The Great Hunter and I just got back from a fairly spur-of-the-moment (well, actually it was planned a couple weeks ago, which to me, is spur of the moment, lol) trip to Lake of the Ozarks. I’ve been wishing all summer that we could return to the resort we’ve visited several other times in the past, usually around our anniversary. We’ve always taken our dogs and they’ve done well, but this year….we have Dolly. Dolly is…Dolly is…well, I don’t know what exactly she is. She can be extremely sweet and loving, but she tries to be dominant and on a leash, it’s like trying to drive a tank without any steering.

Lake of the Ozarks is the only place my parents took us on vacation in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  Mom and Dad bought our house in 1963, and Dad bought a Sinclair gas station in the latter years of the 1960s, so I’m sure our vacations had ended by then. Then he was diagnosed with cancer in 1969 and died the following year.

As the photo says, July, 1958. Mom was pregnant with my brother, Steve

The “Lake” has always been a nostalgic place for me, and when I think about vacation, I inevitably think of the Lake of the Ozarks.
So reluctantly, we took the dogs and made the best of it.

And as we’ve done four other times, we acknowledged our anniversary with intricately made anniversary placards.