Branson is like a mash between the strange sites of Vegas and the music of Nashville...except with a distinctly Qzarkian twist. Very down home, patriotic, and religious at most times. The street with all the theaters and restaurants was wildly obnoxious.
Titanic museum. We rolled up to the light and this was there. So crazy.
Some chicken place.
"You hear me 'fore you see me I got King Kong in the trunk" -Rap reference
And Silver Dollar City is like a sanctuary from all the distracting nonsense that lies outside the park. It is clean and comfortable, and an oasis for nature and cool without even trying while still being unabashedly Christian. Blue grass gospel is piped through the park speakers and workers are dressed like pioneer people in the 1800s.
Missouri is home to hundreds of caves and over 200 lakes. On the park site you can take a free tour of Marvel Cave. Park Rangers let us know the cave was flooded so we could only have a half tour. We would have to climb down 300 stairs and then climb right back up them. Is was a beast of a tour but it was worth it.
This is a view from the top of the Cathedral room looking down.
This is a view looking up from the floor of the Cathedral room.
If you look real close you can see a mousy brown, teeny-tiny bat hanging from the ceiling in this picture. The ranger told us about the bat rule, "If a bat or bats start flying toward you, stay still...up until the last second then duck and let it hit the person behind you".
Picture of a deep, dark, scary hole that was once filled with bat guano.
Cave picture! I put my makeup on in the dark that morning. Thanks camera flash for pointing that out.
Picture of the hole at the top of the Cathedral room on our climb out.
We then made our way to the "Grandpa's Mansion". It if full of optical illusions and squeaky, slanted floors.
More Coasters. And photo op plan killers. Just kidding.
They had several water rides we refused to go on. It was now a toasty Fifty-something degrees out.
At this Tom and Huck ride, the boats had water guns and people on the shore got some too to create a huge water fight. Dan went over to try and start a water fight with a little (but loud mouthed) kid. We were too late to the water guns and the kid was out of range.
Later Friday night we celebrated an early Anniversary dinner at Landry's The condo called in our reservation and set up a special dinner for us. Super cute.
Dan ordered a surf and turf dinner. The lump crap came IN shell. Dan looked at it and refused to mess with it. So...I got to eat crab with my already delicious dinner. I went to town on that crab. Shell pieces everywhere. After we left I was certain they would have to hose the table down and start new for the next guests.
Lots of bright blue going on here.
We left the restaurant and headed to our second show of the trip. The New Shanghai Circus Acrobats of China.
They're really from china. Look at those crates.
We had left dinner too early to go take a nap but got tot he theater too early to want to wander the theater for 30 minutes. So we sat in the rental car and chatted until two FULL buses rolled passed us. Dan and I looked at each other and hustled out of the car to beat the mess of people.
We had just sat down when the bus load of what turned out ot be highschoolers filed in, one-by-one into their seats. I looked at dan and asked if this was a "troubled kid convention". He laughed and said I was turning into him. It is official. I am far too removed from school to recognize when kids are just being kids. They all look rotten to me in large groups like that. lol
The show was really, really, really impressive. We couldn't believe the strength and skill each of the 20 plus athletes displayed. About an hour into the show some dork gets on stage and tries to impress us with this mask changing act. HORRIBLE TIMING. We just saw a dude jump off a teeter totter onto the shoulders of three man tower deal, then this goof ball shows up changing masks and wants us to clap? Not gunna happen. That dude should have been first. I'll talk to somebody about this.
All in all amazing!
Day two done. We couldn't believe we still had two more days to spends in the mountains.
