Tuesday, July 7, 2009 - Today we headed out around 9am with the convertible for Lake of the Ozarks. Buffy and I decided to take this trip just last week and did little planning for this trip. From many summer vacations going to Missouri while growing up, I knew which route to take. Though this time around, I decided to go from Rt 24 to south IL Rt 100 through Beardstown, IL like we did over 25 years ago. Though many things have changed over that route, it still brought back some memories. We also got to drive through the small Illinois town of Marbletown. We approached the city limit sign that did not indicate any population size. Two hundred feet further on the opposite side of the highway was the other city limit sign. Makes Mayberry look like a metropolis. I suspect this route was a little longer to go, so that's probably why nowadays, we travel from Rt 24 to Rt 107.
We stopped at the Lighthouse restaurant on the banks of the Mississippi River for lunch. We usually stop here for lunch when going to Missouri to butcher hogs. That's in the winter and we can normally watch the bald eagles flying around. They weren't around today. In the restaurant, some were watching circus coverage the Michael Jackson memorial. I noticed the older people watching it, but the teenagers in the place, like me, could have cared less.
Back on the road, we followed US Rt 54 into Lake of the Ozarks. Roughly 300 miles from home so it was a good road trip for us. Now we had to find a hotel as we made no reservations anywhere. I just figured we'd pull into the Holiday Inn somewhere. But Buffy wanted to stay someplace that had it's own bar. We stopped at a scenic overlook where Beth started making a couple of calls to girlfriends who have routinely vacationed at Lake of the Ozarks. We first got a tip on Tan Tar A Resort, but that was a little too far back away from everything... and probably a little more than what I wanted to spend.
Beth's girlfriend Mary Jo then called us back and said she'd set us up someplace. Mary Jo called back again and gave us directions to a nice place and got us a deal at $99/night. We followed the directions back into Horseshoe Bend to the place she got for us. We were unsure as we quite didn't get the name of the place, but atlas, we found the correct location... the Resort & Yacht Club of Toad Cove. You read correctly... Toad Cove.
The room was very nice. Three TVs; one in the bedroom area, one in the living area and one in the bathroom. There's a kitchenette with mini-stove, microwave and coffee maker. The countertops look to be granite, though I sure its some Corion or other cheaper composite. And all for $99 a night!!
Next door is the Horny Toad Bar and Grill, which is where we had dinner. After dinner, we walked around some, had a drink then headed back to the room. We were in bed by 8:30pm and were dead tired from all the driving, sun and wind. Tomorrow is another day!
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