Tuesday – July 2, 2013 – Branson, MO
Today we got up early to leave Kansas City behind with Branson, MO as our destination. The weather today was fantastic, if I didn’t know better I would have thought I was in San Diego. The sky was blue and clear, it was 80 degrees and the humidity was low. For that matter, every day we’ve had on this trip until now has been fantastic. I know we complained about some near 100 degree weather in Utah, but the reality is that the weather was far worse in the days after we left. I need to stop talking about it or I am sure to jinx us.
We took a leisurely drive out to Brason covering the 250 miles in 6 hours with several stops along the way. We stopped once when Elisa saw a roadside Antique mall. There were a lot of interesting things there but the prices were sky high and not much room to negotiate. Elisa picked up a couple of small things, including an old skate key to go along with an old set of skates we have. There were also a collection of old jacks made out of metal.
We also happened to stumble upon the birthplace of Harry S. Truman in Lamar, Mo. It is a very small and modest home with no electricity and no plumbing. It is 2 levels (basement and ground level. The Truman’s purchased the home for $628 in 1887. However, we were disappointed to learn that he lived in the home with his parents until he was 11 months old. His family later moved to Grandview, MO where he lived on the family farm of his grandparents. He later moved with his parents to Independence, MO which is considered his boyhood home. We took a few photos of this State Historic site.
We then forged ahead to Branson and we were really surprised with what we found. I knew that Branson was a country music and entertainment Mecca, so I assumed that it would be a little like Vegas – flat, sprawling and a bit to glitzy. Instead, what we found was a beautiful green, wooded and hilly setting with the sprawling town built through the hills and around a huge lake. Indeed there are no less than 50 different entertainment venues and without a single casino in sight. The entertainment certainly leans toward country music, but there is also a dinner theater that is owned by and centered around the comedy of Yakov Smirnov the russian comedian that was very popular in the ‘80s. There is a theater owned by Shoji Tabuchi a Japanese performer, who with his entire family chose Branson, Mo as a place to open a theater focused on performing both American classics, country music as well as traditional japanese music. Who’da thunk? Unfortunately, our time here is brief and we didn’t get to visit any of these venues.
We did however get to visit a museum that has named itself as the “World’s Largest Toy Museum”. While I don’t think it is really the largest in terms of size, the collection is huge – supposedly consisting of over 1 million items. We didn’t bother to count them, but there certainly was a lot of stuff. The museum is owned by Tom and Wendy Beck. As the story goes, they were a couple from Texas who were in the business of purchasing distressed merchandise from individuals and businesses. They would then resell these items and apparently made a good living at it. At one point they purchase a large collection of toys from a private collector and their intention was to sell it. However, after looking at what they had acquired, they couldn’t bring themselves to sell the items. Instead the opened a very small museum in Texas. Somewhere along the way, they had acquired another large collection from someone in Virginia that doubled the size of what they had. They now had to find a larger location to display it.
The acquired what was a failed steak house restaurant in Branson, Mo, thinking that Branson would go on to become a major tourist destination, and they were right. In 2000 the restaurant they had acquired had been vacated in 1999 when the then owners went bankrupt. Unfortunately, they locked the doors of the restaurant without bothering to empty it of food from cupboards, refrigerators, freezers and dirty dishes were left in the sink. So you can imagine the mess the Becks found when the opened the place up in 2000. In time they gutted the 10,000 sq ft building and converted it to a museum. It opened in 2001 and the collection continues to grow through donations. Many of the displays are hand built and are far from fancy. The collection is so large that there is very little information provided to the viewer. The items tend to be grouped in one way or another. The tin toys were to be found in several different locations and would include very old tin toys along with newer ones. There were a couple of different displays that were dedicated to robots. They had about 20 different clapping monkeys The metal trucks were grouped by manufacturer. There were hundreds of Tonka toys of all types and in all conditions. There were metal toys by Buddy L, Structo, Nylint, Chein and many others. In another part of the museum, there were vehicles of many different manufacturers, but what they had in common was that they bore advertising, e.g. Chevron, Firestone, Sears, etc. There was an entire room dedicated solely to fire trucks and related vehicles. I was pleased to see that they did not bow down to political correctness and they had a very large display of toy cowboy and army guns. Throughout the museum they had several different bicycles, ranging from a high-wheeler from the 1800 to the Schwinn that every little boy who grew up in the ’60s begged their parents for – the Orange Krate. It was a Stingray style bike with 6 speeds, stick shifter and small front tire. So cool.
Here is a link to some of the photos we took of the colleciton…
After that we made our way to our campground – Americas Best Campgound – I’m not sure about the “Best” moniker but it certainly is very nice. We got a tree shaded site that was very quiet and pleasant. After setting up the RV, we headed down to Historic Bransosn and went to Branson Landing which hugs a 1.5 mile stretch of Lake Taneycomb (which looks a lot like a river). This huge and sprawling mixed use development was built in 2004 and was the largest public/private development project in Branson’s 95 year history. There are countless trendy shops but surprisingly, it is anchored by a huge Bass Pro Shop that sells everything from tractors, ATV’s, boats and every sort of outdoor related sports article. The store features a huge waterfall and freshwater fish tank that is filled with huge trout, bass and steel heads. Fantastic. The only thing missing was Tim Allen.
We will have to add Branson to our list of places to come back to and spend more time.
Tomorrow we are off to St. Louis. More later!
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