Hi, I’m back! I know it’s been a hot minute since I’ve last uploaded, however, summer break started for me and my finals are finally over. YAY! This trip happened a few weeks back, a week before my birthday.

May 20: We, Mom, Sister, Aunt, Great Aunt, Great Uncle, and I headed off towards Branson Missouri. If you don’t know about Branson I’m just going to say, it has EVERYTHING. Theme parks, cool activities, and resturants to die for. It’s like the California of the Midwest. The ride towards Branson was about 2 hours, which was kind of rough because I was sitting in the very back and it was getting really hot. When we arrived we were greated with the gorgeous view of the lake. #onlyintheOzarks.

I’ve never been to Big Cedar Lodge before, so this was going to be a wild experience. We were going glamping. Huge tent outside, but with A BED. Before heading over we got ourselves registered in, which we didn’t think would take so long. Apparently, we went to the wrong regestration, so we were going back and forth from place to place. After all of the hecticness we met up with my sister’s friend and her family. Together, we all headed to Fun Mountain, which is SERIOUSLY so fun. On the outside it looks boring, like a farm house kind of. Inside however is a whole experience itself.

I really wanted to hit the go karts, but we ate some food before that. I got myself some chicken tenders because I love chicken and consume it 24/7. I was pretty full but decided to halt on go karts and wait until my food has stopped digesting, so I decided to play some games in the aracde with my aunt. Some of the games were really rigged *eye roll* but we did have fun. My favorite was for sure the motorcycle game or air hockey. There were also a lot of claw machines, I got plenty of candy for my sister and her friend as well as two rubber ducks that I thought I would cherish but ended up losing them. After that we did go go karting which, again, I love to race. Also, go karting really helps me right now, my driving skills are pretty good.

Since my aunt and her parents, (my great aunt and uncle) came with us last minute we decided to buy them a place that was available. That happened to be a cute little cabin. They had a nice kitchen, a nice bathroom, a very nice bedroom, and more. It looked so cozy and petite in there. If there was a thunderstorm and I was living in this house wrapped up in a blanket and holding coco, I would simply pass away. That sounds like the dream. The cabin for me is also giving van life moms. The place I was staying in, however, was a tent. In the picture below you can see, it quite literally is a tent, but with the coolest interior I’ve ever seen in a tent. (Which is the only tent honestly. I’ve never been camping or glamping before). In all of the tents and cabins were these little smore packets, but I was to scared to turn on the fire, because hello, that’s a hazard. Smoky the bear taught me better. Cold smores are still fire though.

The night was really interesting. Before going to bed we had a little scavenger hunt but since I’ve never been there before, I had NO idea where I was going. Also, this was at night. Child I couldn’t see ANYTHING. That’s why I ran straight into a muddy puddle and fell in it. Also my sleep was interesting too. I’ve never had a sleep like that. First of all, I swear to god I heard a mouse in the middle of the night, and I was about to peek over the bed and call for it like it’s Stuart Little. There was also something running back and fourth on the tents roof, which I was guessing was a squirrel? Lastly, I heard some weird cawing from outside and later found out it was my sisters friend cawing at me. Which I DO NOT appreciate. The view of the lake from my room was also super good. *sarcasm*

All put aside though, it was a nice night, and today we were going to GO back to our house, which was devastating to me. Like please no, I want to be apart of nature not humanity. We went to Blizzards bar, which was the closest breakfast restaurant in the Big Cedar area. I ordered chicken and waffles because the mix of savory and sweet is so good. I also had Nashville butter, but like what the heck is Nashville Butter? It was supposed to be a spicy butter but to me it just tasted like cholesterol and grease. I love being southern. After breakfast we decided to go on a short walk to burn off the calories that was just consumed. We found a bridge located towards a waterfall and I swear we were there for 10 minutes just taking pictures.

We had something reserved that we had to go to, it was a golf cart tour around Big Cedar. I hopped in one with my sister and her friend, Lara. Lara’s dad decided to drive us so I was ok with it. The first thing was that the gold carts were really sloooooow. Like REALLY slow. The nature around us was gorgeous though. My favorite parts of the tour has to be when we went through this tunnel. It was short but fun when it lasted. Another fav part were the numerous amount of times we drove through water. There were plenty of waterfalls for photos. One waterfall Lara’s dad decided it would be fun to just stop the gold cart under one. Lara and I were soaked. YAY. Another favorite part was this HUGE cave that we drove through. That was REALLY fun, especially because they had a bar in the cave where you could order your food from the golf cart.

I know it was short, but this was still during school days. I wish we could have stayed longer, BUT, the fun I had during that one night and two days was really fun. I would be overjoyed to go back to Big Cedar Lodge. Until then you guys have to wait for one more month until I got to New York. Don’t worry. It will come faster then you think. SAYONARA!!!