Vacay Branson – October 3, 2019

First things first!

Sunrise!  This is as much as we are going to see this morning.  After the photo the clouds finished their work in keeping the sky nice and grey.  This week has been pretty much the same.

Last Saturday –

September 28th, 2019 saw the a pretty beginning.

It has been on the cooler side here, except for Monday when it went up over 80 degrees for just one day.  But the rest have been rainy and in the 50’s – 60’s range.

That said I will continue on with our September vacation.

To continue from my previous post, we arrived at Branson then went into a campground called ‘Musicland Kampground’.  A place saying they were ‘big rig’ friendly which wasn’t so big rig friendly.  It was… okay, no photos, should have, but there was nothing there worth noting except that we had to take the car off before winding through to park. We were a little concerned that the camper stuck out too close to the road as we filled the entire spot with little room to spare.  It was not even, so we had to put the driver’s side of the camper up on blocks due to the fact that the uneven-ness was so bad that the lifters alone wouldn’t handle it.  Then leaving we had to wait to put the car on at the exit due to the tight turns trying to get out.  All in all we won’t be returning to that campground. Also, we have no plans to return to Branson as it just wasn’t our ‘jam’.  However, we are glad we went.

As soon as we got situated into our spot we left to go to Dolly Parton’s Stampede.  Had to hurry as they were last minute tickets.  (We were not real happy at the time due to everything happening on the trip and not being very happy with the campground.) So we got ready and hustled over there. The folks there were not real organized, which you would think strange because they’d been doing this for SO long.  But we finally ‘did’ get in and seated.

It is a dinner and show. Fortunately they were able to accommodate the Celiac in me with a gluten free items.  First course was Dolly’s homemade vegetable (think it was) soup.  I got some raw carrots and broccoli in a cup.  Then there was roast chicken and ham, along with corn on the cob – both Gluten Free. Seems like there was something else…potato?  Can’t recall. And I think there was also dinner rolls. I didn’t have one, so my memory might be off on that.

During this time the show was going on:

Riders and riding contests – you can also see the folks in front of us with their drinks – coffee, Lemon-aid, Coke or water, and food.  Dessert was this luscious looking apple turnover. (I got a little GF sugar cookie in the wrapper). I will mention that the ham and chicken were very yummy.

They did a whole thing historical ‘thing’.  Buffalo, Indians, Settlers….

And worked in ‘gimmicks’ to liven things up. Of course lots of music and some pretty ‘campy humor’.

Lights on dresses and horses.

Very patriotic.

This is a photo of the way out which leads to a HUGE gift shop, at which we got nothing, it was really crowed.

I personally enjoyed seeing all of the show horses on the way out most of all, as interacting a little with them made my mood lighten.

 

This little plot of flowers in a butterfly design is right outside, didn’t get time to take a photo of it on the way in, so it was getting dark when I finally got a chance to snap it.

It was another ‘meh’ for me on the experience, but still glad I got to see what it was.

Not much else going on that evening so we roamed the ‘strip’ a little before going back to the camper.

Of course Branson is a Huge tourist area with all sorts of STUFF… we didn’t go into them except for Dolly’s Stampede. We were more interested in the Ozarks and things not quite so gimmicky.

 

A Car museum.  We didn’t go in, but there were some on the outside.

Who ya’ gonna’ call? 😉 Just seemed like a place where you could drop a lot of bucks on hokey stuff if you wanted to.

A cool mural.

Somewhere along the way with going around this area we picked up a nail in our car’s tire, and spent Labor Day looking for someone who could repair our tire so we could leave the next day to go down to visit my Dad in Florida.  Also, during this time, Hurricane Irma was giving the Bahamas a good thrashing and threatening the area we were supposed to be traveling to.  So we were trying to keep an eye on that to see if we could get down there – but that comes later in the story.

Next post will be other things we did while in the Branson /Ozarks area. Not crazy about Branson, though I know some folks are. But someday we may revisit different parts of the Ozarks.

Happy Thursday!