Branson, MO

[diskojoe]

Well.........the mall looked nice which doesnt surprise me. The mall is the only thing i had ever heard about in branson. but it looks like a small town that got big but refused to give up the small town conservative roots. and this is not just red neck, its scary confederate flag waving ignorant backwoods comes to the city scary. thats for the pics. i will make sure to never stop here.

[BG918]

Originally Posted by glowrock

Branson may be redneck wonderland, but I still somehow feel the need to visit it someday! Actually, perhaps not, but I was always wondering what the hell it looked like!

Thanks for posting these, photolitherland! Hell, I'm going to be in Tulsa this weekend, gotta get myself ready for a photo thread out there! Hahaha

Aaron (Glowrock)

glowrock, if you don't know much about Tulsa send me a PM and I'll let you give you some places to check out.

Branson is tacky just like Vegas is tacky, but in a different way. Silver Dollar City amusement park is pretty decent and is located just outside Branson, and there is some really beautiful Ozark Mountain scenery just south of the city along the Arkansas-Missouri border. Table Rock Lake just southeast of Branson is a gorgeous lake surrounded by forested mountains. Lots of people in Tulsa (and Kansas City/St. Louis/Little Rock) have cabins there and there are several nice resorts.

[Raining Inside]

For anyone who thinks Branson is bad, try the Wisconsin Dells.

[seaskyfan]

The Downtown looks well preserved. A friend of mine from St. Louis calls Branson "Vegas for Baptists" - I think I have a better understanding of what he means by that.

The Titanic is kind of awesome. Makes you wonder what a Titanic-themed hotel/casino in Vegas would be like.

[photoLith]

Its actually not a hotel, its a Titanic museum. About the only thing I ever wanted to see in Branson would be the to scale replica of the Grand Staircase they have inside it. They also have a lot of artifacts from the wreck.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by photolitherland

Its actually not a hotel, its a Titanic museum. About the only thing I ever wanted to see in Branson would be the to scale replica of the Grand Staircase they have inside it. They also have a lot of artifacts from the wreck.

Same deal in Gatlinburg, TN -- right down to the replica of the staircase. I kinda want to go...

[photoLith]

I thought it was the only one in the country there in Branson, hmmm.

[BG918]

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

Same deal in Gatlinburg, TN -- right down to the replica of the staircase. I kinda want to go...

Gatlinburg and Dollywood are similar to Branson. Not sure what it is about the hills in the South...

[giovanni sasso]

when i think of famous, massive seafaring vessels, i think of the ozarks.

nice tour. not the sort of place i'd visit on purpose, but i don't think it's horrible that these places exist. vegas for baptists sounds just about right.

niagara falls, though, is a travesty. fortunately, we learned from its mistakes and a lot of the US national park system did right where niagara did wrong.

[photoLith]

Niagara isnt a national park, its just a state park if Im not mistaken. But, the hell hole that is Dollywood is located just outside of Great Smoky Mountains NP in Tennessee, and its very similar to Branson. Only Americans could take beautiful places such as the Smoky Mountains and Ozark Mountains and turn them into parking lots and big box stores.

[tdawg]

this pretty much sums up my opinions of Branson.

[Troubadour]

Oh dear God! Surely there must be exceptions in the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to take care of problems like Branson.

[ColDayMan]

It makes Gatlinburg look like Lyon, that's for sure.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Gatlinburg is a favorite vacation spot for most of my relatives (they actually took some German relatives there back in 1995).

Branson: "My dad says its like Las Vegas, if it were run by Ned Flanders." ~ Bart Simpson

[ColDayMan]

Gatlinburg isn't bad. It's walkable, urban, and surrounded by beauty. Pigeon Forge is the bad one with the endless strip malls, outrageous Titanic musuems, demon churches, trashy Go-Karts, horrendous pancake places, and, well, Myrtle Beach-transplanted hotels with fake palm trees that glow at night.

[giovanni sasso]

Originally Posted by photolitherland

Niagara isnt a national park, its just a state park if Im not mistaken.

i wasn't suggesting it was. i'm saying that the centuries of schlock and gaud at niagara falls -- at such a beautiful natural phenomenon, but so close to so many populous areas -- was a lesson learned in how not to treat such a place.

that said, i agree with coldayman -- i actually like gatlinburg. pigeon forge, not so much. but still. that these places exist, as isolated dots on the map ... well, it's a big country. we managed to stem the tide, mostly. the great smokies are an amazing place, and deep in the national park, you'd never know dollywood was just around the bend. there's room enough for all of us (thanks to careful management we have to fight to continue still to this day).

[Flamesrule]

don't like the town(no wonder) but like the photos you took.

[LAsam]

Looks like a good town to film a zombie flick in!

[Cirrus]

I don't get Branson. Why is it there? There must be some reason. Country music? Someone explain it to me.

I saw similar Obama shirts in DC.

Catering to the exact same set of redneck tourists. They go to Branson one summer, and do their patriotic duty to see the capital the next.

vegas for baptists sounds just about right.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

[marcus]

It doesn't seem that bad. Very touristy, and i would not want to go there. But, i don't know, is there must difference between the anti-obama shirts and the stores filled with anti-bush shirts back when he was president?