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I don’t think that
Bill and I have met many “baby boom” generation
folks that |
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If you take your RV to Branson
you will have plenty of beautiful RV Parks to choose from. We stayed at the Branson View RV Park. It was high up in the hills above Branson and at night the view from the park is spectacular. The sites are long, shady, pull thru's up to 120 feet. They have a small, but well stocked market and a laundry with good machines. If you need a motel or hotel, you will find a huge abundance of places to stay. |
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Plan Ahead |
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I cannot stress enough
the importance of planning this trip ahead of time.
It is a ong trip (1430 miles from Las Vegas), and you don’t want to be disappointed when you get there. If you are Internet savvy, just search Branson, Missouri and everything you need will be available to you online. If not, call the Chamber of Commerce for Branson and they will be more than happy to provide you with plenty of information. |
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We used one of the ticket
agencies to order all of the show tickets we wanted.
Since this was a really big trip for us I stressed to the Agent that we wanted really good seats at all of the shows we wanted to see. We were not disappointed. I was afraid that once we got there and paid for the tickets we would end up in the back of the theaters. I was pleasantly surprised! We were in the front row center at almost every show we saw. |
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There are so many shows
to see in Branson that you really have to choose
carefully. Everything from Magic shows, Dining Shows to a variety of Musical Entertainment. A |few of our favorites were the Yakov Smirnoff Show, Jim Stafford Show, Shoji Tabuchi Variety Show, Dixie Stampede, World of Magic and the best of all for us was the Mickey Gilley Show. One evening was spent on the Showboat Branson Belle. It was a good dinner and a fun show. |
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We didn’t eat too many meals
in Branson itself. There are a couple of wonderful
Barbeque Restaurants on the main highway that we enjoyed. We did eat one terrible meal at a place that serves buffet style. You might want to avoid that one. |
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A few of the other things
we did while in Branson are things you may enjoy.
A really big deal there is Silver Dollar City. This is an 1880’s theme park just outside of Branson. It is built like a small city with paths that lead you from outdoor entertainment to indoor restaurants and shops. One of the things I really enjoyed was watching the master craftsmen at work. There are glassblowers, basket weavers, potters, blacksmiths, knife smiths and many craftsmen entertaining people with their talents. Plan on spending the whole day here. There is more than enough for everyone to see and enjoy. |
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I must add that we were
so impressed with the people we met in Branson and
in Missouri on the whole. They were the most genuinely friendly people we had ever met. We found this to be true of the service people, people we dealt with over the telephone, at the shows and all of the other attractions we visited. |
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Outside of Branson |
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Bill and I rarely confine
ourselves to one location when we travel. So, as
usual for us, we did a lot of exploring. We took back roads and found some beautiful areas with lush farmland, old farmhouses, and even came upon a great little berry farm where you could buy homemade products or pick your own berries. I am not too fond of berry picking but we went back there several times to buy their homemade goodies (jams, jellies and barbeque sauce) for us and as gifts. |
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Before I go on I want to
give you a little background of a man named John
Morris. As the story goes, John Morris began his career 26 years ago, selling fishing tackle at his father’s liquor store. From an eight foot display there, he created and owns Bass Pro Shops, Dogwood Canyon Nature Park, Big Cedar Lodge, Table Rock Restaurant, Tracker Boats and a couple of other businesses. |
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The original Bass Pro Shop
is in Springfield, Missouri. We went to see it.
It was an amazing place! The store is on four levels as I remember, and there are exciting and beautiful scenes set up everywhere using stuffed wildlife, waterfalls and plants galore. There is a huge saltwater aquarium and a four-story waterfall. It is an indoor store for outside gear. Bill wanted to look at all of the unusual hunting and fishing gadgets and clothing available there. He had a great time! I sat on a bench near a waterfall and talked to a few of the other women who were sitting and waiting for their husbands to finish shopping. That was a first! I have never been in a store where the women waited for the men. It was like a Bloomindales for men! When Bill was finished, we had lunch in the restaurant. The food was very good and the prices reasonable. We spent about 4 hours at Bass Pro Shop and |it was a lot of fun. |
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We heard about a place called
Big Cedar Lodge and wanted to go see it. Thinking
it was just an unusual lodge; we were delighted when we drove through the wooded entrance and onto the grounds. The road is built of stones and little streams of water cross your path. The grounds are absolutely gorgeous and the structures are rustic but beautifully maintained. |
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Everything within the confines
of Big Cedar has the look of the Ozarks, lush and
green, lots of tall trees, and buildings made from native materials. There are several restaurants on the grounds. One of them is the Devil’s Pool. |
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It is an old log house with
a gigantic stone fireplace. The interior design
is fitting with the exterior. There are hand wrought metal chandeliers, antique furnishings and a 100-year-old mahogany bar. The open ceilings along with the sporting gear and animal mounts on the wall make you feel as though you have stepped back in time. We happened to be there on a Sunday morning and how lucky we were! They have a Sunday morning brunch to die for. YUM! Wonderful morning! |
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I have saved the best for
last. We accidentally came upon a place called “Dogwood
Canyon Nature Park”. We ended up visiting there several times during our stay in Branson. Dogwood Canyon is a 10,000-acre parcel of land, which sprawls across the Missouri-Arkansas border. The natural beauty of this place takes your breath away. |
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When we went the first time
we were scheduled to take a tram tour. The weather
was damp and it turned out, to our advantage, that we were the only people to show up. What we ended up with was a private tour. There is so much to see there besides just the beauty of the surroundings. There are limestone bluffs and tumbling waterfalls, bridges formed of native stone or hand crafted wrought iron. There is one place where we climbed up a path on the side of a mountain to see the site of an Indian Burial Cave where archaeologists made some fascinating discoveries. It was very interesting. |
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Something is Fishy |
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There is a beautiful body of water there called
the Glory Hole. Fisherman drool when they |
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Deeper into the canyon you
come to a place where people can pay to fish. You
can catch and keep or catch and release. Bill and I really wanted to fish so we came back another time and paid to “catch and release”. The price was $20 each and well worth it. It was so much fun to fish in this beautiful area and the rainbow trout were abundant. But, alas, I did not catch a fish. It was fun anyway. (The tour guide caught one for me and let me pull it in.) |
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They also have trophy fishing
a little further into the canyon. This area is off
limits unless you are there to Trophy fish and pay the hefty price of $250 for half a day. There was someone there fishing one of the days we went. The tour guide told us that it was a doctor who comes often to fish and relax. |
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The furthest point in the
tour takes you out of Missouri and into Arkansas.
It was a remarkable transition. As we crossed the
border from one state to another it was as if we
blinked our eyes and went from one world to another. From Missouri so green, wet, wooded and primitive, to the open fields and rolling hills of Arkansas. John Morris, the owner of Dogwood Canyon, is a very concerned environmentalist. He has created an animal preserve on the Arkansas side of Dogwood Canyon. As we drove along the roads we saw many types of animals, including elk, deer, longhorns, and buffalo. We drove up to the top of a hill where a lot of buffalo were and stopped right in the middle of them. It was a little intimidating to be so close to so many large animals, but they were used to the tours invading their space and pretty much ignored out attempts at communication with them. |
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All in all we went to visit
Dogwood Canyon three times. Each time was better
than the time before. They have a restaurant on site and we wound up our last visit by enjoying a hamburger made from buffalo meat. I was a little apprehensive but it was great! Buffalo meat is tasty and much lower in fat that hamburger. |
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Well, that winds up our
time in and around Branson, Missouri. I hope you
enjoyed our trip and better yet I hope you have a ball when you take your trip there! |
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E-Mail Carol
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