We couldn't do anything too fancy, but Joe and I wanted to go on a little trip with Cora, just by ourselves. Before you know it, she's going to be out of this house, and we'll miss her like crazy, so we've got to make the most of the time we have left ;) I looked at places that were within about 5-8 hours drive away from where we live, and I proposed 5 different trips to Cora and let her choose. She decided to go to Branson, Missouri.
Joe says Branson is like the family-friendly version of Las Vegas, because of the plethora of live entertainment shows there. It is located in the Ozark Mountains, and aside from the live entertainment, it also has a lot of outdoor attractions, a theme park, water park, museums, and of course shopping and restaurants. Cora chose Branson specifically for the Titanic Museum there.
It is one of 2 Titanic Museums owned by John Joslyn (who headed the 1987 expedition to it).
Everyone who works there is dressed in period clothes. You get boarding passes as you enter of actual passengers, and at the end you find out if they survived or not.
You can't take any pictures inside, but it was really impressive. Afterwards we walked around town and had lunch.
We ran into a Dodge car show and looked around there....
And then we passed by the car museum and saw some more fun ones outside.
We then drove over to Top of the Rock Ozarks Heritage Preserve. This whole resort area was owned and built by Johnny Morris (founder of Bass Pro Shops), his vision being to maintain Missouri's history and natural beauty. It includes Big Cedar Lodge, the Chapel of the Ozarks, a wine cellar, restaraunts and Top of the Rock golf course, a world class championship golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus.
No, we didn't go golfing, but we did drive a golf cart around the Lost Canyon Cave and Nature Trail. It was kind of expensive (pretty sure everything there is), but it's never boring to drive around in a golf cart, and it was SO BEAUTIFUL! I think it was well worth it.
Then we discovered they also had the Ancient Ozarks Natural History Museum, plus we got a discount because we already did the Nature Trail, so we thought, sure, why not. I'm glad we went. This museum is fantastic for many reasons - it has the carbon-dated skeletal remains of a woolly mammoth, a saber tooth cat, and a giant sloth.
But the majority of the museum seems to be focused on the history of the Native Americans who lived in this area, their way of life, and their conservation efforts. Amazing.
And also they have a lock of Abraham Lincoln's hair. Say what???!!!
After the museum we went to dinner. But not just any old dinner, oh no. We went to Dolly Parton Stampede Dinner Show. Oh yes we did.
This over-the-top-cheesey-as-can-be show was.....fun - if you like that sort of thing ;) It was a big arena, and the show featured 32 horses (the real stars of the show), trick riders, songs and dance.
The songs weren't Dolly Parton songs, and she made no appearance. No, I wasn't thinking Dolly Parton would actually be there, but still, boooooo! And then there was a whole "friendly" competition between the North and South sides of the arena. Uncomfortable? Sort of . Inappropriate? Possibly. And I DID leave a wordy comment about the portrayals of cowboys and Indians. So all in all, would I recommend it? I don't know. It's not for everyone. They did have good food though,, and a LOT of it. Actually, the funnest part of the whole thing was the pre-show. We could have watched these guys all night long.
And that was it. That was our trip. On our way home, the 29 was flooded AGAIN, so we had to take a different route again, but we got home just fine. It will be interesting to see what trips our other kids choose for their graduation trips. We realized that there is so much to do in Branson that we could go back there every time and have a completely different trip every time.....but we'll leave that up to them :)
