Branson Weekend

We made our longest trip yet in the motorhome--all the way to Branson, Missouri. It went well, but the drive was much longer than we expected. Between pulling the Hummer Toad and navigating the mountains, we did not make good time. However, once we got there, we had a great time. We did sightseeing in the area we camped (right off the strip) and drove over past Silver Dollar City to the lake. It was really beautiful country--lots of wooded mountainsides--and cooler than East Texas (of course, almost anywhere is, right now). There is an old fashioned five and dime store downtown that was fun to walk through. We went through the Titanic museum and saw interesting artifacts from the ship itself and heard stories of the passengers. It was a fascinating view of the past. I don't know how it ended up in Branson... We also went to a couple of music shows. We met Neal McCoy and spoke to him before his show. He is a sincerely nice person who has his priorities straight and who really has fun entertaining people. The performance was a benefit for the American Heart Association's Wear Red for Women's Heart Health. The next night we saw Moe Bandy perform. He lives in a cabin in the mountains outside Branson, and seems to be happy performing when he wants to and living a simple life the rest of the time. He put on an entertaining show, too. All in all, the trip was fun and a different type of camping experience--more like having a personal hotel room on wheels, since we didn't really cook and didn't even set up the grill outside. It was a full couple of days, then a long drive back.