Lions and Tigers and Shows, Oh My!

We had planned to stay in Branson for just three days, but that stretched to six as we found some shows we liked and also took in a few other sights.  We visited a tiger sanctuary just north of town and that was very cool.  Seeing the beautiful cats from just a few feet away and watching them be fed was a good respite from the glitz and hustle of Branson.

Branson is kind of like Vegas without the gambling, or the bright lights or the theme-park hotels...basically everything except the Elvis impersonators, washed-up country acts and magicians.  The town itself is a vision of city planning gone bad--fast food, motels, theaters, mini golf, "museums" like the Titanic Museum and Ripley's Believe it or Not all jumbled up on a gridlocked "strip" about two miles long.  Discount ticket agencies are everywhere, most requiring a timeshare sales pitch to get the discounts.  We found a legit 2-for-1 ticket agency and bought most of our tickets there.  We saw seven shows that ran all gamuts from bad to great and from tiny, low-budget productions to huge staged estravaganzas.  Some of our favorites were the Haygoods, a family of five brothers and a sister who grew up poor in the Ozarks but had been performing literally since they were toddlers.  They played several insturments each, sang really well and had a production with lazer lights and video that was nonstop two hours of true entertainment. "Six" was similar in scale but was six very talented brothers who sing a capella for two hours.  They make all the instruments with their voices, including drums, bass, electric guitar and trumpet.  Their show was very fun and entertaining too.

We also took in a couple of tribute bands, one for the Eagles and one for Journey.  Both were very good bands and musicians, but the Journey band was amazing because of the lead vocalist, who sounded just like Steve Perry.  Jason Yeager was his name and he was a finalist on season 7 of American Idol.  His story is kind of sad because he got a raw deal on American Idol and was eliminated sooner than he probably should have been.  He and his band put on a great show and were the best act we saw all week in Branson.  The most entertaining tribute (in a funky sort of way) was Joseph Hall's Elvis show.  He is a mid-twenties kid who played Elvis from his start as a rockabilly artist up through his Vegas superstar-in-a-rhinestone-covered-white-stretch-suit act.  The audience of mostly elderly ladies went crazy over him and some nearly passed out when "Elvis" came out to the audience to give them a scarf and a kiss on the cheek.  (Lynnae was not one of the passed out ones, she insists I inform you.)

Journey Tribute

Elvis Tribute

One other interesting thing we did was to eat dinner at the College of the Ozarks.  This college, founded in 1906, is unique in that it is tuition-free for all students who earn their keep by working 15 hours per week.  So the restaurant on campus is staffed completely by students, who also grow the vegetables, raise the dairy cows and pigs and cook everything from scratch.  The food was fantastic, the kids were as Ozark-mountain polite as you could want and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

We actually enjoyed our whole time in Branson, but we were ready to leave and begin the drive across Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas to cover some parts of the old Route 66 and catch such other wonders as we can find there.

Branson! Live music capitol of the world

We didn't set out to come to Branson but it wasn't far off our way and we like live music so we decided to check it out for a few days. I will add to this post over the next few days, but as of now we have been here for four days, have seen four good shows and one poor one and will stay for two more days then head off to Oklahoma on Monday.

World's biggest rocking chair, Cuba Missouri

Cuba is also home to many murals depicting the town's history.

http://cubamomurals.com/murals/

Crossing the Mississippi at St. Louis.

 

How fitting that we cross over into "the West" at this iconic gateway city that was the launching point for the great western expansion of our country!  Also perfectly American that we whizzed right by it in our truck and moved on down the road. 

We get our kicks on Route 66

On Saturday we left Chicago after two great weeks visiting Lucas and exploring the city.  We really loved Chicago and look forward to returning, maybe several times if Lucas decides to settle there.  Next time I hope it is when the weather is warmer!

We drove to Peoria to spend two nights there.  Why Peoria, you ask?  Well, back in the summer we bought tickets to see Keith Urban in concert in, of all places, Peoria, and to some extent built the schedule of our travels around that.  We've seen Keith live about 8 times and this show was among the best.  He is an amazing guitar player and singer and performer and after two warm-up acts (Dustin Lynch and Little Big Town), Keith played for 2-1/4 hours and as usual brought down the house.  The only other experience I can compare a Keith Urban concert to (and I hope my Boston friends will forgive me this one) is seeing the Red Sox play the Yankees at Fenway in a close game where the Red Sox come from behind in the ninth to win.  The crowd was that fired up!  I was playing Keith songs all night in my head.

As we drove south from Peoria yesterday, we kept seeing signs about "Route 66 Historic Byway", so Lynnae read out loud the Wikipedia entry for Route 66 and we stopped at the Route 66 State Park visitor center in Missouri.  So it turned out to be fitting that the next leg of our trip, after visiting Canada and spending time with Lucas, when we turn westward toward California, that we are travelling along the route of the first Federal highway to be completely paved from the East, specifically Chicago, to California.  Started in 1926 and all segments finally paved in the 50's, Route 66 is the quintessential symbol for post-war America.  Newly-mobile, newly affluent, optimistic, obsessed with cars and rock 'n roll music, America hit the road and Route 66, sometimes called the "Mother Road" was the place to do it.  Much of Route 66 is gone completely and all of it has been bypassed by Interstates, often starving the towns that lived off the travelers on the old Route.  Some of the best preserved remnants of Route 66 are in Missouri and Oklahoma and we will report on what we see over the next week or so.  Stay tuned!

Chicago from the 95th Floor!

Our last night in Chicago was a visit to the John Hancock tower building at sunset.  We had saved this visit for last based on the weather forecasts for a clear day, but it was really overcast and hazy when we arrived.  At the top, though, the sun was starting to peek under the cloud layer and it turned out to be a fabulous sunset.  Watching the lights go on in the buildings downtown was amazing.  The tower is a bit north of the river and the loop so it gives a great view of the bulk of the tall buildings downtown, as well as the out over the lake to the east and the suburbs stretching out forever to the west. 

Wrigley Field neighborhood

We spent our last day in Chicago wandering around the Wrigleyville area. Wrigley itself was closed.for tours for the season, but we spent some time in the Graceland Cemetery, which was awesome. Besides being a landscape architecture wonder and in full fall color, it had the most interesting architecture in its monuments--fitting for the city famous for architecture and for all the architects buried in this park. Some examples below.

We also visited Architectural Artifacts, an 80,000 square foot wonderland of weird stuff rescued from factories, buildings and homes. Want a silver-colored blast furnace suit? $14,000 takes it home. How about an 8 foot tall ceramic vat for mixing acid or a giant hamburger or an old printing press or a 12 foot table covered with crystal glass pieces from chandeliers at $1 - $5 apiece? This has to be the coolest store I have ever seen. We wrapped up our day with a trip up to the John Hancock Observatory 94 floors above Chicago, but more on that in the next post.