Colectiva
is parked on the edge of the City Park which abuts Branson Landing, the nicest
retail/entertainment mall we have seen in a while. Right on the river, it
combines some fun stores, a broad range of restaurants, pretty much all with
elevated patio dining over the river, a cruise boat terminal, several bars, a
few arcades, a cruise boat terminal, and a zip line that connects with the
opposite shore. We spent a couple evenings enjoying some chicken wings, playing
Zar and watching the happy zip liners.
In the
center of the complex is an elaborate fountain. The folks that designed this
for Branson and the same folks that designed the Belagio fountains in Las
Vegas. These have an interesting twist from those at the Belagio. Every hour,
the fountains are choreographed to music, and the tall black columns behind the
fountains belch massive flames! It is really a good spectacle. Two of the nicer
restaurants have their patios overlooking those fountains, so we grabbed dinner
there one night for the 7PM show where the do the Star Spangled Banner and a
couple other songs.
As we sat
comfortably watching out our windshield, we could never quite figure out what
these weird growths were sticking out from the surface of Lake Taneycomo in
front of our coach. They didn’t seem to bother the Candian Geese that were just
floating around on the lake surface, so we didn’t worry about them too much.
We
discovered some really nice hiking in Branson – the City has made it a
priority. The Lakeside Forest Wilderness Area has a number of hiking trails
along the bluff and down to the White River. It turns out the Park is the old
Owen family homestead. The Owen’s family were early business formulators in the
city, and were responsible for at least one hotel and opening the first
performing theater in the center of town. Their legacy can be seen over and
over again as you stroll through town.
It seems
at first like anything you open in Branson will make money based on the odd
stuff you see. But after driving around town and seeing the occasional empty
building with grass growing in the asphalt of the parking lot (or between the
rails of the roller coaster for that matter) we realized that not just anything
would make it here. That fact came to roost when we searched Brenda for the Roy
Rogers and Dale Evans Museum, which she found and we charted to go there. The
Museum used to be in Victorville California, and we would pass it all the time
on I-15 heading to LA or San Diego. One time in 2002 we visited for fun, and
enjoyed ourselves. We learned while we were there that our timing was good –
they were in the process of moving the museum to Branson. Well, when Brenda
told us we had arrived, there was no such museum – just one of those strip mall
type churches that set up in abandoned strip mall property because the landlord
can’t get anyone else.
Well, it
turns out that was the museum. While the hope was the age demographic of
Branson would allow the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans legacy to extend
indefinitely, that didn’t happen. The museum closed for good due to lagging
attendance on December 12, 2009. The collection of the museum was sold by
Christies in an auction on July 15, 2010. The winning bid for the stuffed
Trigger, Roy’s famous horse, was $266,500. Sad!
We
managed to get our inflatable kayak out on the White River, or Lake Taneycomo
if you prefer. We don’t buy the “Lake” label because the current is downright
tough! Luckily we headed upstream at first. Had we headed downstream and gone
as far as we wished, I am not so sure we would have made it back.
We got it
out a second day, drove our car as far downstream as we could easily bike back
from and then headed out. This time we got to bike under the zip lining folk,
through the Branson Landing complex, by the Belagio fountains and past the
cruise boats. When we were able to pull the kayak out of the river (lake) we
acknowledged that we had been on a great ride. I hope it doesn’t take us quite
as long to get her out again.
If you visit Branson, be afraid - be totally afraid!
From
Branson we drove up to Springfield MO one day. There was a bike trail in
Springfield that was in the old rail corridor, so we knew that it would be
mostly flat – rail corridors have a maximum of 3% grade to them as that is all
a steel wheeled train could handle without losing traction. It turned out there
was also a Camping World there, and after a call to them, we determined that
they had some safety cables for our Roadmaster Sterling tow bar – those are the
cables that will hold the car to the back of Colectiva even if the bar breaks
or somehow gets disconnected. I talked with Roadmaster and those cables cost
about $80 each. Well, when we got to Camping World, they had the cables sitting
behind the parts counter desk. After looking at them, I was certain they were
the correct part, and the guy said “Well, I am glad – have a great day!” I said
“I haven’t paid for them yet.” The guy said “Well, the parts manager doesn’t
have any idea what the retail price on those should be, so he just wants you to
have them.” Wow! $160 worth of stuff! Later I learned that Camping World had
been a Roadmaster distributer, and no longer was, so these cables might have
already been written off in their inventory. Regardless, this was a very nice
gesture, and more than paid for the gas to drive to Springfield.
We are
used to seeing Route 66 out West – Arizona, California, New Mexico, but I
hadn’t expected to find it in Missouri. I guess intuitively I knew that Route
66 ran from Chicago to LA, so it had to have gone through the Midwest. But it
was still fun to drive on part of Route 66 which had moseyed through downtown
Springfield in the day.
The City
of Branson RV Park is all about the fishing. You can rent fishing boats to fish
from, or just cast a line from the shore. They even have a number of floating
fishing piers with bridges out to them. You can sit on one of the benches out
there or bring your own comfy chair. Pretty much everyone in the RV Park was
all “tackled” up and ready to catch some whoppers out on Lake Taneycomo.
They have
all the facilities needed to make it a good experience. Not only the marina,
marina bait and tackle shop, boat rental, equipment rental, they even have a
large public restroom with power and water. It is a huge white block building
standing alone with a massive “RESTROOM” sign plastered across each side. I
wonder if they really had to measure the distance to this level of precision so
that folk could find it. Maybe because it wasn’t small and wooden with a
crescent over the door?
I think
we got to do everything in Branson that we hoped to – fun town!
Talk to
you soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment