Meanwhile, back in Eureka Springs Arkansas, we have decided to drive about an hour to Branson Missouri. Originally we were going to spend a couple of nights in Eureka Springs and then move on to Branson in Missouri but we liked Eureka Springs and didn’t think we would like Branson so we changed our plans to make Branson a day trip. Driving to Branson, the Ozarks seem subtly different than they had a couple of days earlier, they were are starting to come alive. The trees were starting to bud and, here and there, were blooming white-flowered trees. We were told were wild flowering pears and it seemed almost impossible to capture their vibrant burst of life in a photograph. Going roughly northeast, we dropped out of the mountains, drove across a valley rich with farms and large industrial chicken facilities, then back into the mountains just after we entered Missouri. Usually, on a driving trip, I drive and Michele takes all the photo while we are on the road, on this trip I’m doing all the photography,

Before we got to Branson, Michele, who had been doing her homework the night before, said that our best bet for lunch in Branson wasn’t actually in Branson, she suggested lunch at the College of the Ozarks just outside of town. The College of the Ozarks bills itself as a Christian College and it does not charge tuition, requiring that its students pay for their education through working on campus. One of the things they do is work in, raise and grow the organic food for, and run the restaurant where we had lunch. It was good, not great – they didn’t have tacos but, otherwise, it was pretty standard forward-thinking fare, including roasted Brussel sprouts with crispy kale chips, shredded parmesan, fresh lemon and sweet garlic aioli – but good and the college kids who were doing everything from cooking to waiting were charming. BTW, while this is a Christian School, its courses include BIO 323 – Evolution and Population Biology As an aside, I used to think that, as I have gotten older, all young adults sort of look the same age. I don’t think that anymore, these kids were not the same as a waiter in her/his late 20s. The way they carried themselves, even the way they stood, was different. End aside.

I probably should start by saying that we really didn’t give Branson a fair chance. We drove in past the new Convention Center, parked the car, walked along the river – or lake as they kept calling it, looking it up, I found that it is an abandoned meander, so I guess it is technically an oxbow lake – walked back through a shopping area between the old downtown and the lake, and drove home. We didn’t go to the strip along 76 Country Boulevard or the Titanic Museum or much of anything, really. I looked at one local marquee and didn’t know anybody except The Oak Ridge Boys and we weren’t particularly interested in the Branson Murder Mystery Dinner Show or the Absolutely Country, Definitely Gospel Dinner.

After our stroll around the shopping arcade, we drove back to Eureka Springs for the night. The next day, we spent a bright, sunny, and warm morning at the Diversity Celebration in ES and a dark, rainy, and cold afternoon driving through the Buffalo River Watershed – BTW, the Buffalo River is the first river to be designated a National Wild River and is managed by the National Park Service – to get to Mountain View Arkansas for the night.

Mountain View looked like a nice town but it was Sunday and everything was closed which we sort of expected when we made plans to layover there on our way to Memphis. Mountain View is also the home of The Ozark Folk Center State Park which has daily Ozark Folk Music shows and, while we knew we would be there a week before it officially opened, we hoped we might find some music in a local tavern. It turns out that Mountain View is in a dry county so there are no local taverns where local musicians play, which was fine as neither one of us was feeling great. As an aside, one of my favorite groups during the mid-70s was The Ozark Mountain Daredevils who I discovered through Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airman and is a welcome addition to anybody’s road music collection. End aside.

One thing we did miss, however, was The Urban Forge which, looking through the windows of the closed store, looked like the most sophisticated store we had seen on our entire trip and would have been a great place to see local folk art. We were still five hours from Memphis and our trip was winding down so maybe we were better off not having a place to spend an extra hour. So we moved on to Memphis…to be continued.