I met John through Emily Scott, who attended his church. It was the year anniversary of my Father's death and I was feeling pretty down. Emily invited me to go to their Wednesday Night service. To be honest, I did not really want to go, but I figured it couldn’t really hurt. I sat through the youth service and was spacing in and out and as soon as it was over I was ready to go. At this point in my life I had turned my back on religion, I was mad at the world and no one was going to make it better. This is how I felt on the inside: on the outside, I was the same happy go-lucky kid that I always had been.
I was trying to leave and John stopped me. He asked me if everything was okay, and I lied and said yes and thanked him for the service and turned to try to leave. John put his hand on my shoulder and told me thanks for coming and asked if he could give me a hug. As soon as he did, it was like the flood gates opened and I started to cry like a new born. John and I spent the next few hours together, just talking. From that point on John and I spend a lot of time together. He has been a major part of my life, inspirational wise and he is my mentor in life. The greatest thing about John is that he does not judge anyone or try to beat the bible into your head, he just loves people. John has really taught me how to love people better.
Emily has grown to love spending time with John and his wife Mikala, who is a burst of fresh air. Spending a weekend with them really rejuvenates us both and helps us forget all of our troubles for that weekend. So, after months of trying to make it to Branson, we finally all 4 connect on a weekend. We head of for our 5 hour trip.
We did get to eat Cheaders in Springfield, which is one of Emily’s favorite restaurants. We use to eat there quite a bit while we were there.
The weather ended up being cold, rainy and windy all weekend, so it put a stop to our Silver Dollar City Plans. We did manage to make it to see Table Rock Dam, which if you have not know, has been flooding pretty bad. This is the first time in its 68 year existence that all flood gates have been opened, and still, Lake Taneycomo was bursting over the top. I have never seen anything quite like it.
You can click on all the pictures to see a bigger shot.
This is a picture from the Springfield News Leader of an arial shot. You can see the Lake at the rim.
You can see the water splashing over the top of the dam. The floods gates are open so the lake does not flood, and with all of them open, it is still flooding.
This is another arial shot from the Springfield News Leader.
This is a shot that I took.
John and I had to climb down a little ways to get a good shot.
This is the parking lot. Where the trees are, there is a 10 foot drop that leads down to a little river walk.
Here are the stairs that lead down to the walk
This is a little pavilon that is under water
After the dam trip we headed back to the house to relax. It was very nice to sit around with nothing to do. John felt bad that we didn’t do enough stuff, but we loved every minute of it. Emily and I very rarely get chances to sit around and do nothing. In St. Louis there is always something to do that keeps us busy and not spending good quiet time together. We did get back out to see Horton Hears a Who, which, was a very funny movie!
All in all, despite the miserable weather, we had a wonderful weekend. Every time we spend time with the Kings we wish we could do it more often, but alas, such is life.
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