Had a great time...

We got to Branson about 4:30 Friday afternoon and needed to be at the Sight and Sound Theater by 6:15. Not much time to get unloaded, get something quick to eat, and get over there. Of course, the traffic was wicked busy but my friends knew how to get there a quick way so we were on our way. McDonald's dinner "to go" and we were in the parking lot by 6:00. Great timing.

The outside of the theater is just beautiful.

The inside was really beautiful, too.

Herb, Debbie, Ron, and Wanda
(Herb and Debbie are my friends; Wanda is Herb's mom)

We did not plan to both wear pink shirts; it just worked out that way.

The road between Sprinfield, MO and Branson is very hilly and cut right out of the mountains. As we were driving, I took a couple of pictures of the scenery. The rocks were really interesting looking.

Saturday evening, we went to Yakov's Dinner Theater.

Yakov wrote a book called Little Ballet Slippers & Big Red Nose and he had performers from the Moscow Circus performing the story as he narrated it. The book is loosely based on the story of a circus performer he met 20 years ago in Vegas who told him how much he missed his wife and son back in Russia.

The story follows Andre, a lowly circus clown, and Marina, a beautiful circus ballerina. They share a special friendship and "heart" connection that Marina's sister (Olga) is very jealous of. She is the ringmaster and the owner of this circus and she gives all of the orders. She makes arrangements for the circus to travel to America to perform, but instead of everyone being able to go, she makes sure that Andre goes and Marina is not allowed to go. Love prevails and eventually Andre and Marina are reunited in America.

The true story is that Andre really was the circus performer in Vegas and Marina was his wife back in Russia. Yakov arranged for them to come to America. They both perform in this play, along with their son. It's a very touching story and beautifully done.

Neither of them looked old enough (far away or up close) to have a son old enough to be performing.

Andre and me.
(It's a terrible picture but I wanted to post it anyway.)

Yakov is a very talented performer and artist. The painting in the picture behind us was done by him. The gift shop was full of his artwork.  He's also a professor at Missouri State University.

During the story, the meal is served by the performers and it was very tasty. The food is prepared by a Russian chef and consisted of a potato soup, beef brisket, chicken breast, sauteed vegetables, mashed potatoes, sweet cornbread muffin, and a "twist" on strawberry shortcake - Russian style.

Sunday, we ate at Cracker Barrel and then headed home. On the way home, I snapped a beautiful sunset.