Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede

Today we explore Branson, Missouri. We begin by driving down the Branson "strip". It's a crowded two lane road that goes through the center of town. It is lined with theatres, motels, restaurants, miniature golf, etc; in other words, a real tourist trap town. Only the traffic is horrible since the main road is only 2 lanes.

We spot a Krispee Kreme shop! We each have two donuts for a morning snack and then continue our drive around town. We drive out past the Silver City amusement park to the Branson Lake. There's no place to really walk near the lake so we continue on our drive back through the traffic of Branson and head to Branson Landing. We walk around this new area of shops, and decide to have ice cream for lunch. Too hot for anything else. So we go to the Marble Slab ice cream shop and eat our "lunch" by the water.

Branson has a Vanity Fair outlet so we head over to the outlet. It is a really small outlet but we find Joe some shorts; he's outgrowing his clothing.

There are very few shoppers at the outlet and the cashier said that the number of tourists has been really down this summer.

There are so many shows in this little town; I'm not sure how some of them can stay in business. Plus they are building more theatres! Most of the shows are country music oriented, but very few shows have 'big name' stars. Again, I don't know how some of these theatres can stay open. Plus, the roads around here are way too small to handle the traffic now; how would they handle a summer with lots of tourists and even more theatres??? I have to say that I like our campground, but I do NOT like the town of Branson.

Anyway, it's hot, so we head back to the campground for a quick swim before getting ready for the Branson show we decided to see: Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede.

We need to be at the Dixie Stampede at 4pm to pick up our tickets, so we head over there and wait in line for our tickets. Lots of people here. This is supposedly the most popular show in town. It includes dinner and does NOT allow any pictures to be taken inside, so no pictures. They do take our picture and offer to sell it to us, but we decline.

The food is good and the show is enjoyable -- not sure that it is worth the $, but we're glad we went to see it. We probably would not go to see it a second time. Joe and I did enjoy the pig races and the ostrich races. The rest of the show (mainly horses) was okay.

It's been a long, hot day so we head back to the campground after the show (took a long time to get out of the parking lot onto the small two-lane road) and Joe & Jere watch the very long Baseball All Star Game on TV.