Toys and hills and heat 8/6/2018

There is a venue in Branson that touts itself as "The World's Largest Toy Museum".  That may be a bit of hype, but the place is chock full of  toys.  Outside the World’s Largest Toy Museum, two larger-than-life toy soldiers flank the entranceway, which leads to a collection of more than one million toys from the 19th century to today. antique tin fire trucks, a 1959 British Embassy Rolls-Royce,
superhero action figures, Matchbox cars, and retro lunchboxes, a more compact version of the dinner trays kids used to carry to school, a BB gun museum (a real hoot: my, how the world has changed), a Teddy Bear Museum, collections of Barbies, GI Joes, Military toys, and Star Wars figures.

We browsed the collections over the course of 4 hours, enjoying reminiscing over the stuff of our childhoods: paper dolls, army men, cap guns, Patty Playpal, pick-up-stix and so much more. The proprietors, like most businesses in this area, are open about their Christianity, and have not only left Bibles open in various locations around he museum, but have placed printed Bible quotes on many of the display shelves.

More pictures here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/JonupDgNwvBeVD6M6

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On Sunday we headed down to Table Rock State Park, just south of Branson, and took a hike along the lake rim trail. The weather was hot and sunny, and we only made 3 miles before the heat (in the upper 90s) had taken its toll, so we decided to retreat to the air conditioned car to see a bit more of the Ozarks in the area. We drove over to the College of the Ozarks, a Christian University that offers free tuition to students in exchange for work that they do on campus. The program requires students to work 15 hours a week at an on-campus work station and two 40-hour work weeks during breaks. It has a beautiful  campus at the top of a ridge in the Ozarks. The college has a museum there that includes the original Clampett's truck from the TV show Beverly Hillbillies. But being a Christian University, the museum was closed on Sunday.

We're off to Memphis tomorrow!