Category: Vacations

We left on Thursday morning at the ungodly lovely hour of 5:30 am. With the exception of a bathroom break and a fill-up at a gas station, we drove straight through to St. Louis, Missouri, where we stopped around 10 am to see the Gateway Arch. Don’t let their crappy website fool you, it was pretty damn neat. Although I was almost hyperventilating at the thought of how they were going to get us all up to the top, as the structure really isn’t all that wide, and only gets more narrow as you go up. Turns out they take you up in what I call little pods that would turn a claustrophobic person completely hysterical. Here’s a closer look. You can’t even stand inside there, it’s so freaking small! There’s no windows, and they cram five people in there. It’s like a little coffin to the top.

Aside from that, it is pretty cool. Once you get to the top, which isn’t all that large either, the view is pretty awesome. There’s a courthouse that looks more like a model than real. Tell me that doesn’t look fake! Anyway, the view was pretty neat, although due to growing up in Chicago, and visiting both the Hancock and Sears Tower, the Arch’s height pales in comparison, but it was still cool. I especially liked photographing it from the outside. I think we only spent ten minutes at the most at the top because there’s only so much to see of a (relatively speaking) small city like St. Louis. It was most definitely worth the stop, however.

After that, we only stopped once for lunch and drove straight to Branson, Missouri, where we arrived at 3:30 pm. So in total the trip there took 10 hours, although I think approximately two hours was spent by the Arch. Oh yea, and if you’ve never been to a Jack in the Box, I’ll tell you right now, it’s nothing to write home about. I made it a point to eat at new places while on this trip, and we stopped there on the way out to Branson, and it was nasty. It felt more artery-clogging than McDonald’s and Burger King put together, not to mention how dirty and unsanitary the inside of the establishment felt. Ick. But I digress …

After we got settled in the hotel room, we drove down the “strip” to scope out the area. I knew Missouri was hilly, but oh my god, it was up and down the whole way. Parking lots on hills, leaning this way and that! Yeesh. It was kinda cool in a way, but I was happy to get back home to the flat land of Illinois after three days of all that wear and tear on my poor Jetta’s transmission.

The first thing we ended up doing was getting some dinner at a Chinese buffet. It was not worth the price, but oh well, it was something new. I’ve never seen so many Chinese/Japanese/Thai restaurants in all my life. Between Branson and Springfield, I am convinced that Missourians (sp) have a thing for Chinese food.

After the lackluster dinner, we went on a carriage ride through historic downtown Branson. We paid for a two mile ride ($20) which took us down along the shore of Lake Taneycomo. Our driver was really nice, and since the sun was starting to go down (it was about 8 pm), the air was breezy and cool. Very nice, indeed. We also spotted some cool herons, making a note to come back the next day to try and get some photos.

We didn’t do much after that. I think we stopped at Dairy Queen and got some Blizzards. The bitch working the counter was so unfriendly, I wanted to slap her. I hate people like that! We entertained the thought of going to the new amusement park, Celebration City, but after finding out that tickets were $30.05 each, we passed on the idea. For that price, I better be getting rollercoasters ala Great America style, not some wooden bullshit that goes a whole 45 miles per hour. Whatever! As is typical, we spent the rest of the evening in the hotel room in front of the tv. Heehee.

On Friday morning, after our lovely free continental breakfast (so lame, but they always are), we went to The Butterfly Place. This place was so awesome, just like I knew it would be! The only thing that kinda sucked was it was overcast outside, so it wasn’t as bright inside as it could have been. This had a dual effect as 1) the butterflies were too active and wouldn’t stay still for long and 2) the shutter speeds on my camera weren’t as high as I would have liked. So the majority of my photos did not come out as sharp as they could have, especially since I had to zoom in to get most of the shots as the butterflies that would actually stay still were hiding, and that further knocked down the shutter speed. But it was still fun, and we spent a good hour and a half in there. My favorites were the paper kites, which are white and black. One of them even landed on my leg, see?

We stopped for lunch at Sonic because I have never been to one, and a drive-in sounded cool. Once again, I was dissapointed, although not nearly as much so as I was with Jack in the Box. At least Sonic had a decent menu. I think I should just stay away from fast food altogether, though.

Since we were on a roll and had so much fun at The Butterfly Place, we decided to visit the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Museum next. If you ever have a chance to visit one of these, don’t! It totally sucked. I want the $27.00 admission (for two) and forty-five minutes of our lives back. To add insult to injury, they tried hitting us up for even more money inside. Twice, in fact! First to take some stupid picture, and then in the gift shop that they force you to pass through as you exit. When this girl asked us if we enjoyed our visit, I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling her what I really thought.

After that experience, I decided against going to the Hollywood Wax Museum. I had a bad feeling it would be the same old bullshit as Ripley’s and I was already pissed off. We decided to walk around the downtown area instead. It was ok, and didn’t cost anything, so that was cool. We ended up spending $20 in the Mountain Man Fruit & Nut Co., though. They kept giving us free samples, and it was all so good! How could we resist?

Once we got bored, we decided to see if there was any other cool things to see. As you could tell by now, we were not there to see any lame ass shows. That’s for the senior citizens, alright? Since I had a $2 off ticket (should have been my first clue), we went to the World’s Largest Toy Museum. Joe was convinced that the owner is the real life Ned Flanders, and I have to say I agree. He even had bible music pumped into the place. I think the museum would have been much more interesting if I was about forty years older, as most of the toys I didn’t even recognize, although this one got me all nostalgic, as did this one.

Afterwards, we went driving around more. We stopped by Lake Taneycomo again and got a few photos of those herons we saw the previous day. We also went exploring and found a cool lookout point with a fantasic view. We also went down to Table Rock Lake and watched the sunset. That was so beautiful and peaceful as no one was really around.

Saturday was overcast and rainy, so we headed down to Springfield to see what we could do. I had read about the new Wonders of Wildlife Museum which is also called the American National Fish and Wildlife Museum, so we checked it out. From the outside, it looked quite impressive. It’s right next to a huge Bass Pro Shop, so it was hoppin. The admission was decent ($9.95), so we gave it a shot. Let me just state for the record that the word museum should have tipped me off. Most of the animals in there were stuffed! And the live ones were rather drab. Very disappointing, especially considering the fact that we’ve been to the “World Famous” San Diego Zoo, as well as the John G. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. If you haven’t been to such places, the Wonders of Wildlife might be fun, otherwise it just pales in comparison.

Since we had nothing else to do, we headed to Battlefield Mall. We parked by Dillards, and as we passed through the lingerie section, Joe suggested I look for a bra. I’ve been looking all over for a decent one without a stupid underwire, but can never find anything comfortable. I ended up spending forty-five minutes trying some on because the sales girls were really nice and knowledgeable, so much so that I came home with two new bras that actually fit nicely. Now I’m just mad that there aren’t any Dillards near Chicago, because I like that store.

We got back to Branson around dinnertime, and found ourselves at Red Lobster. After all the dissapointing food, we decided to go somewhere we knew would be good. And it was. Since I had a gift card, I decided to splurge and order the filet mignon. God, that was soooo good!

We spent the rest of the evening watching tv, ready to go home already. We left early Sunday morning, and got home around 3 pm. I had wanted to stop at the Exotic Animal Paradise on the way home, but it was still overcast out, so pictures would have come out shitty. Plus from the road the place looked pretty run-down.

Overall, I’d say we had a fun vacation. Branson is one of the those places you only need to visit once, though. I can’t see us going back there. The things I enjoyed the most were nature-related, and you don’t need to go there to enjoy those. The traffic wasn’t as bad as I had heard, although we were there during the week (kinda), so that might have had something to do with it. Everyone on the road was pretty nice, though. In fact, we didn’t come across any asshole drivers until we were back in Illinois. So I guess it’s a tradeoff – you either get nice people who drive decent in boring old Missouri, or shitty drivers who are rude in more interesting Illinois. *Grin*

I wish we could turn back time, though, because I don’t want to go back to work tomorrow.

Additional photos from the trip can be found here:
St. Louis Gateway Arch
The Butterfly Place
Branson Nature Shots (includes the heron and the sunset I mentioned)