BuiltWithNOF
Branson #2

5/24

We decided to take in a couple more shows before we leave, so lookout Bill Medley (Righteous Brothers) and the Osmond Brothers.  Here come 2 enthusiastic fans.  We picked up our tickets & counted our good fortune, once again, to have great seating scheduled for .  Tempted once more by Billy Bob’s great burgers & malts, we stopped for a late lunch/early dinner.  Me, I stuck with the BLT.  Yum. Weather is still hot & muggy.

5/25

Today we leave the campground to see Bill Medley at an afternoon show.  The weather is changing from clear to overcast, a bit cooler & not quite as muggy.  The sky is getting ominous as the day wears on & as we drove to the theatre, it really looked stormy.  Sure enough, within 10 minutes of getting to the theatre, we heard a rumbling sound.  Gary whispers, ‘Thunder’.  ‘Ya think?’ I replied.  We heard several more rumblings & then loud rat-a-tat-tat being drummed on the roof.  Fearing the loud noise was hail, I left my comfy seat to check.  Sheets of rain were pounding the concrete & asphalt jungle outside.  Water streaming down the sides of the glass lobby.  No hail.  Anyway, the show starts with all this weather noise.  Bill Medley, turning 70 in September, performs with his 23 year-old daughter & a five-piece band.  It was a fun show.  The thunder & downpour stopped shortly after he started singing.  It did, however, continue to rain throughout the show & for about an hour afterward.  Well over 2 inches of rain fell during the storm.  Returning to the Roadhouse, we took a walk to the lake.  The water being released from the dam makes this lake-finger look like a river with a current.  Keeps the water stirred up so the dock fishing just isn’t working at all. Nobody’s catching anything unless they’re out on a boat.  It is dark & the lake-fog is sliding eerily over the water lighted by the dock’s nightlights.  A bit surreal.  The only sound is a boat’s outboard motor as it chugs slowly towards home.  Heard it long before we saw it.  The fog begins to thicken as Gary talks with a dock fisherman.  We decide to head back while we can still find our way.

Lots of billboards, all lighted. These guys have job security as the boards must stay lighted, eh?

Lots of Theatres in Branson. There are a few owned by names we all know.  Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede provides a cowboy or rodeo experience as you dine.  Up the hill from the sign is a mansion-style theatre done up in beautiful Dolly style. Dick Clark’s American Bandstand is complete with theatre, hotel & grill....all 50’s era.  And the class act of Branson is Andy William’s Moon River complete with restaurant & theatre.  The theatre has made use of the natural lay of the land & uses trees & other landscaping to give a natural look to the entrance. Almost as if you’re entering a grotto.  Quite pretty!

Hwy. 76, ‘The Strip’, can be a confusing place when you first arrive. The plethora of signs & power poles just about makes it impossible to see what it is you are looking for. I remember the Joyce poem: ‘I think that I shall never see, A billboard lovely as a tree. In fact, unless the billboards fall, I’ll never see a tree at all.’ The poet may have been on the ‘The Strip’ when writing this.

Once off ‘The Strip’, many of the roads, such as this one leading to our campground, show the serenity of the landscape all around Branson.

Did you know that the making of quilts is big business in Branson?  There are shops selling finished quilts.  There are other shops selling everything you need to make a quilt or become a quilter.

It’s not unusual to see a vintage car, beautifully restored, being driven around Branson. No car show going on, no meet. I suspect it’s just folks who round out their 50’s Branson experience by bringing along their pride & joy, their vintage car.

I mentioned in an earlier entry about the hills of Branson creating challenges for builders & road-builders.  The road you see on the right is wide & in beautiful condition, but steep. It winds around the hill connecting Old Town with some of the newer establishments built on other hills.

Under glass, this realistic ‘town theatre’ & ‘restaurant’, are the lobby of the theatre where we will enjoy Bill Medley’s (Righteous Bros.) show.  Really sets the mood.

Medley’s beautiful daughter, McKenna, has a great stage presence & great voice.  She sang some solo and some with her dad.

Hard to take pics using no flash.  Skin tone looks a bit off, but it is actually the blue light of the stage as he sings a soulful piece.

Bill Medley with his daughter, lower right, and on our left is his very talented & long-time musician friend.  Bill told the story of how he worked with him many years ago. The guy tells him the group, ‘Alabama’, wants to ‘borrow’ him. ‘Alabama’ kept him for 23 years.  Now reunited, this man is an integral part of the show.

5/26

Still overcast this morning.  Weatherman promising more T-storms this afternoon.  A couple days ago we had thought about leaving here early & heading north but, from what we see on the weather reports, it is as bad, if not worse, where we are headed.  We drove around Branson to check out parts of it we hadn’t seen yet & are we glad we did!  Very enlightening.  And everywhere are the pretty trees & lush undergrowth that gives you the feeling you’re not far away from the peaceful countryside.  Tonight we take in an evening concert by the Osmond Brothers.  Back in the day, the whole Osmond Family used to entertain here.  Father, mother, children, grandchildren.  Wish we’d had a chance to see that.  Apparently Donny & Marie join their brothers now & again.  Just not now.  But, as the show begins, we realize these brothers do just dandy on their own.  They have been performing together for 18 years.  There was a short warm-up by 2 performers who got us all laughing.  Then the O’ Brothers jogged onstage to tumultuous applause.  They are energetic performers with a polished show that was just lovely.  They sang, they danced, they told stories and they have a terrific & very pretty singer who performs with them (for 18 years).  The joy of being onstage reflects in their expressions & they roam the audience to shake hands with everyone.  It was a warm, funny walk down memory lane. Just amazing!  Loved it!

We got those front row seats & we are excited!

They came out singing & they can sing.  Beautiful voices & harmony.

Lead Singer/MC

Funny guy...kept us laughing!

Producer/arranger & accomplished drummer!

This gal is a big part of the show.  She sings solo & with them. Never still a moment onstage, she’s been with them 18 years. Lovely & very talented.

Their footwork is energetic & often a part of their singing routines.  These guys are at least in their 60’s with moves of much younger people.

Funny guy on our right is doing one of his jokes while lead singer tries to pretend disgust & on our left, well, he just loses it.  The audience was lovin’ every minute!

For those of you who enjoy the Osmond’s, here are some other shots of their performance. Again, I used no flash and the stage lights did their share of washing out their features. Sorry about that.

We are driving over Table Rock Dam.  Table Rock Lake is absolutely HUGE. 

Table Rock Dam.  Big thing.  There has been so much rain that this dam is frequently releasing water which ends up in the lake ‘finger’ by our campground.  And that is why there is a current in the lake ‘finger’.

A tiny piece of Table Rock Lake.  The Lake is used for all kinds of recreation; boating, fishing, swimming.  Beautiful.

There is a paddlewheel boat that ‘sails’ on Table Rock Lake.  They have live entertainment while you lunch or dine on board.  To set the stage for this outing, after parking, you walk through some lovely gardens before you reach the wharf, used exclusively for the paddlewheeler.

She’s a beauty, isn’t she? We didn’t have time to make the trip, so just enjoyed the setting she sails from and the sight of her leaving the dock.  She spends almost 2 hours on the water as you enjoy your meal & entertainment.

Part of the dock.  There are a couple of shops should you need your ‘retail fix’ before or after you sail.  All the facilities here are immaculate.

Guess the Surgeon-General hasn’t had an opportunity to speak with this little guy. Happily sunning himself from an ashtray in the gardens, he just watched us as we walked by.

Along the roadway, we saw this very old cabin. Neatly kept, we think it is being used for storage for a nearby home. The mailbox in the foreground is not for this cabin. Look closely to see the add-on in the rear.

5/27-6/1

Today we leave for Minnesota.  Uh, oh.  No we’re not.  Woke Gary and as he began to sit up he said, ‘I feel achy’.  A series of events followed that had us visiting Branson hospital’s ER.  Without a bunch of details, let me just say that he’s on an antibiotic treatment for a problem that is probably going to require a short surgical fix.  We cannot get it properly evaluated here as the only urologist in town is on vacation.  Over the past few days, the weakness & fever have left as the meds do their job.  Gary feels we should go onto Kalispell, Montana where he can get the treatment he needs & recover in a setting that he appreciates.  So our jaunt to Minnesota will have to happen at another time.  We’ve been pretty much bound to the campground as he recovers.  It has been quite crowded as the Memorial Day weekend began.  Generations of families pulled in to share some time together.  Boaters came in droves.  They all came with their little ones & their little dogs.  Some larger dogs, too.  It was a happy, happening place.  And somehow it remained quiet & peaceful.  Dogs weren’t barking, kids weren’t crying.  Just out having a great time.  Most of the campers were from Missouri, some from Kansas & Arkansas.  Just a very few from further away.  The docks were busy with fishermen of all ages.  Boaters were out, mostly fishing.  Some recreational cruisin’ was happening on the waterway, as well.  We saw 3 & 4 generations of families filling picnic tables with food as they laughed with one another.  We saw grandparents walking the grandchildren & their dog, a father taking his son fishing, another father taking his daughter fishing and several husbands taking their wives fishing.  The sight we loved was a family group of 5 adults who walked their kids & 4 dogs.  One child was in her stroller while a couple of young’uns held momma’s hand.  The leashed dogs were going in every direction.  A golden lab & full-size poodle, both the same color, usually strained on their leashes in the same direction.  Not so those 2 miniature whatevers.  They were up, over, around, underfoot.  They were having an awfully good time.  With 2 swimming pools to help beat the heat, a lot of the kids were in bathing attire most of the day.  Cautious parents had life jackets on their kids if they were headed for the docks.  It was really a wonderful sight to see all this family interaction.  The love for our country and our military is obvious.  It is spoken of in the theatres, it shows up as bumper stickers on vehicles and sometimes, with nothing more than a small flag hanging from their car or coach, they celebrate Memorial Day and remember those who have fallen so that we can go camping, boating, enjoy our families & pets & watch our kids grow up.

The beginning of Memorial Day Weekend brought everyone out to start their summer.  All sizes & shapes of RVs pulled into Cooper Creek Campground.  Boater & fishermen vied for space on the water & on the docks belonging to the property.  The two swimming pools were busy. Bicyclists played dodge-em with the folks walking their dogs on the interior roads of the grounds. Left: Part of a strand of lights hung on the awning edge of a trailer. Stars & stripes seen everywhere!

Fog

Family Fun!

Lazy Day

Sometimes the Lake was crowded.

This small blue heron is doing his own fishing in spite of folks fairly nearby.  The patience of these birds is endless. Finally, he gave up & flew off to a new spot.

Memory maker:  Dad & I go fishing.

Two buddies go fishing.  Looks like a real strenuous deal, doesn’t it?

Parked in the dock parking lot, this back window stopped me cold!  And then the tailgate grabbed Gary’s eye. Don’t think I’d want to live next door to Bo. 

Dad’s nearby, snacks at his elbow. It’s warm & the fish aren’t biting. He’s darn near asleep, but diligent.

Ignoring the boats at dock, these two guys enjoy a Bud after a long day on the water.

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