Our 2010 Branson Vacation

Branson, Missouri is one of our favorite vacation spots. We usually make a trip once a year and always have a great time. There are so many different places to shop and things to see & do that we have something new to do each time we go. It is less than a 4 hour drive for us and makes it the perfect distance to travel with kids.

We went to Branson back in May and of course, had lots of fun. This year we stayed at the Bradford House B&B which is closer into town. We had an excellent stay and the owners were wonderful. The past few years we have stayed at the Bradford Inn that is a little further on the edge of town. I think we like staying at the inn just a little more so next time we'll be going back there. However, both of these B&Bs are super clean and very reasonably priced.

We got to Branson around noon and after eating we checked into our room and then did a little shopping. There are two outlet malls we always like to go to. They were packed and it was very warm so we just went to a couple of stores. We did find what we were looking for and I also got a couple of cute shirts at Ann Taylor (my favorite clothing!). There was another little shopping center off the main strip that I did not remember seeing before. It has lots of neat shops and had a cute large rocking chair. Of course we had to get our pictures in that :-)


After a late afternoon nap we headed down on the east side of Branson to The Landing. The Landing is the newest part of Branson filled with higher end shopping and restaurants. There is a mexican restaurant that we eat at every time, the Cantina Laredo. Wow, it's so yummy! We picked up a bag of caramel popcorn at the Big Popper. It is the best caramel popcorn you will ever eat!

On the way back to our B&B we stopped at the Pirate Cove for some putt-putt. There are so many putt-putt courses scattered throughout Branson it's comical. You can't go to Branson and not play at least once ;-) There are two courses at the Pirates Cove and both were really packed. Even though we paid for the harder course we ended up going on the easier one since it looked maybe a little less busy. Ethan got his own "golf putt" to play with which unfortunately caused us problems. Mr. Independent did not want to wait for his turn and then it turned into loud screaming fits. You know how hard it is to disciple your kids in public now and he did not want to listen to us and calm down. We only got to play through 2 holes before we decided he was not going to calm down and we better leave for the sake of everyone around us. Sadly we didn't even get a refund since we didn't get to play :-(  

The next morning after having a wonderful homecooked breakfast we headed out to Talking Rocks Cavern. We love touring caves and caverns because they are usually a reasonably priced  attraction plus they are always a nice way to stay cool. Visiting natural attractions such as these are very rewarding. Talking Rocks Cavern was very different than most other caves and caverns I've been through. These are not stroller friendly (which was ok with us), but you had to be prepared to get wet in this cavern(don't wear flip flops like I did!) and do a lot of climbing and even squeezing through smaller spots on the walkways. Still, it was a very beautiful cavern and had some new and different types of formations which I had not seen in other caverns before. Here's a few pictures.

There was a lot of bacon (what this formation is called) in this cavern!

Daddy and Ethan eying the bacon!

Like I mentioned before, this is a very wet cave. That's why my hair is stuck flat to my head :-)

At the end of the tour we had our picture taken. We had the option of purchasing the photo and the proceeds went to the association to help research the deadly fungal infection effecting bats. This is a photo of the photo so it isn't very clear, but it turned out very well........even though Ethan wasn't looking at the camera much that day!

After the cavern tour we went to a favorite craft mall to waste some time before lunch.  There were lots of neat things, Ethan loved this rocking horse! I keep telling Andrew he needs to make him one now ;-)

We enjoyed some lunch at Rib Crib. Ethan was really excited about lunch ;-)

Then we headed back to the B&B for nap time before we went to the Dixie Stampede show that night! Next post will be all about the show, it deserved a post all on it's own!!

The next morning we headed back home. We had lots to do when we got home.

I didn't take a whole lot of photos mainly since we go to Branson so often, but I hope you enjoyed the few I took and the little recap of our trip. If you have any questions about Branson I'd love to give recommendations or tips.

I was not compensated in any form by any of the companies mentioned within my post except for Dixie Stampede.