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Week 3: The Twisty Road to Branson
The roads may be twisty, but there is adventure to be had!
We have now been at our second location of this trip for over a week! I can’t believe how fast it seems to be going!
Table of contents
- A Home Away from Home
- The Butterfly Palace
- Top of the Rock
- Table Rock Lake
- Fantastic Caverns & the Wonders of Wildlife
- Eureka Springs
- The World’s Largest Toy Museum
- Still Going Strong
A Home Away from Home
I absolutely love this house! It’s beautiful and it functions so much better for our family.
We have a ton of yard space for the kids to play and a hammock that they all love. There is a porch on the front of the house which is my favorite place to be. There is a fire pit in the yard so we got to enjoy a fire the other night, complete with mountain pies and s’mores.
Everyone on this little peninsula is so friendly. We had an older couple stop at our house the other day and bring us zucchini bread. They chatted with us and invited us to their church.
The host of this house also attends the same church and invited us too. He has also been extremely kind, giving us all kinds of recommendations of things to do and places to see.
We’ve gone to quite a few Airbnbs over the years and this host by far is our favorite. If you ever want to go to the Branson area (we are about 45 minutes away) or Table Rock Lake I’d be happy to share this Airbnb information.
We do have to go into Arkansas to get our groceries because that’s where the closest grocery store is located. The roads to get anywhere are really twisty but we are enjoying a break from the bustle of the city/suburban area we were in last time.
The Butterfly Palace
On the trip from St. Louis to our next house we stopped in Branson at The Butterfly Palace and Rainforest Adventure. It was a neat little place.
They gave you a nectar flower that the butterflies will land on and drink. Eli even had a butterfly land on his head! 😂
They have over 1,000 butterflies. They also have a small reptile area that had a chameleon that we enjoyed watching move around.
The kids really enjoyed their mirror maze. They had a very small Banyan Tree Adventure which was really just some bungee cords that created an “obstacle course”-like area.
There was also a theater but we didn’t watch the movie. We thought the place was neat but overpriced for what it had. Your tickets are good for 3 days but we didn’t go back. In our opinion, it wasn’t worth what we paid.
Top of the Rock
Our favorite activity so far was Top of the Rock Lost Canyon Cave and Nature Trail. You drive a golf cart (we had to get 2!) through 2.5 miles of trails.
There are stunning rock formations, multiple waterfalls, and lake views. I love hiking and being able to see waterfalls and nature but with 5 kids, the youngest being newly 2, being able to drive a golf cart and not have to carry them was great!
It was a beautiful trail and you could stop and get out to take pictures whenever you wanted.
Your ticket also got you into the Ancient Ozarks Natural History Museum. This was a pretty large museum with a lot of Native American artifacts as well as things from the American West and the Civil War.
We ended up deciding to eat at Buffalo Bar which is the same thing as the Osage Restaurant it’s just down the stairs from the Osage. The views were spectacular!
But I have to laugh.
I always check the kid’s menu before we go somewhere because we have some picky kids. I don’t usually check the adult menu because Brian and I are pretty adventurous and willing to try most anything.
Well, big mistake this time. 😁
There were things on the kids menu that our kids would eat so we sat down. When we got the adult menu I was shocked to see that a single adult meal was going to cost me $50 or more! There was even a steak on the menu that cost $150!
Way too fancy and pricey for us. LOL.
After receiving and eating our meals we decided it wasn’t even worth the ridiculously high price tag. So we most definitely recommend Top of the Rock but not the restaurant.
Table Rock Lake
One afternoon we were able to take time to go check out the lake. We are on this little peninsula so we could drive our car a quarter of a mile down the road and down a little hill to the lake. The kids had fun swimming and finding some shells.
Fantastic Caverns & the Wonders of Wildlife
Last weekend we took a trip north to Springfield to check out Fantastic Caverns. It is the only cave in North America to offer a complete ride-through tour.
It was a neat experience. I have to admit I got a little claustrophobic at times when we had to duck in the tram to get through some places but it was definitely worth it. This was my and the kids’ first time in a cave. The formations were beautiful.
After Fantastic Caverns, we went to Wonders of Wildlife Museum and Aquarium. I was really impressed with their aquarium.
They had multiple different exhibits and I felt they were really immersive. You could even do a Sea Shark Dive in a steel enclosure to come face to face with the sharks.
That’s on Eli’s to-do list next time!
They also have a beautiful section of nature photography that you walk through to get to the wildlife galleries. The wildlife galleries are full of many taxidermy animals from around the world.
There is also a Bass Pro Shop there as well if you are interested in that.
Eureka Springs
We also took a little trip to Eureka Springs to see the Christ of the Ozarks statue. It was pretty empty that day. They have a Holy Land tour and a petting zoo but it wasn’t running and there wasn’t anyone at the petting zoo so that trip seemed a little bit like a flop.
But we did get to do a little bit of shopping in Eureka Springs and try a couple of coffee places. It’s a really fun little town where you can just go up and down the streets and hit all kinds of cute little shops.
The kids love games and there was a game store we got to go into so they were happy about that.
The World’s Largest Toy Museum
Just the other day we went to The World’s Largest Toy Museum.
It’s 2 different buildings with 3 sections full of more than a million kids toys dating from the 1800s to today. It was neat for Brian and I to be able to show our kids things that we played with when we were kids like Hess trucks, Erector sets, some older Fisher Price toys, and Beanie Babies.
The kids also even found some toys there that we already own. It was a cool little place if you are ever in the Branson area.
Still Going Strong
It has been a fun ten days and we have a lot more fun planned for the next 2 weeks. The only downside to this area is that we are a good 45 minutes from Branson and with the roads being so twisty, a few of the kids get car sick every time we head over there. I bought some Dramamine before we even left Pennsylvania not thinking we would actually need it but I’m super glad we have it!
In just a few days it’ll be a month since we have left Pennsylvania. We had a few rough days to start but we are getting into a rhythm and having a blast!
