End of Tour

We left St. Joseph, MO, with the whole crew.  As we went along we dropped off folks in Missouri, and several locations in South Dakota before finally arriving in Sisseton.  

We enjoyed hearing from some folks that wanted to tell us what the trip meant to them.

We finally found ourselves in sunshine.  It had been a while that we had been in overcast weather.

A rest stop in Missouri.

Getting back to normal in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Arriving in Sisseton about dusk.  Will our car start?  Actually is did quite easily, to our surprise.  Sue and Al then went on to Fergus Falls and afterwards were very happy to see that they had beaten a snowfall that fell later.  Temperatures in Sisseton had fallen to -22F while we were gone.

Travel to St. Joseph, MO.

This was our final day of travel as a group.

We stopped for lunch at the Bass Pro Shop in Springfield, MO.  A sign over the entrance proclaims "The Granddaddy of all Outdoor Stores".  Take that Cabela's!

Group pictures include this one of our single women.

The entire group.

At the Drury Inn in St. Joseph we had a Christmas ornament exchange.

Finally a picture of our leader, Larry Lundstrom, making a list and checking it twice.

Final Day

Our schedule was changed a bit due to weather problems.  Of course, no one used the Silver Dollar City option and the IMAX option was cancelled.  But we did see the Brett Family, the Titanic and the Sight and Sound theater. 

Lines for everything.  Al lost his love of lines while in the Navy but these were of a  fairly short duration and we had time to visit with friends we had made on the trip.

Here we were waiting for the Brett Family.  

This is one of our party that was "volunteered" to go on stage before the show with Mr. Frosty.  He looks like he had his Actors Equity card.

 The Brett Family.  Dad is in the center, Mom is on his left.  Their three children surround them.  The daughter is the mother of two boys.  They have been performing together 12 or so years.

A bit of humor on the Smothers Brothers style.

A Christmas medley.

A patriotic theme and salute to veterans.

Then back to the buses.  We watched some people slip on the ice but we had no problem.

The next two venues prohibited photography in the museum or theater.

The first was this "Titanic" attraction.  The theme was to find the person on your "boarding pass" within the museum displays and see if they survived.  On the bus, the majority of the persons searched for survived.  If they were statistically accurate, only 700 of some 2,200 persons survived.

The Sight and Sound Theater presented the "Miracle of Christmas".  The production was immense with  stages center, right and left sides of the audience in a large theater setting.  The used horses with riders that came down the aisles, a donkey for Mary and some sheep for the shepherds. 

Larry as our guide.

The main entrance to the theater.

Lots of Snow and Then a Show

We woke up to a lot of snow.

The question is, what do you do when the 12 Irish Tenors show is cancelled for the morning and employees of the various shows cannot make it to town?

First of all, we sat around and talked.

Some of us watched the sights of buses trying to make it up the hill.

There is a bus stopped on the street.

We had a devotional time with Larry Lundstrom.

A venue where we had scheduled lunch delivered same to us in the motel.  Then some plucky souls ventured down the street to see a show in the afternoon.

They saw the Daniel O'Donnell show that was not on the schedule.  

Good Irish music was enjoyed by all.

Then in the evening we attended the Presley Theater as planned.

A Gospel quartet.

Comedy skits by "Cecil" and "Herkimer".  Turns out that Herkimer is the CEO of the Presley organization and Cecil has been on stage with his father since he was two.  We met the third generation of this family as Cecil's wife and performer greeted us on the bus with her son, also in the show.

Christmas selections.

We had a good time with the Presleys.