What a city! Branson MO was actually a really fun vacation! Its amazing how much you don't realize you need to get away until you are actually away! As you all know, I work for Marriott Vacation Club. Horizons at Branson is a beeeautiful resort. You'll see in the picture the Horizon's logo on a wall of leather. This is the entire wall behind the check in desk. Its really incredible, the picture doesn't really do it justice.
We also met a turtle friend. He was just crawling around on the sidewalk at the resort, by the pool. (Which the pool is incredible!) We'll call him, Tubby the Turtle.
I was really impressed by the beauty of the city. Its really green and they have hard wood forests everywhere! Its quite different from the Utah scene. I do have to comment on the Ozark Mountains. To them they are in fact mountains...to us Utahns, they would be considered hills. I actually said this to a man we met in Silver Dollar City, and he kind of got offended. So I'm sorry guy, I don't mean to take anything away from the beauty of the Ozark "Mountains" but really, if you want to see a mountain come to SLC.
So besides the resort being beautiful, they do have fun attractions. We went to Silver Dollar City (the nations oldest theme park). They had some cheesy rides, but they also have updated really fast rides. That was a fun day. There are caves there that are called the Marvel Caves. We took their "Lantern Tour" which starts at 4:30 and ends at 6:30. They shut off all the lights and the only light source we had was our personal lanterns. Ghost stories and history of the caves were told, and it was an incredible experience. We hiked 530 feet down and then had to climb 8 flights of stairs to exit. Piece of cake! 5 months ago? Not a piece of cake. But it was a wonderful feeling to have the energy to do it!
Of course other attractions in the area include a plethora of corny theater shows. (You know, Dolly Parton Dixie Stampede, The Duttons, Yakov Smirnoff, etc) We didn't partake of that aspect of Branson, however, we did go to the Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum. That was really interesting, I would definitely recommend that!
The Tanger Outlets are the other attraction we took advantage of. It was exciting to walk around a huge outside mall and window shop/shop at a big selection of stores. While we were walking, the sun shone down on this building. I looked up and "AHHHH" (Angels singing) low and behold there stands a Disney outlet store. So I'm sure you can come to your own conclusion as to where most of my money was spent!
All in all? You should go to Branson. Its really pretty and it was a great place to just get away. Seriously, it was so very nice to go somewhere semi-secluded and relax. I didn't have to answer to any timeclock, I got to sleep in, work on my tan, and decide on the spur of the moment what I wanted to do. Yay for vacations!
