Branson, MO

5/20

Spent the morning picking up reserved show tickets and trying to familiarize ourselves with Branson. We are so grateful for the GPS. The beautiful Ozark mountains create a nightmare for development. The building sites are complex & so is the road system. Roads are up & down, curvy, but in very good condition. Very crowded roads even out of season, which this is. A major bike rally, local people & ALL the tourists create traffic nightmares. The town is great....lots of fun here for folks of all ages. Water parks, fun zones, etc., alongside the theatres & restaurants. Great shopping in Old Branson & 2 outlet malls. You could be here for 2 weeks easily if you wanted to ‘taste’ Branson fully. While talking to a former Californian in the parking lot of the supermarket, Gary asked if she knew of any good mom & pop type hamburger places. She suggested ‘Billy Bob’s Dairyland’. What a find!! Gary claims they have the very best malts. And the burgers & BLTs are just fab. Prices are excellent also. A ‘Don’t Miss’. Ken & Sheri arrive this afternoon. Ken is so sick that he immediately heads for bed. Sheri goes into nurse mode & we drive her to Walgreen’s for all the over-the-counter treatments & a consult with the pharmacist to arrange getting a prescription from their doctor in Paris. All of that handled very quickly by staff. After tending to Ken, we took Sheri out to an early dinner & brought back Ken’s favorite comfort food.


	While filling the car with gas, I looked around at the view. ‘What the heck is that?’ I wondered aloud. Thought it might be King Kong. After fueling, we drove in the direction of this very large clump attached to a 1/4 scale of the NY skyline. Attendant at the station informed us it weighed 40,000 pounds.


	Once again on Hwy. 76, there he is. With a menacing look, King Kong stands above ‘The Strip’ hoping you’ll come inside to check out the wax museum. There is also a pseudo Mt Rushmore wall depicting John Wayne, WC Fields, Marilyn Monroe & James Dean. Two other attractions share this space.


	On Hwy. 76 there is a large restaurant with a large sign named the ‘Rib Crib’. In its shadow, set back from the street, is this unassuming hamburger cafe.




	The restaurant has a theme that is very popular in Branson, the 50’s. Gee, could it be the age of the tourists that brought this about?

Unsuspecting Gary, being very hungry, ordered a double cheeseburger & a malt. Now, the malt was a size you might expect & ooooooh was it good! The burger was another matter entirely. Delicious, but slightly outrageous, wouldn’t you say? We just kept laughing at it. The waitress apologized for not warning him. They usually do, because no one is expecting a one-pound burger. The menu doesn’t give detail & the prices are so moderate that a person would NEVER expect this giant thing served with fries. They use excellent quality beef. I might add that they fix a mean BLT.

5/21

Ken is still very ill. Along with other symptoms, his ears are fully plugged, so he cannot hear. Gary takes Sheri to the pharmacy to get his prescription. She is a very capable driver, but we’re afraid she would get hopelessly lost if driving on her own. The road layout is so confusing. Once again, after tending to Ken, we grab Sheri & head for the Branson Street Fair, featuring arts & craftsmen of the Ozarks, located in Old Town. Sheri & I had a great time checking out the offerings &, as we joyfully spent too much money, Gary retreated to run some errands of his own. We returned to our temporary homes to prepare for our big night out. After resting all day, Ken decides that he is up to joining us for a concert by the Gatlin Brothers. Wow, what a show! Reserved front row, aisle seats gave us the opportunity for unobstructed & intimate connections to the stage. They performed some of their old music, some from their new CD. They told stories of the famous & of their families. I was quite surprised that they have been performing for 54 years. Must’ve started as youngsters. Humor-filled stories & great music. We all loved it. After the 2 hour show, they kindly autographed their CDs & pictures. A very special night for us.


	Old Town Branson holds an arts & crafts fair now & again. There is a section just for Ozark hand crafted items & it was very interesting to see them. The rest of the booths offered a variety of unique southern foods & manufactured goods. I forgot to ask while we were there, just what is a funnel cake anyway?


	This is Dick’s 5 & 10 cent store. It is huge inside & full of souvenirs and all the things you used to find in a 5 & dime. Hairnets to can openers, it is here. Crammed to the ceiling with all kinds of stuff! Could have spent half the day right here. Fun place in Old Town.




		Above: Saw many of these carriages hauling people around the narrow streets of Old Town. Nice day for it. Right: Entertainment & prizes spring from this stage. Some great music from live entertainers had the crowd swaying to the music. Here, this lucky gent has just won a prize of some sort.



			A free trolley will take you about Old Town. A very busy form of transportation here as parking is difficult in this jammed area. Lots of cute shops with tempting offerings. And I thought I didn’t care much for shopping. Silly me.

Outside a small country store, Gary poses with a tree. OK, I made him do it. Inside, there are fresh farm eggs for $2 a dozen. $1 if you are buying something else. We bought green beans & zuchinni fresh from an Amish garden and homemade raisin pie. Ken fell in love with the pickled eggs put up in quart jars. Sent Sheri back to get the ones spiced with jalapenos. This busy owner also makes pork rinds sold in large zip-lock bags. She spices up some, leaves others plain or salted. She boils peanuts, bakes bread and makes all kinds of chocolate candy. Amazing place. Just down the road from the campground, we’ve stopped here several times.

The Gatlin Bros. perform here. This theatre is located away from the Hwy 76 ‘Strip’. Very nice. We don’t, however, have any pictures of the Gatlin Bros. performing. Signs everywhere prohibiting cameras & stating that cell phones must be turned off. So, we came without either while the audience took all the pictures they wanted. The Gatlin Bros. even posed on stage for a moment so everyone could shoot ‘til they ran out of memory card space. Hmmm.

5/22

Some of our exploring Branson had to be put on hold as Ken continues to be ill. A bit better, he decides he’ll rest up for tonight’s festivities. Gary escorts Sheri & I to Old Town & to an outlet mall so we can get this shopping fetish satisfied. The man is a SAINT! Had a great time. Returned to get ready for the Shanghai Circus. Basically, it is an acrobatic show. The performers were great, but I wouldn’t go again. The female acrobats did most of the performing. They appeared very young & very accomplished. However, when they announced the age of one that was spotlighted as 14 years, I began to get a bit angry. The Chinese seem to be regularly loose with the truth of age when it comes to their performers or sports figures. I would swear that one of those acrobats could not be older than 11. These kids are brought to Branson to the Shanghai Circus Theatre for 9 months before returning to China. I have no idea if there is any oversight for their protection while in the U.S. The more I thought about that 14 year-old and the very dangerous performance I witnessed, the less I could enjoy the show. Ah, well. We then hunted for a late night (10 pm) restaurant for a quick bite. The only place open other than Denny’s was a local dessert & burger place. It was jammed. Brightly decorated in a 50’s style, the jukebox was playing Elvis’ music. (They do a lot of that here….Uptown Café, Mel’s Hard Luck Diner, Billy Bob’s & others all play to the 50’s theme. No doubt the age of most tourists causes this style to be so popular.) As we waited to be seated we saw this little boy, later confirming his age as 9, in a gold lame jacket, white shirt & hair slicked back, miming Elvis’ lyrics & making Elvis moves. While eating our meal, I motioned him over. He was a riot. Very self-assured, this chunky Elvis wannabe entertained us for a few moments. I asked him how often he ‘performed’. He said ‘Nightly, except Monday.’ He is a home-schooled only child. He was a cutie, but what the heck kind of mom allows this? We saw the mom pick up his case containing his CD’s and pictures that are offered for sale. She was hauling them out to the car as he ended his entertainment at midnight. He picked up his tip jar & headed out into the night.


	A clever way to catch your attention, this rooftop of mannequins just catches your eye. Offering a foot of chocolate for 99 cents, we were tempted to go in, but figuring that foot would be about 1/8 wide, we opted to pass on the forbidden food.


	Is this clever or what? All these tall people on the crowded streets of Old Town could easily overlook this tiny pet. Rather than be stepped on, he sports a flag that surely saves him from disaster.


	With the very modern Hilton Hotel in the background, Sheri stands at the edge of an alleyway that sports a wonderful mural depicting a street in Branson circa 1913. One of the nicest murals I’ve seen anywhere.


	A biker’s rally held over the weekend brought many of the ‘iron horses’ & their enthusiastic owners to Branson. Based at the Dick Clark American Bandstand complex, these riders were heartily welcomed by the businesses in the area. The intermittent rain that has plagued this area for days may have kept some folks away, but there were plenty to be seen around town.


	Note the signs in the background of these 2 photos. The bikers came in all ages. Each gender represented. They all seemed to enjoy the experience.

5/23

We said goodbye to our friends as they headed back to Paris as Sheri had to work the next morning. Ken was feeling a bit better as the prescription was working its magic. It was hard to let them go. We promised to meet again as soon as possible. We watched the antics of a male & female cardinal, as well as a few other birds, as they descended on the birdfeeder we put out. The next day the squirrels discovered it. Their attempts to scale it were funny, but potentially destructive, so the feeder was put back in the bay of the Roadhouse. The temps reached 90* as Gary & I were doing the ‘wash the coach & do the laundry’ thing. The air feels like steam. Heavy & wet.




	Upper left & lower left: A male & female cardinal forage in the grasses by the coach. The lone male was a diligent hunter. These 2 have at least one baby out of the nest, but still being fed by his parents. Couldn’t get the camera out quick enough...darn. Also, never able to catch either parent with their ‘crown’ in the up position....another darn.


	This persistent squirrel came upon the feeder & tried every way imaginable to get to it. When Gary caught him flying out of a close-by tree to land on its roof, he put the feeder away. We haven’t seen the squirrel since.


		TO BE CONTINUED

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