Branson is a strange little town. For those of you who have never been there, I'm not really sure how to describe it. I always thought of Branson as cheesy, over-the-top, and out-dated. I pictured it full of busloads of retirees on vacation eager to see performers from the golden days still onstage. And while I've discovered that all of those things are true, Branson is still somehow fabulously awesome. We've gone a few different times and always had a good time. In fact, our most recent jaunt to The Live Music Show Capital of the World proved to be no disappointment. We didn't get a chance to really celebrate our anniversary this year, so this was somewhat of a belated anniversary trip. We stayed in a hotel that was older than dirt, but you get what you pay for and it was dirt cheap. Did you know they still have hotels that give you an actual key to your room rather than one of those little key cards? Weird. It was old but well kept and Nate certainly enjoyed the complimentary dessert bar of cobbler, cookies, and ice cream. Although, Nate freaked out when he saw the sign that said the ice cream was the lactose free. What do they make it with? Soy? And refused to eat anymore. The desk clerk was a young, friendly fellow and asked what we were going to be doing on our visit. I told him we had bought a deal on Groupon for the zipline and I was shocked when he asked me, "What is that?" "What is a zipline?" "No, what is Groupon?" Really? Do you live under a rock? If you don't know what that is, let me just turn your world upside down and tell you to go get online and prepare to find some deals!
The zipline ended up being a lot of fun.While we had a blast actually on the zip, the highlight involved a 12 year old boy. He was very afraid of heights and talked about how he wimped out when his family was in Guatemala. After his little sister went, he stepped up and exclaimed, "God is good!" before leaping off the plank. We got a chuckle out of that, and it certainly appears that God granted him some courage.
We also went to the fish hatchery and Table Rock Damn. I know, what's more romantic than learning about spawning fish on your anniversary trip? We just can't resist FREE things! Afterwards, we went for a hike in the State Park. Once again, FREE! We finished up the night at a dinner show. My personal favorite scene was the dramatic dance/aerial ribbon routine between the two lovers performed to the theme from Titanic. There was also some cool fire twirling, singing, unicycling, and bubble blowing. It was quite the variety of entertainment. Cheesy? Yes. Enjoyable? You bet!
