Living Positive: Moonshine over Branson

June 5, 2021

This morning we pulled out of the KOA at 6:07am! An absolute record for the earliest start for the Ostwalds! My motivation was that we were stopping up the road at Starbucks - not just for a cup of daily motivation but also for a Kansas mug. I try to collect them wherever we go and had not yet added a Kansas cup to my collection. With coffee and mug secured, off to Missouri we went.

Missouri is very green. And, unlike Colorado and Kansas, trees line the sides of the highway so you can’t see much beyond them. Our early start today was so that we would arrive in Springfield, Missouri before 2pm. We had tickets to enter the Wonders of Wildlife National Museum and Aquarium at 2pm. We made it in good time and were able to have lunch in the parking lot. That is a great thing about trailers, you always have your lunch and table with you!

The Wonders and Wildlife National Museum and Aquarium was created and funded by Johnny Morris, founder of Bass Pro shops. Of course the museum is connected to a very large Bass Pro shop which we had to visit as well! The museum and aquarium covers 350,000 square feet with around 35,000 animals, although most of them are dead(!) There were impressive displays and encouraged animal and land conservation but this was a little contradictory since there was so much taxidermy. There were live fish in the 3 story fish tank and one highlight was the playful penguins. All in all we were glad we stopped and clocked an impressive number of steps on our pedometers.

Branson was just a short 40 minute drive and we were pleasantly surprised to have an RV spot right next to Lake Taneycomo. This lake is actually a reservoir on the White river. It is not very wide but it flows through the historic Branson downtown area. We easily walked to the historic downtown, ate outside by the river, perused through the infamous Dick’s 5&10 and did a little moonshine tasting!