So we went through Oak Grove. It is not a very big town. If we hadn't seen the sign, we wouldn't have known it was there.
That's a shot of Table Rock Lake in the morning with the mist rising off the lake. The mist was gone an hour later.
We went to Branson, Missouri yesterday. It's smaller than I expected. I pictured something bigger. Believe it or not, Red Bluff (population 15,000) is a bigger town than Branson (population 10,000).
I don't know if Branson is past it heyday or if it is COVID, but there were no headliners in town. It's just past Memorial Day so the summer tourism season is here. Some old bands like the Gatlin Brothers and the Oakridge Boys have permanent gigs here, but they aren't really current headliners. Dolly Parton counts, but she isn't here, just her theater is. Most of the theaters have shows so Branson is still alive, it just isn't attracting the big names yet.
There are 3 theaters in this picture,
If you do go there, bring the kids. It has more things for kids to do than adults. It reminded me of Myrtle Beach only it is newer and all the attractions are in better condition.
This is a water park and go kart track.
Bass Pro started in Missouri so it's a big deal. The store in Branson is not just a store. They have a hotel and restaurant as you go into town. Out by the lake, they have the Bass Pro Shooting Academy. I didn't realize there were so many different kinds of skeet shooting (Clays, Sporting Clays, Skeets, and Wobbles). They have classes on all of them. The gun range is just across the lake from the RV park so we can hear shooting sometimes. Here is a fun fact. The gun range is just across the lake from us but it takes 40 minutes to drive there.
Brie made a friend.
We were taking Brie for her afternoon walk when we came across a turtle crossing the road. Brie couldn't figure out what it was. She sniffed all around it. I had to pick it up and put it in the grass since it was hiding in it's shell right in the middle of an intersection. Just so you know, turtles have a lot of pee in them.
We went to Eureka Springs today. It is a small town in Arkansas that was founded in the 1870's by a doctor. He claimed that the mineral water springs cured his child's eye ailment. It doesn't say what that eye ailment was though. The springs became semi famous (not like Hot Springs, AR). The main part of town is along a canyon where the springs come out of the cliffs. It didn't get commercialized like Hot Springs with big hotels and things like that, but it is still kind of famous for the water. Since it was built in the 1880's and 1890's all the houses are Victorian houses. Almost all of them have now been converted to B&B's. Instead of hotels, this is a town of B&B's. It looks a lot better because of it. Here are some pictures.
Here are some of the Victorian houses.
Like I said earlier, the springs come out of the cliffs along Main St. and Spring St. They dug them out and built little grottos and parks around them.
It's definitely not RV friendly, canyon and switchback roads prevent that. There are RV parks near there, but they are back by the highway and not very scenic so we will stay where we are.
In RV news, our batteries konked out. They were leaking sulphuric acid out onto the ground. I had to clean it up with an entire box of baking soda. Sulphuric acid and baking soda make a lot of foam. It's probably toxic too so I had to wash it with soap and water and rinse it into the rocks next to the RV site. Then, we had to run into Branson to get 2 new batteries. The place we got them from is an motorhome repair place. They have autographed pictures of all the major country stars of the past 3 decades on the wall. This is where they all took their tour buses when they needed repairs. That was pretty cool.
As always, there are more pictures on the Arkansas Missouri photo pages. Missouri is pretty small with just the Branson pictures so far.
Comments