Total Eclipse Vacation Day 7 (Your Fudge Factory Sucks)

If you missed Day 6 of our Total Eclipse Vacation, you can catch up HERE

Today was another day that I was looking forward to that ended up not being what I was expecting. 

I set my watch for 6am to give us plenty of time to wake up and get on the road, but apparently Hubby's body had other plans... Every time I tried to wake him up, he'd roll over, or clutch his pillow tighter, or burrow deeper into the blankets. Every 10 minutes my watch went off, I'd try again with no luck. I gave up by 8am (a full 90 minutes after I started), and just read a book and waited for him to wake up. He got up to pee around 10am and as he shuffled back, he saw that it was so late and demanded to know why I let him sleep so late!? Bro... don't blame me on this, it's all on you. So we got a three-hour late start on a trip that takes four hours to get there... This place better be worth it.

We stopped in West Plains for lunch, but nothing looked appetizing... Ugh, the curse of good taste and fast food. We hit Casey's for soda and restrooms, and just ended up with some prepackaged ham sliders, and a slice of pizza. Hubby loved the sliders. The pizza was meh+ (though to be fair, I think my sinus issues are still affecting my ability to fully taste things, so for all I know, this could have been amazing pizza). 

Two hours later, we arrived at Uranus Fudge Factory, and boy oh boy... this was what I was expecting. For some reason, I was expecting a huge tourist trap with lots of things to do and a gift shop. Instead, it was lots and lots of gift shop... with not much to do. The massive gift shop was full of every jokey thing you could think of, lots of Uranus things like hats and shirts of course, but also tin signs, shot glasses, mugs, hunting stuff, 'redneck' gag gifts, funny candy, etc. I picked up a tee-shirt and a sticker. 

I'll give 'em this, there was a lot of stuff to buy... But not a lot of candy or fudge! If your name is Uranus FUDGE FACTORY, I truly expect you to have a massive variety of fudge. I think they had the same typical 10-15 flavors that every other fudge place makes, with no maple no-nut fudge to be found. They also had a typical Pick-a-Mix section with bushels of candy, but was all regular candy that can be purchased at Walmart or online (such as Taffy Town). We each picked up some taffy, but that was about it. 

As we checked out, we asked where the mini-golf course was and how to pay for a few rounds, but we were told that the mini-golf was closed until May. Oh, that sucks. Well, let's just walk around and see what else they have? They had a sideshow museum, but it was $20 and neither of us were really that excited to check it out, so we skipped it. Online, they show that they have an Escape Room, but we never saw that anywhere. The hot dog stand was closed. The ice cream stand was closed. The double-decker bus was shut, so we couldn't even go inside of it at all. We took a silly photo with the World's Biggest Belt Buckle, then turned around to return back to the car. 

We stopped to take a photo with one of those stick your head through the hole cutouts, and there was another family there. I asked the mom if she wanted me to take a photo of the two of them, and she balked at the idea. As she finished taking the photo of her son, her son immediately handed me his phone and asked if I'd take a photo of both of them, then kind of (nicely) pushed her over there... Good son! I hope he liked his photo of a fun time with his mother. In turn, he returned the favor, and took a photo of us. 

Back in the car, my plan was to follow Route 66 all the way to Redmon's Candy Factory, but at one point, Garmin wanted to divert us a different way. Hubby swore that we should follow what Garmin said, and even though I knew he was wrong, I was just too tired to argue so we diverted onto some tiny local road called "N" and followed similar tiny roads all the way to Redmon's. 

The course we should have taken

The course we actually took

There was an additional store in the back, claiming to be the World's Largest Gift Store, but alas, it was closed (although reading some of the reviews, it looked kind of like an indoor flea market and may have been a good thing that we skipped it...). We got gas then went inside Redmon's Candy Factory to see what candy they had. 

Ugh, again, it was just buckets of "normal" stuff! Seriously, I could see bags of candy under the tables that looked like retail bags that I can buy (and have bought) from Walmart. They also carried bushels of Taffy Town taffy, so we picked up a few flavors that Uranus didn't have. Again, there was no nutless maple fudge, so I didn't buy any fudge at all. 

Over at the Wall of Popcorn, I debated too long, but eventually picked up two bags of Ozark Mountain Popcorn, in Garlic Parmesan and Jalapeno Cheddar. We brought it home with us, and it was just okay. Tasted stale (debate having a month left on the shelf life), and didn't have a lot of oomph in terms of flavor. If you watched our video in the other post, you'll have seen our reaction to that popcorn.  The bathrooms were gorgeous and over the top, with tile and chandeliers; seemed a little crazy for such a laid-back location. 

All in all, today just felt like a bust. We drove hours and hours to be disappointed multiple times. We got on the interstate (screw Route 66), hit some roadwork, then exited back on to windy mountain roads... in the dark... with torn up roads, because of more road work. Talk about white knuckle driving! At one point, around dusk, we saw a bunch of Amish buggies out, full of family, on their way to who knows where. It feels silly to think of it this way, but it was kind of like spotting Bigfoot... I don't live in a place where Amish people live, and when we travel, we usually only see those roadside warning signs, but never actually see buggies. Well, now I've seen a bunch! They all looked so happy to be out for the evening, just enjoying their ride to wherever they were going. I hope they had fun, whatever they were doing!

Stuck behind multiple semis, we had plenty of time for pointless conversation, and we had some fun discussions about where we wanted to travel to, now that we know that flying doesn't bother us. He asked where I wanted to go, and I immediately said Iceland, the Scandinavian Peninsula (Sweden, Norway, Finland), the Bavarian area of Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. He said that he would love to visit Japan, especially Tokyo. We talked about where we'd like to travel domestically, such as Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, or going northeast to Maine or Vermont... Basically any place that isn't Florida. 

My body, feeling a little better after a shitty week, decided that it wanted Hardee's - and only Hardee's - for dinner, so we found ourselves in a real sketchy part of West Plains so I could get chicken tenders. Hubby got a Hot Ham & Cheese (drool, so good), and we ate while we continued to drive home. 

Sadly, this was our last night of vacation, and this seemed like a very anticlimactic way to end it. Back at the house, we really should have packed up a bit, but I was exhausted from so much driving that we just conked out for the night!