 New Year's in Branson
Submitted Wednesday, January 6, 2010 - 12:15:36 PM by Klaitu
It's not often that I take a trip anywhere particularly distant.. actually, it's been about 7 years since I went anywhere.
Trips these days ususally involve a lengthy car rids, and my body was just not built to handle those. After 4 hours or so in a car, I start to get all cramped up.. but I went ahead and decided to go to Branson this year, which is 6 hours away from me.
We left at 5:30 in the morning. Why so early? It's my grandparents, they wake up at 4 AM every day, and they get really bored if stuff doesn't start happening by 7 AM. The rest of the universe finds this "too early" and I am among them on that point.
However, since all I had to do was ride in a car, it worked out alright. I slept through about 5 hours of the 6 hour trip.. not that it saved by body from getting cramped up.
The first place we ate was at Lambert's Cafe on Ozark, MO.. apparently it's "The only home of Throwed Rolls". My grandparents absolutely love this restaurant.. and in fact, they do throw rolls at you.
Myself, I was underwhelmed at the restaurant. The hamburger I ordered was amazingly bland, but the major problem I had with the restaurant was that they don't take credit cards, because they "don't believe in credit cards". This is just idiocy.
It turns out that Ozark, MO is about 30 minutes from Branson, MO. Our next stop was "The Amish Country Store" which was very confusing. The Amish Country story featured an extensive butter selection, all of which was in an electrically refrigerated case.
There were many other odd things there as well, like a 10 pound tub of Good n' Plenty's candy. Did you know the amish made those? Yeah. Me either. Some of our party scored some "Amish butter" which was likely just normal butter in a different wrapper, but oh well.
The next stop after that was the Tanger Outlet Mall. Why a mall? Because the cabin we were staying at was not available until 4 PM, and it was barely noon. As it turns out, the main reason we left so early was so we could eat at the awful restaurant.
So anyway, At the Tanger Outlet Mall, I ended up hanging out with my mom and sister in Old Navy, a store that we have at home. Then, we checked out a Yankee Candle store, also a store we have at home.
After 4 hours of boredom, finally our cabin was ready and we set out to see it. It was about 10 minutes out of town in the middle of nowhere on the side of a hill. I immediately fell asleep and slept for about 5 hours. Then it turns out that I was actually sleeping in the bed my parents had picked out, so I moved to my cot in the basement and slept for another 7 hours.
The next day, we decided to go check out Branson Landing, which is sort of like an outdoor shopping mall. It was perhaps 20 degrees outside, so perhaps this was not the best time, but we went anyway. In the center of this mall, they had a computer programmed fire and water show, which we watched. Then we went to Coldwater Creek, where my mom tried on clothes for 4 hours. I should also mention that we have a Coldwater Creek store at home, too.
We ate lunch at a Fuddruckers (which we don't have at home) and the burger here was far superior to the previous one I had. Then we went back to our cabin, where I spent a few hours trying to hack the local network and give everyone internet access, and I succeeded, though the internet access was pretty crappy. I spend the rest of the evening suffering through awful TV that my young cousins insisted on watching.. like "Jersey Shore" a completely awful "reality" TV series.
That night, we discovered that while although our cabin was large, it was not well insulated. In fact, you could hear people on the other side of the house talking in perfect clarity, even though there were 3 walls between you and them. I used my newfound internet access and celebrated New Year's by watching an episode of Deep Space 9 via a VPN to my house. It was awesome.
The next day, nobody wanted to do anything. I don't know if people had stayed up too late, or what the problem was, but everyone wanted to sit around the house all day and do nothing.. I do that at home too much, so I decided that I would make my own trek to the city of Branson. As it turns out, there were about 50 maps of the place in various brochures in the cabin, and so armed with that, my mom and I set out for candle shopping.
Not that I'm so into candle shopping, but it just barely beats sitting around and being bored.
Anyway, we ended up at Yankee Candle again, and I bought some candles to give as gifts. I smelled so many candles that my nose started bleeding. On the way back, I picked up some Steak n Shake (which is not near us at home) and a can of cheese pringles.
The rest of the day was spent waiting around doing nothing, I watched more Deep Space 9 through the internet.
The next day was a similar story, but I was able to gather an adventuring party and set out on an exploration quest. We explored the Chicago Cutlery, a knife store. We also checked out a victorian store, and a "Five and Dime" store, where everything cost more than a dime.
That Five and Dime store had some unique stuff though, like a Phyllis Diller paper doll book. You just can't find those anywhere!
Then the whole group went to a fish restaurant, where I ordered a steak that was merely adequate, and that was pretty much the last day.
The day we were set to leave, it snowed during the night about 4 inches, and made it impossible to get our of our cabin because the road to it was a giant hill. We spend a few hours pushing cars up hills, ate at IHOP (which we have at home) and made our way home.
Overall, I had fun, but I felt that maybe I could have seen more stuff and done more things that I can't already do at home. The trip was 4 days long, and we wasted at least half of that just sitting around doing nothing. Branson has some museums and other attractions that I would have liked to check out, but didn't get the chance to.
|
Mass Effect 2
We've all heard about Mass Effect 2. It's had a serious marketing push, and it's one of the blockbuster hitters of 2010. Everyone's been talking about it.. so is it as good as all the hype?
Spartacus: Blood and Sand
As you readers know, I am not really a fan of the first person shooter, but on occasion I like to broaden my horizons with them, particularly if they don't involve me shooting aliens, nazi's, or terrorists. 
Star Trek Online