Branson bound!
Our biggest event of the year had come and gone, and the fire in the sky had lit a fire under us to keep the excitement rolling. Thankfully, we were headed to a place that would match this energy: Branson, MO! This was one of our most anticipated Midwest destinations. We'd get to experience the highland plateaus of the Ozarks, which inevitably would give us some of that mountain town charm we love so much. Our stay would be short; we only planned half a week before crossing the border back into Arkansas, but when the time is short, that only means the fun will be packed more densely!
We booked a campsite at our 5th COE of the year, Old Highway 86 Campground in Blue Eye, MO, on the south side of Table Rock Lake and about 25 minutes from downtown Branson. We had read some stellar reviews and our COE game had been strong so far. This campground was no exception. Table Rock Lake was gorgeous.
Our first full day was rainy, but that gave us time to get work done before our adventures. The following day, the sun came out and gifted us a perfect spring day. Instead of going to Branson right away, we went to the town of Lampe, home of Dogwood Canyon Nature Park. The park is a 10,000-acre nature preserve with some unique features, including a wildlife sanctuary, grist mill, treehouse, restaurant, and gallery exhibiting Native American and Civil War relics. We were able to see most of these with a general admission ticket, but we purchased an add-on, a 2-hour tram tour through the entire preserve, including the wildlife pasture which is otherwise not accessible to visitors.
The whole place is idyllic. The Little Indian Creek flows through the canyon, with waterfalls cascading down the canyon walls. Paved paths parallel the water, where visitors can choose to walk, bike (rentals are available), or take the tram. Our biggest reason for going was to see the dogwoods, Missouri's state tree. They were not quite at peak bloom yet, but they were getting close. We had been following their bloom all the way up from Arkansas and we found it only fitting to enjoy their beauty in a place named after them. While dogwood trees are native to Missouri, many of the ones at the canyon were planted and maintained. The canyon also boasted numerous caves, many of which had Native legends associated with them. We took a hike on one of the unpaved trails and walked the paved path to a covered bridge constructed by the Amish.
When walking the paved road, you can't miss the incredible treehouse located between the main buildings and the amphitheater. It was built on the TV show Treehouse Masters back in 2015 and features two levels, a suspension bridge, and great views of the canyon.
There is a lodge building that houses exhibits, the restaurant, and the gift shop, and it's attached to the grist mill by a breezeway. We spent some time looking at the exhibits, including one on the bald eagles of Missouri, and the main exhibits on the Native American and Civil War era history of the area. Then we relaxed on the restaurant patio while we waited for our tram tour to start.
The tram runs along the premises of the preserve, which is linear and 6.5 miles. That would be a long way to walk, and unless you're on a tram, you cannot see the wildlife sanctuary, so we felt like the extra money was well spent. The tram ticket cost us $38 each, on top of the $18 price of general admission. It's not cheap, but the money does help the conservation efforts.
Our guide Joe was an exuberant octogenarian who had accumulated lots of knowledge and stories in his life, which he enthusiastically shared with us as we made our way up the road and across the many creek crossings. We learned about the wildlife in the area, the Native tribes that used to live there, and the formation of the canyon. We made a couple of stops along the way, including the chapel. Dogwood Canyon hosts about 50 weddings a year. Then we crossed the border into Arkansas and entered the wildlife sanctuary, where we met the herd of elk, bison, and two Texas longhorns. Venturing through that pasture was reminiscent of our journey out West last year. Memories arose of our time at the drive-thru zoos, Custer State Park, Wyoming, and the Colorado Rockies.
We didn't even come close to experiencing all that Dogwood Canyon has to offer. We appreciated seeing what we did from the tram, but there are hiking trails and features in the back of the preserve that we only passed by. Experiencing them up close would mean hiking or biking several miles. We couldn't justify walking 5 miles to a trailhead, only to hike another 1.5 miles, and then 5 miles back. However, whether you head all the way to the other side of the park or just stay near the entrance, you will be surrounded by natural beauty. In fact, one of the most picturesque waterfalls can be accessed right from the grist mill. A patio overlooks this exquisite waterfall, and below are trout that you are allowed to feed from the provided dispenser.
Dogwood Canyon gave us our nature fix, but we were ready to pump up the energy. The following day, we headed to downtown Branson.
Even in doing our research of things to do and places to go, we saw a ton of similarities between Branson and Pigeon Forge, TN. The overall visitor response seemed to be similar, too. Some people love the vibe, while others complain that it's tacky and kitschy. We tend to side with the lovers when we visit these types of places, especially when we adequately juxtapose the kitsch with time in nature. We hit this balance perfectly in the Smokies, spending time both in the National Park as well as Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. We were ready and excited for the Branson experience.
When we first arrived, we did something that is so not like us. We stopped at the Visitor Center first! We usually skip over them because we plan our excursions ahead of time, but we saw signs that the Visitor Center had coupons, and so we figured it made sense to grab some of the pamphlets for the things we hadn't yet purchased. We also picked up a show schedule, but given our limited time in Branson, we opted out of going to any. However, there are plenty of opportunities to get discounted and even free tickets to shows if you want them.
We weren't there for the shows; we were there for our favorite activity: Mountain coasters! Mountain coaster rides have become a tradition on our travels, and we take them very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that we're devoting an entire blog post to the Branson mountain coasters alone! Tune into the next post for that. But for now, we will skip ahead. Time for lunch!
The choices of restaurants in Branson are endless. We poured through Google results and the lists in our pamphlets, and ultimately decided on Mel's Hard Luck Diner. The main draw is that the diner has "singing servers," which we thought could be interesting due to Branson's high level of musical talent, but it could also go wrong really quickly, if the servers feel forced into performing in their thankless positions.
As soon as we walked through the door, we got our answer. The vibe was outstanding. Everyone was so friendly and it felt like a tight community among all the servers. As we walked to our booth, one of the waitresses was selecting her next song. Her voice blew us away.
She saw me filming and understood the assignment
This turned out to be our waitress, Lisa. She and the other servers are professional singers who sell their CDs in the diner's gift shop. They take turns choosing songs to sing as they wait tables. It serves them as they get to promote themselves, and it serves us as we get entertained. We ordered all the fried things and milkshakes as we bopped around to country and jazz hits by Lisa and the other waitstaff. Our food was exactly what we would want from diner grub. It wasn't fine dining by any means, but it tickled our tastebuds! Truly, though, this is a place to go for the experience. We had no regrets choosing to eat here.
With our bellies and ears happy, we left the diner and did some shopping at the Grand Village Shoppes, located in the same plaza. The shops include a year-round Christmas store, boutiques, a Christian bookstore, a tea store, a leather store, and more. We were highly impressed by the tea store, TeaMaze, which had clean ingredient teas made without sweeteners. The owner said that when she first opened the store, the locals didn't know what to do with her and her non-sweet teas, but soon they came around because they learned about tea's immense health benefits. Being tea fanatics ourselves, we had a lot to talk about, and the owner even gave us a free packet of an aged Pu Erh to bring home.
It was time to resume our quest to get in touch with our inner children. Branson has a Ferris Wheel, where we could ride and see the sights from above. The wheel's location is at Tracks – as in, go-cart tracks. In addition to the wheel, there are multiple go-cart tracks, an arcade, and a restaurant on site. We opted in for text notifications, which gave us 5 free plays each at the arcade, and so after our Ferris Wheel ride, we spent some time honing our skills on the games.
We ended our day driving down to The Landing, the riverfront shopping center located across town. Once again, we got major Pigeon Forge vibes. Just like The Island at Pigeon Forge, The Landing had lots of outlets, a fountain show, and some rides. We didn't stay long but were able to see the fountain show (which had water and fire). Then on our way back to the truck, we did some souvenir shopping at Dicks 5 & 10, the quintessential "has everything" shop – cluttered and junky, but great deals on all the things.
Day 2 of Branson excursions started with breakfast at Hurts Donuts. We ordered a Nutella filled donut, a Snickers donut, and the glazed old fashioned as a baseline. Hurts now has several locations in the region, but we had never been. It certainly delivered. The Nutella donut was our favorite by far. It was perfectly soft and cakey with a light cinnamon-sugar sprinkle.
Our main activity of the day was Shepherd of the Hills, located a few miles outside downtown. It's a farmstead that has grown in popularity because of a book by Harold Wright. In fact, this book is one of the reasons Branson has become so well-known. Even though the farm aspect still exists, Shepherd of the Hills has grown into a mini-destination. It offers food, productions at the outdoor theater, an observation tower, 9 hole mini golf, games and gem mining, tubing, a treetop suspension bridge, a ropes adventure course, ziplining, a mountain coaster, a sculpture garden, a chapel, and so much more that we can't even list everything. Sounds like an amazing place to spend the day, right?
Well, let us tell you now that this place falls into the category of "throw the kitchen sink at it just to show how much we offer." The level of organization was atrocious. We first went up to the "adventure park" section because we had tickets for the mountain coaster. However, we hoped to also redeem our general admission tickets. We went inside the observation tower where we asked one of the workers where we do this, and she said we needed to go down to the farm, .3 miles away. We also mentioned that the general admission includes a ride up the tower, and she didn't even know this. We think it's a recent addition, but still, shouldn't an employee know? Also, she knew we had the tickets because we showed her on our phone. You'd think she would have told us that we could have just walked a short path to get down to the farm, but no. We ended up driving for 9 minutes when we could have walked for 2. How's that? Because once we were down the hill, our GPS took us the wrong way and we needed to make a multi-mile loop.
To make matters worse, before we left the adventure park area, we figured we would just redeem our coaster tickets so we'd have them in-hand. Somewhere in the 5 minutes we were inside the tower, the coaster ticket booth had closed. The neon sign still said it was open, but no one was manning the window. The sign on one of the windows said that the tickets could be redeemed inside Inspiration Tower, where we had just come from. We decided to deal with that issue later and just try to get our actual general admission tickets.
When we got to the "farm" area, we saw a building with a huge sign that said "TICKETS." This was also the same address our confirmation email told us to go, so we finally felt like we were on the right track. We went inside and found the ticket counter. They told us that they could not redeem our tickets, and we needed to go back outside and find the outdoor booth. We were pretty annoyed at this point. We're guessing that this ticket counter was for show tickets and not general admission, but we didn't stick around to ask. At this point, we had already wasted about a half-hour just trying to find our way in.
The entrance sign is located on the wrong side of the road, near the overflow parking lots as opposed to the actual entrance. Helpful for busy show nights, confusing for non-busy days such as this.
Finally, we found the actual ticket booth, redeemed our tickets, and went inside the farm.
We did the treetop suspension bridge, and as soon as we exited, noticed the adventure park right up the hill. That's when we realized we could have just walked instead of wasting all that time. On the way back up to the park, we stopped at the sculpture garden and chapel. Then we went back inside the Inspiration Tower and convinced the lady to let us up. There was absolutely no structure to taking the elevator. We shared it with the zipliners and were "supposed to wait in line," but the zipliners were all signing their waivers and getting checked in, so we just snuck around them and went up the elevator.
The views of Branson were decent, and we got to read about the timeline of the creation of Shepherd of the Hills and its storybook beginnings. We didn't stay up there long. Considering how mis-managed everything seemed, we wanted to make sure we did the mountain coaster because we had already paid for it. We went back down to the bottom of the tower and back out to the coaster booth, which was now open once again. We got our tickets. Details on the coaster will be in the next post.
Want to zipline at Shepherd of the Hills? Just be sure to know where you're going! The "check-in" is through an emergency exit only door. Also, why are they calling it a check-in when that's clearly down in the tower lobby? They do not make things easy around here.
On our way back to the truck, we went and saw the animals, including an alpaca with a mullet, which may have been the most entertaining part of our whole visit. Then we stopped to check out the games. The game room was cute and rustic, but all the tables were small and cheap. We wonder, why have it at all? We feel like this place could be much better if it offered less, upped the organization, and made sure to do everything well. There would be plenty to keep both kids and adults entertained if there were even half of these activities. The fact that on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, we were the only ones on this side of the farm, makes us think that these attractions are not very attractive.
Something we noticed in Branson was that everyone seemed so jolly. We met some of the nicest people, and everyone was so sociable, it felt like we were old friends as soon as we met. At Shepherd of the Hills, all the workers seemed miserable. A few were very nice, but no one exuded the Branson jolliness. We have a theory that, the worse the management of a place is, the worse the staff respond, and the worse the experience becomes for the patrons.
Our visit wasn't bad by any means, but we definitely wanted more ease as first-time visitors. We got the sense that a lot of the workers thought it was our problem that we didn't know where to go, but how would we? The best example can be from the map. When we finally redeemed our tickets, we gladly accepted a paper map and noticed that the park entrance was number 5. Who creates a map and doesn't put the entrance as number 1? It's the perfect example of just how confusing everything was.
We needed a pick-me-up after exhausting ourselves trying to navigate Shepherd of the Hills, and so we headed over to a very special cafe for some afternoon tea. Mochas and Meows is Branson's cat cafe, where many of the Branson Humane Society felines live while they're awaiting adoption. You can go just for the beverages and even a sandwich (or purrnini, as they call them), but for an extra small fee you can go into the lounge and visit the cats. We ordered two boba teas and ventured into the lounge, where we spent a half-hour greeting our new furry friends. Most were taking their afternoon naps, and none of the others seemed to be very interested in us. Needless to say, we weren't "chosen," as we like to say. That's totally fine. Clearly, we aren't in the market to adopt another pet right now anyways. Besides, once upon a time, a cat did choose me, and she's the best kitty we could have ever asked for. Still, we appreciated seeing how loved these cats are, and the idea of a cat cafe is great for their socialization. We had never been to one, but we had seen one in Nashville that we wish we had visited. We were glad to finally see what they're all about.
Two days was not enough time to experience Branson to its fullest potential, but we were happy with all the activities we chose. We're sure we'll be back someday! Let's face it: We can't stay away from the kitschy mountain towns for long.