If you ever have a chance to visit Branson, Missouri I highly recommend that you do, especially in early March when it is not as busy as in season.It is like a cross between Las Vegas and Disney but without all the lewdness of Vegas. In fact, many places we visited where clearly Christian and all the shows we went to honor the military. But I am getting ahead of myself. Upon getting close to Branson, you will see the Ozarks not quite mountains but rolling hills. Built on these hills is the neon town of Branson. It has something for all ages. From museums to miniature golf and everything in-between there is always something to do. I recommend touring the Landing for a day of shopping and eating. They even have a place where you can sample 14 different kinds of moonshine!! There is supposed to be a fountain show there with fire and everything, but it was closed for renovations when we were there. It did look like to was quite the show. It goes on the hour every hour after noon.
Branson has a number of great restaurants too. We ate at a place called “Local Flavor” they had my favorite Bible verse Jer. 29:11 painted on the stairs going up to the gift shop. They have great homecooked local food and the staff were very friendly. You can go to Mel’s Hard Luck diner where the waitstaff sing to you. There are several BBQ places .I recommend Getting’ Basted. They have award winning BBQ there. We both had ribs and they were very good. Not that one would expect good seafood in Missouri but we did go to a seafood restaurant called the SS Dockside. The food here is served by a robot! Yes, that’s right a robot comes to your table with the food and says “please wait ,your server will be right here to give you your food.” Perhaps my favorite place we ate at was on our last night. We ate at Flaming Margaritas. You guessed it, they really do have margaritas that come out flaming! They have small, medium and large. The large is about a half-gallon. It is huge! AND they have 40 flavors! You can make a combination too. I had peach mango. The food is not very authentic Mexican, but it is so good! Everything comes with broccoli and a delicious cheese sauce and loaded potatoes which are tiny potatoes smothered in bacon and sour cream. The portions are ginormous as well. We left there with food for the next day and then some!
I would say most people go to Branson for the shows. There are at least 20 theatres in the area. We saw the show SIX on the first night. The show features 6 brothers. They sing a Capella and use no instruments other than their mouths. One brother beat boxes and makes drum sounds, one sounds like trumpet etc. They cover all kinds of music-barbershop, country, Justin Bieber, and so much more. It was very entertaining. Our second show was “The Hughes Brothers Music show” There must be something about brothers in Branson because this show featured 4 brothers. One brother had 15 kids, one brother had 12 kids, one had 7 and the underachieving brother had 4. All these kids were in the show! I am not sure what would happen if you weren’t talented in this family but from the youngest at age 3 all the way up to the oldest brother, they all were singing and dancing, some played the guitar or a fiddle or drums. It was very entertaining. Of course, the kids were the best part and stole the show! Our last show we saw was the “Anthems of Rock show” at the King’s mansion Theatre. It was a cast of 10 people (not brother’s this time). They all sang and danced to Rock hits of the 70’s and 80’s. They sang many songs from Elton John, Kansas, Bon Jovi, Journey, Queen and even Meatloaf. It was a lot of fun. Three shows all different. I can’t say which one I liked best as they were all so different. One thing I can say is I wish I had more time to stay in Branson. It is definitely a place I would go back to.
