After posting about finding a good grocery store that required a long run through heavy traffic, Donna found another store nearby on Sunday. We scootered over to Country Mart, about two miles south of here. I haven’t gone out in that direction much and was unaware of the store. It turned out to be a nice grocery store with a selection of organic produce and other items.

We stocked up on groceries, but took a little too long doing it. Just as we were loading the scooter, it began to rain. We rode home through the rain drops. It was warm and the rain didn’t fall too heavily, so it wasn’t a big deal.

We had thundershowers off and on all afternoon. I kicked back and watched the Moto GP race from Catalunya, Spain – I’d downloaded the European coverage of the event earlier in the day. Later in the afternoon, Donna and I took a walk during a break in the weather. We chatted with some neighbors and then offered to help them carry their kayaks to the creek. Their kayaks are made of plastic and weigh 50 pounds each – much heavier than we expected. We haven’t gotten around to inflating our kayak yet, but we definitely want to take advantage of our close proximity to the lake.

A guy pulled into the park towing a travel trailer behind his truck. He was alone and appeared to be struggling to back the trailer into the site across from us. As I was going out to see if I could help, he got out of his truck and approached another neighbor. The neighbor got into the guy’s truck and started to back it into the site. He was having a little trouble as the owner of the truck was just standing there and not giving any guidance. I walked over and directed the guy in the truck and we got the trailer lined up in the site. Then I found out that the guy that owns the truck and trailer was feeling under the weather and had been driving long hours to get here from New Mexico over two days. He was out of it. He didn’t even unhook the trailer from the truck before he went in to lie down. I rolled up his truck window and closed the driver’s door which he had left open.

Donna prepared spiced pork tenderloin with maple-chipotle sauce for dinner. She served it with asparagus and mashed sweet potato. So good!

Spiced pork tenderloin with maple-chipotle sauce

Yesterday’s forecast called for thunderstorms to pass through starting around midday. We took our chances and scootered across Branson to the north side out to the Branson Sports Club. It’s about a 20-minute ride from here. They have indoor pickleball on Mondays from 9:30am to 11:30am. It costs $3 per person to play there. We met a great group of people and played for two hours. There were six courts set up, but we only had enough players for three games at a time.They pushed the time limit and we didn’t finish our last games until 11:45am.

I was getting anxious as I could see a large storm cell approaching from the west on my Radar Express app. We didn’t linger after our last game. We hit the road and made our way back through Branson. We were riding away from the storm cell so I felt comfortable making a quick stop at Macadoodles liquor store. I picked up some IPA brewed in Colorado by Odell Brewing Company. This is a tasty IPA – much better in my opinion than the offering from Mother’s Brewing in Springfield, Missouri.

Odell’s IPA

Once again we had a series of thundershowers all afternoon with brief breaks of sunshine in between. I spent most of the afternoon reading a preposterous Clive Cussler novel. It was written in 1975 and it was funny how it illustrates the chauvinistic mores of that time.

During a respite from the rain, we went out and walked to stretch our legs. I was a little stiff and sore from the pickleball activity. My S Health app showed over 8,500 steps on the pickleball court.

I grilled boneless chicken thighs that Donna marinated for dinner. She served it with a delicious zucchini side. The zucchini was cut in quarters, topped with parmesan cheese and herbs and baked to a crispy finish. The chicken thighs were marinated in lemon juice, lemon zest, olive oil and fresh herbs.

Grilled boneless chicken thigh with baked parmesan zucchini

Today we expect the weather pattern to continue with thunderstorms rolling in around noon.