Back to Nature

Before I get back to Branson…it’s official!  We are in the middle of a blizzard with everything canceled.  Because of the wind, the snowplows aren’t even running yet, and the kids and I have the gift of a long Sunday with nothing to do!

As this doesn’t happen often, we are taking advantage of it.  We had pancakes around 9:00 this morning, and we are all still in our pajamas.  We played a board game, and the older two kids are now playing downstairs while the baby naps.

Good times.

Now, back to my regularly scheduled blog.

On Wednesday morning, our final at Still Waters Resort, we woke up early and started the arduous process of packing up.  I’ll tell you, traveling with a baby makes your stuff expand exponentially!  Jeff’s parents took off pretty early, and we finally got our car loaded and hit the road for the short drive to our next destination.

Before I write about Dogwood Canyon Nature Park, I have a few reflections on Branson.  Of course.

First of all, we were about the youngest people that we saw the entire time that we were there.  One part of the Six show was a tribute to American veterans.  Six sang the old Lee Greenwood song “God Bless the USA,” but, before they started, they did a roll call of veterans from all US wars, starting with World War II.  Believe it or not, there were probably six or seven gentlemen who stood up as WWII veterans, each of them in their mid-80’s, if they were a day!  Even most of the people playing mini-golf were senior citizens.  I suppose that summertime brings more younger families, but late October surely didn’t.

Secondly, Branson is one of the worst tourist towns that we have ever visited.  There is a “visitors’ center” every other building and dozens of billboards screaming about discounts to shows.  When Jeff and his mom went into Walmart for a few groceries, they had to run a gauntlet of people hard selling show tickets.  It was all Jeff could do to politely get away from one woman who would not quit until she had harangued him into buying some tickets.  And I’ve already told you about the photo hustler in the Italian restaurant.  I can’t really even think of anyplace else we’ve visited, other than Egypt, where the general population was so obnoxious about separating us from our money.

Finally, I can’t imagine many circumstances that would make us repeat a trip to Branson.  I would go back to the resort, and the Ozarks are absolutely beautiful, but Branson itself just made me impatient and tired.  I’m wondering if there is a better time to visit.

Anyway, in spite of all of this, we did enjoy the shows, and the kids really liked the mini-golf.  And we all enjoyed our next stop, Dogwood Canyon Nature Park.

Again, a friend told me about this place.  It is privately owned by the Bass Pro Shop people, and it is drop-dead beautiful.  It boasts miles of trails, one of which is an out-and-back biking/walking trail that crosses the Missouri state line into Arkansas.  Dogwood Canyon rents bikes and bike trailers, and, given that Charlotte was still on her crutches and Jeremy in a backpack on a bike wasn’t very practical, we ponied up the fee to rent two bikes, one trailer, and one trail-a-bike.

And we were off!

We passed lovely waterfalls, ponds, and bridges. 

We actually carried a picnic lunch in here and stopped along the trail to eat on way out to Arkansas.  We also stopped at a rainbow trout pond, where the kids fed the fish what they hadn’t eaten of their lunches!

The whole ride was a bit over six miles, none of it very hilly.  Charlotte rode the trail-a-bike behind Jeff for most of the time, and I hauled Jeremy, who wasn’t overly impressed with riding in the trailer.  In fact, after we stopped for lunch, he spent most of his time screaming his head off, which sort of marred the peaceful beauty surrounding us.  He was happy enough, though, when we stopped our bikes and took him out, so we did that rather frequently!

The only time he wasn’t happy to be out of the trailer was when we gave him to the older two kids so we could take a picture of them at the Missouri/Arkansas state line.  Strangely enough, Jeremy was only unhappy in Arkansas.  Hmmm.

Here are a couple of shots at the end of the trail, before we headed back.

Eventually, Jeremy got tired of screaming and decided to go to sleep.  Here is how we secured him in the trailer, poor baby!  But, hey, he did manage to get a nap, and we got some peace and quiet!

All in all, we really liked this place.  It was a great way to see some unspoiled Ozark beauty, get some exercise, and hop over into Arkansas, a place that is probably not a vacation destination for us!

By mid-afternoon, we had finished our ride, given the kids a chance to spend some money in the gift shop, and loaded back into the car.  We were next headed toward another place we had discovered…the spot where Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma meet.

And since this post is pretty lengthy, I will tell you about that next time!