Hello everyone, Winnie Griggs here. A few weeks ago we took a family vacation to Branson, Mo.
Some of my kids had been there before but I hadn’t so I wasn’t sure what to expect. As it turned out, we had a fabulous time! Nine of us took the trip and seven of us stayed in one condo while two stayed at another which helped extend the time together.
We tried to cram as many of the attractions as we could into the three days we were there. Here’s a list of how we spent our time.
We spent a day at Silver Dollar City (Unfortunately no one took pictures). Several members of the group took advantage of the rides – I didn’t. But there were lots of craft demonstrations ( glass blowers, wood working, pottery, etc.) and fun shops to keep me happily entertained. One of the things I found that I just couldn’t pass up was this dragonfly puzzle box. I love dragonflies and collect trinket boxes so it seemed custom made just for me 🙂
We caught the Sight & Sound Theater’s production of Jesus. The production value was absolutely AMAZING! I had an aisle seat and there were live animals – sheep, pigs, horses, camels, birds – some of which ran up and down the aisles close enough to touch. And the sets themselves were active, realistic and altogether fabulous.
We toured Wild World where there were many more animals than I expected – sharks, reptiles, birds, creepy crawlers and lots of furry critters. The highlight of this particular outing was when three members of our group were able to get up close and personal with some lemurs.
We also stopped in at the Titanic Museum. The tour started with the staff handing everyone a bording ticket complete with the name of an actual passenger who sailed aboard the Titanic. The ticket contained personal info on that passenger including name, position, ticket class and some other notes. At the end of the tour you found out if ‘you’ survived or not. I was the ladies maid for a dowager and assigned to second class.
I learned so much during the tour. At one point we were able to stick our hands in a vat of liquid that duplicated the temperature and density of the water surrounding the wreck – Brrrrr!
Here I am standing in front of a reproduction of the grand staircase. (By the way, my character was among the survivors. 🙂 )
Another place we visited was the Butterfly Palace. It was so fun to go inside the plant conservatory and let the butterflies approach and feed on the blossoms the staff provided.
There was also a great little mirror maze tucked inside the same building. I would probably still be wandering around looking for a way out if I hadn’t had my daughter and grandson there to help me find my way 🙂
But my favorite part of the whole trip was our visit to Top of the Rock. There is a two and a half mile nature trail that you can navigate on your own via a golf cart. The scenery was fabulous – rock formations, a cave, waterfalls, wildlife, streams, covered bridges.
There were also these wonderful wildlife medallions embedded in the metal fencing and bridge headers along the trail that I found were so intriguing. I’ve been trying to do a little research into them but so far haven’t had much luck.
We capped off the vacation by having a game night our last evening there. We ordered pizzas and played a rousing game of Mexican Train dominoes. Since we are a highly competitive bunch it was loud and energetic and fabulously fun!
So there you have it, our first family vacation since before the pandemic.
What was your own favorite vacation? Leave a comment to be entered in a drawing for your choice of any book from my backlist.
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When ever went to northern Michigan camping. I have a million good memories from those vacations.
I’m not much for camping but family trips are always fun
I took my granddaughter to Branson for her 9th birthday. We experienced a lot of the same activities and really had a blast!
We didn’t have any younger kids with us but I can imagine their enjoyment adding to the fun.
Mine was the last one we took before the kids were too old. We read books aloud while on a road trip
Oh how fun! I imagine your kids enjoyed that.
this sounds like a wonderful time. I love the butterfly exhibit also. I remember when they also had the Roy Rodgers exhibit. It is gone now but a lot of fun. so much to see and do. I think one of my most memorable vacations was when the kiddos were younger, we drove from Illinois to Florida. we did a lot of stopping along the way. we stayed in a fabulous hotel that had a kitchen and living room and laundry area. we walked all over and had a lot of fun. the last three days we went to Disneyworld. we had so much fun. got a lot of exercise and all four of us made a ton of memories.
Ah a believer that it’s the journey as much as the destination! Road trips can be a lot of fun in the right company
Well all of our family vacations were spent at the county fair when the kids were showing animals – dad would go home at night to take care of the ones still at home!
Fun! My kids did show animals at the county fair as well – 4H sheep – but they never spent the night there.
My favorite vacation was a trip to Peru and Bolivia where I stayed in the Amazon rain forest in a beautiful lodge so remote it had to generate its own electricity, flew over the Nazca Plains to see the sand drawings, went to Machu Picchu, hiked above 10,000 feet in the Andes, and visited a Bolivian floating island. It was a dream vacation.
Oh WOW!! That sounds so adventurous
My husband and I took the two oldest granddaughters (preteens) and went to Rock City in Tennessee and to the Biltmore Estates one year and about two years laters we took the same two to the Wisconsin’s Dells. We all had fun.
Oooohh, the Biltmore is on my list of places to visit someday – I hear it’s fabulous. And what wonderful memories for your granddaughters to have.
What a wonderful trip, Winnie! I’m particularly interested in your activities because I’m planning a trip to Branson next March. The Top of the Rock looks fabulous! And Sight & Sound is my favorite thing ever! That’s why I want to go back next year. To see Esther. I saw Samson several years ago and was just blow away. So wonderful! I’d also like to try out Silver Dollar City. An amusement park based on the 1880’s has to be right up my alley. 🙂
I’m sure you’ll love it! And I’d REALLY like to see Esther as well
I love going to Branson especially taking in the Christmas season. We go to Dolly Parton’s Dixieland Stampede every time. I love seeing The Texas Tenors perform along with other shows at Sight and Sound theater. There is a used bookstore in town that calls out to me too! I get lost in there. We always eat at Billy Bob’s Dairyland restaurant too. So much fun offered in Branson. I hope we can go again this year. Your pictures were fun to see!
Hi Kathy. One of the things I learned about Branson is that there is so much to do there you just can’t cram it all in one trip. Between the nine of us we had a very LONG wish list and had to whittle it down considerably to fit our schedule. But hopefully this won’t be our last trip there 🙂
I’ve always going to Georgia to visit my relatives. I was fortunate to be able to go back in March with my oldest sister. It was great timing, as the aunt we stayed with decided to put her house on the market, so we could help her clean some for the staging photos. Plus, I could re-install her printer to her laptop and re-install another program on her computer for her.
Hi Trudy. Sounds like it turned into a working vacation 🙂
Just a little! She told me before we got up there that she wanted us to help. She’s 84, and we didn’t mind! We still had plenty of fun stuff to do, too. She has really tall ceilings, and at one point she was standing on her kitchen countertop cleaning the window over the kitchen sink!
It was a trip to Silver Dollar City when I was 15–a long time ago
I imagine it would be even more fun to experience it as a teen.
We took our 3 girls to Branson one year and it was wonderful!! That was one of our best vacations. On one vacation, had a really great time in Colorado, going up Pike’s Peak, trekking around in the old mining towns and ghost towns, etc. But, I think we all had the most fun on our Virginia Beach vacation! We had a ball playing in the ocean and on the sand, and visiting with some of our bff’s! They loved Washington D.C., as well!
Wow Lana you sound very well traveled!
Being a single mom raising 2 boys, we did not often have a vacation other than driving 2000 miles to visit family. The one vacation we did have was spent driving from Phoenix to Spokane, Washington to drop my older son off at a church music camp. We planned to camp, but soon discovered that as there were so many wildfires that year, campgrounds were closed and we had to get motels, a huge cost for which I had not planned. On the way home, my younger son and I stopped at Bryce Canyon and did the half-day mule ride down into the canyon for his 10th birthday. He will be 43 this Wednesday, so it’s been 33 years ago. Good memories!
Sherry it sounds as if you were good at finding the fun in less than ideal situations, I’m sure your boys appreciated it!
I’m from that area and my family still lives there. Love seeing Branson from someone else’s eyes. I’ve been to most of these places. We don’t vacation much but when we do, we do BIG: Disney (few years ago), Biltmore Estate in NC, South Carolina beach, Natchez, MS. My current dream vacation is to see the Gilded Age mansions of Newport, RI.
That sounds like a great dream vacation. And I’d soooooo love to see the Biltmore
My most memorable trip was going to Hawaii in 1988. It was a long awaited dream come true for me and my husband. Since we basically had not had a honeymoon as well as the fact my birthday is on December 7, Pearl Harbor Day, I was looking forward to spending it in Hawaii, the home of Pearl Harbor. Of course, my husband was very excited to see and tour Pearl on my actual birth day, the 7th. Needless to say, that tour was for him while we both enjoyed the remaining activities such as moped riding where I happened to have a minor mishap with a few scrapes and bruises to show for it. Where else could one have such a memorable occurence? The climate and absence of bugs makes for a delightful time. Breezes flowing through the lobby of the hotel as there were no flies or mosquitoes to bother. Truly a dream come true.
Oh that sounds like such a FUN vacation! I’ve only been to Hawaii once and loved it – would like to go back someday
What a wonderful vacation for your family. I had no desire to go to Branson, but our Air Force unit had a reunion there at least 10 years ago. We had a good time, but missed much of what you did. We did hike and bike ride in Dogwood Canyon which is out of town and went down to Eureka Springs, AR for the day. We attended a couple show and walked around a bit. I see several things you did that we would enjoy. We may go back and spend a few days in the future taking our daughter and her husband. They would enjoy it.
We have been lucky enough to have had some wonderful vacations. We agree that our most enjoyable and relaxing was in 2001 when we went to Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. It was off season, not crowded, and so enjoyable. We went to several national parks, Green Gables, Montgomery’s home, going at our own pace and not in a hurry. We just drove until we were ready to stop, ate at little community diners, and stopped at small community museums and sites. We happened to be there on 9-11 and didn’t even find out about it until 3 in the afternoon. It was interesting and fortunate that we were able to see it from a different perspective. Talking to our children it seemed there was a siege mentality in the US. We weren’t able to go to Halifax or the main island of Nova Scotia because so many flights had been diverted there and they had thousands of people they were trying to find place for them to stay. Our second best trip was in 2019 when we took our RV and spent 2 1/2 months on the road for a trip from TN to Alaska.
Nova Scotia is definitely on my bucket list! I can trace some of my ancestors there and would love to visit it.
looks like fun
It was!
Sounds fantastic. I live north of Branson, north of Springfield but have never been.
My memorable vacation was just before our oldest went off to college. We lived in Wisconsin and went to the EAA and the ship museum in Manitowoc. 1989?
If you’re like me, it doesn’t matter where you go as long as you have people you love with you
My favorite vacation was whenever I went to my grandparents’ … always had so much fun… miss it.
Childhood memories are so precious
We went to Mount Rushmore two weeks ago. We hit Crazy Horse, Little BigHorn, Deadwood, Sturgis, a train ride between Keystone and Rapid city. It was fabulous!
So happy to hear you enjoyed it. I’m planning to go to Deadwood next summer and want to venture over to Mt. Rushmore while I’m in that part of the country
My favorite vacation…that’s hard to pick! One of my favorites was when my grandparents, aunt, uncle, cousins, parents, sister and I all loaded into a large white van for a road trip out West. We got to do a three-day covered wagon train reenactment, complete with horses, hardtack, and battle reproductions!
We made necklaces out of large handmade glass beads, and wore sunbonnets, and our guide wore historically-accurate civil war garb the whole time–flannel, layers of fabric and heavy metal and leather gear–and it was 100 degrees in the shade!
We slept in teepees, and a mouse ran across my mother’s face in the night!
Oh what a special time that must have been! And what great memories to have
Oh, that sounds like a fabulous family vacation! I’m glad you enjoyed your trip. 🙂
We live just 2.5 hours from Branson. We always get season passes to SDC… it’s one of my Happy Places. My hubby & I enjoyed a golf cart tour of Top of the Rocks for the first time this spring (I enjoyed your pics)… such a beautiful place… I’m ready to go back! 🙂
I have two favorite family vacations. We took big family trips West the years our daughter & son graduated HS, 2015 & 2018. Overall on both trips, we went to 15 states & saw so many incredible places!! We live in a beautiful country with such a wonderful variety of scenery! God sure created an amazing world! 🙂
I totally agree! There are so many places right here in the USA that I’d love to see someday
When my son graduated from high school, we looked for an affordable place that he could go. Being a single Mom, I could not find a way to pay for college for my son, and he worked so hard, looking for one. We discovered the “School of the Ozarks”, (now, ‘College of the Ozarks”), on Point Lookout, MO. There was no tuition, all the student worked at jobs, in the school, to pay for their expenses. The school owns a lot of the property in Branson, so when we would go down to visit my son, we would stay at the school motel, and spend our afternoons shopping and wandering through all the sights, then, take in a show, in the evenings. My son loved the area so much, that 18 years later, he is still living in Branson. I love visiting there!
So nice that you can visit your son and play tourist in Branson at the same time 🙂
It sounds like you all had a great time! 🙂 My all time favorite vacations have been in a cabin on the mountains, it is always so much fun, haven’t been to one for a while, so we are over due. Have a great week and stay safe. Thank you for sharing your awesome beautiful photos with us.
You are quite welcome Alicia. I’ve never been one to ‘rough it’ but a cabin in the mountains sounds nice.
We’ve only taken a few days at a time to go places. But we had fun with those few days in the N.C. mountains, beach, or parks.
Sometimes a few days is all you need to refresh and recharge in different scenery than your everyday environment
Thank you for sharing such wonderful photos and information about your trip. I live through other’s as we are not able to travel.
My favorite trip was always going to the Thomas, Davis, Canaan Valley area in West Virginia. The homeplace where my Mom was born and raised still stands. My Mom was one of eight children. We would all try to be there the last two weeks of August. It was always a wonderful time to be with family. God bless you.
You are quite welcome. And family reunion type trips are always great!
Mine is my first cruise trip. I love cruising but have not been since before the pandemic. I also enjoy family road trips. We just made one to Louisiana and had fun too. We went to the WW II Museum in New Orleans which was amazing and we also visited the French Quarter.
I grew up right across the river from New Orleans so returning for a visit to the area is always fun!
Wow, I had no idea Branson had a Titanic Museum. Now I want to go back. The last time we went my wife was talking to the blacksmith about various techniques and he suddenly realized she was asking rather detailed questions and it was unusual for someone who is so short (she is officially a little person.) We also enjoyed the cave under the city. Did you see the cave?
No, we missed the cave. Honestly there is just so much to do there that there was no way we could do everything we wanted to.