us; suddenly they get into the previous parking lot rather than the correct one! We both were laughing so hard after that.

Overall, it was a great outing with perfect weather and company!