Last Day in Branson

We had a nice time here except for the driving  Every road here was hilly and curvy and not fun to drive on. We noticed you didn't see anyone walking around on the sidewalks like you do in Pigeon Forge. 'm sure this was due to the unlevel streets and sidewalks. Certainly a handicapped person would have a very hard time getting around here.

We went to Dick's 5 & 10 cent store downtown which was a lot of fun to walk through and see all the old type items you used to find in the 5 & dime. We also drove all around the area to Table Rock Lake which was a beautiful lake resort area.Gorgeous views and a wonderful recreation area.

Our last night in Branson was spent seeing one of the live shows. It was Yakov Smirnoff who we had met at the Enterprise care rental office. His show was a dinner show and he has his own theater here. He had performed here for 20 years and left 2 years ago and now is returning for a couple of months. The show started at 4:30. We thought since this was his first show after coming back it wouldn't be well attended, but there were several large tour groups of mostly elderly here. It was a theater setting and we couldn't quite figure out how they were going to do dinner, but they did.

The show opened with a very talented lady coming out to sing America's National Anthem. The entire show was very patriotic. I must say I have never seen a performer like Yakov so proud and grateful to be an American.

I remember him from the 1980s when he was on TV a lot as a comedian and actor. He appeared often  on Johnny Carson, Night Court, was in The Money Pit, Moscow on the Hudson, Brewster's Millions and several TV shows. His catch line was "What a country". Having immigrated from USSR with his parents and speaking no English he was able to develop a career as an artist and comedian. He now has a masters degree in psychology and is a well known artist and writer. We really enjoyed the show. It was so nice the see someone who is so happy to be in the country and give something back every day to his country and the people in it.The dinner was quite good too. The theater seats had a little table in between your seats like on an airplane. It swings up in front of you & has magnets on it so when your tray of food is delivered it holds you food securely. The tray of food was huge. We had creamy veg soup, roast chicken, pulled pork, vegetables, mashed potatoes, a very large corn muffin and pie. A lot of food and very tasty as well. 

Thursday we left for West Memphis

The roads between Branson and I-40 were small and lots of traffic, but we made it without any problems.We checked in to the Tom Sawyer RV Park which sits right on the Mississippi River. Little did we know not only was it going to rain, but there was a major thunderstorm and tornado warnings.

They predicted 70 mph winds, hail and major rain between 9 pm to 2 am. They were telling everyone with mobile homes to move to shelter. YIKES, we weren't even a mobile home, but there was no where to go. We took out all the kitty carriers and got them ready just in case. At 9 PM the wind was pretty bad, you could really feel the wind hitting the back of the motor home. It was pretty scary, but by 11 it had calmed down to just a heavy rain and we felt safe enough to go to bed.

More tomorrow,