{"id":2263,"date":"2013-07-11T09:04:59","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T13:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/?p=2263"},"modified":"2018-09-14T11:44:09","modified_gmt":"2018-09-14T15:44:09","slug":"branson-mo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/11\/branson-mo\/","title":{"rendered":"Branson, MO"},"content":{"rendered":"

How to describe Branson<\/a>? Las Vegas for the geriatric? Times Square on downers? A town whose existence can’t be explained? It is a small town far removed from any major metropolis (Springfield, not exactly a metropolis, is an hour away), with no major roads and no major scenic attractions which nevertheless has attracted a very large number of B-list entertainers and a huge assortment of go-cart tracks, mini-golf extravaganzas and a wide variety of run-of-the-mill tourist attractions. I’m sure there is a story behind its existence, but I will leave it to you to figure out what it is.<\/p>\n

We had skipped Branson on the way west but our eastward trek made it just a slight diversion. We spent a week there, with me working and Jett mostly hanging out at the Branson KOA<\/a>, a park which I thought was OK but Jett didn’t like at all. I described it a bit in my previous post and it doesn’t need more ink here. Instead I will tell you about the few times we set aside work and enjoyed ourselves.<\/p>\n

First, the restaurants. We had lunch at Bobby Jack’s<\/a>, which has a luncheon buffet that sounded interesting, but after viewing the offerings we decided to order from the menu. Whatever we had was totally forgettable.<\/p>\n

Then, another day, we had an early dinner at Jackie B. Goode’s Uptown Cafe<\/a>, a 50’s-era diner just around the corner from the KOA. It had classic 50’s style – booths with Formica tops, juke box and a menu featuring malts and shakes. We had some pretty tasty hamburgers, served by a waitress who within 5 minutes had given us her entire life history. We didn’t stay for the dinner show, which is a highly-rated tribute to George Strait.<\/p>\n

The highlights of the stay were visits to the Titanic Museum<\/a> and Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede<\/a>. Jett is a huge Titanic fan – one who thinks that A Night to Remember<\/a> is better than the DeCaprio blockbuster. We took just one picture – on the outside because photography is banned inside. We spent nearly 3 hours there and really enjoyed it – particularly the life-size replica of the grand staircase.<\/p>\n

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Titanic Museum<\/p><\/div>\n

The Dixie Stampede is a dinner show featuring cowboys (and cowgirls), a few Indians and trick riding, trained buffalo, racing pigs and silly contests. It also had one of the better magic tricks I have ever seen – a cowgirl who climbed into a barrel on one of 3 buckboards, after which the buckboards zipped around the arena, then stopped and she popped up out of the barrel on a different buckboard. At no time were the buckboards close enough to effect a transfer, nor were any ever out of sight. I don’t know how they did it.<\/p>\n

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Dixie Stampede Theater<\/p><\/div>\n

The main show was preceded by a juggling act featuring a very skilled Chinese juggler, Ty Tojo<\/a>. He holds some world records in juggling and I can see why. The kid is unbelievable.<\/p>\n

In some respects, the most interesting part of the evening was the dinner: a whole roasted cornish hen, a slice of pork roast, half a baked potato, cornbread and an apple turnover for dessert. All delicious and all served without utensils – you just made a very messy pig of yourself and eat it all with your hands.<\/p>\n

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Jett at the Dixie Stampede<\/p><\/div>\n

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One of the show horses<\/p><\/div>\n

Across the street from the Dixie Stampede Theater was Dick Clark’s American Bandstand Grille<\/a>. We didn’t go there but would have if we had stayed another week. We got a picture just for Jett’s sister who is a HUGE fan of American Bandstand.<\/p>\n

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Dick Clark’s American Bandstand Grille<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How to describe Branson? Las Vegas for the geriatric? Times Square on downers? A town whose existence can’t be explained? It is a small town far removed from any major metropolis (Springfield, not exactly a metropolis, is an hour away), with no major roads and no major scenic attractions which nevertheless has attracted a very … Continue reading »<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32,4,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-places-mo","category-places","category-qte"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1VniU-Av","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2263"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6641,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263\/revisions\/6641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}