The Other Branson

When I think of Branson, the first thing that comes to mind is the entertainment strip and all of the shows.  That is not something that neither Rick or I was interested in, so we found other things to do while in the Branson area.  We stayed at Table Rock Lake State Park.  The lake is beautiful and you could spend your time their or on one of the walking trails without ever leaving the state park area.

We did go into downtown Branson and walk along the boardwalk (actually sidewalk) that runs along Lake Taneycomo.  

While were were downtown, we went into Dick's 5 and 10 store.  This store was a has ALL kinds of toys, candy, souvenirs, Christmas stuff, etc.  You can spend quite a lot of time just looking at all the stuff they have.

We also had ice cream at Mr. B's.  This was an old-fashioned ice cream parlor that I also recommend visiting.

One of my favorite places we went to was the Shepherd of the Hills Fish Hatchery.  It is free (except if you want to feed the fish).  They have gumball type machines with fish food in them.  The fish hatchery raises both rainbow and brown trout to release into Lake Taneycomo. 

Another place I enjoyed visiting was the Dewey Short Visitor Center.  Inside, you will find a history of the dam at Table Rock Lake and the history flooding in the area.  The visitor center is 3 stories with observation decks on the 2nd and third story.  From the 3rd story, you can look out over the lake and see the "shelf" rock.

We also visited the Branson Craft Mall.  This building is set up with vendor booths and a restaurant in the back.  We bought several things there and took pictures of ourselves in the big chair at the front.













We also stopped at the Scenic Overlook that looks out over Lake Taneycomo.  This overlook offers great views of the area.

One of the things that we didn't do is go on the Branson Belle.  This is a very popular venue in Branson.  It is a big paddle wheel boat that offers lunch (or dinner), a show, and a cruise on Table Rock Lake.  The price for adults is $55, which isn't too bad when you consider the meal and boat ride.  I really didn't care about the entertainment portion.  If we had been there longer, I may have gone on the lunch one in order to see the lake from the river boat.

Even if you are not into the "shows", the Branson area has a lot to see and do.  We enjoyed our trip here.

Table Rock Lake State Park Campground Review

From Woolly Hollow State Park, we traveled north on Hwy 65 to Table Rock Lake State Park.  This was our first camping trip to Missouri.  The drive from Bee Branch, AR to Harrision, AR has a few steep grades on 2-lane roads, but once you get to Harrison, the road widens to double lane highway.  

Once you reach the campground office, you will get a map that shows where your spot is and how to get there.  There are 2 campgrounds at Table Rock Lake State Park.  Campground 2 is close to the marina.  We were in Campground 1 which has 2 main loops.  Our section looked to be a new section that had full hookups.  The older section had electricity, but no water hookups.  You can get fresh water at the dump station area, much like a lot of the Greers Ferry Lake campgrounds.  The trade-off is the full hookup sites have little shade, while the electric only had nice mature trees.

We were in site #128, which did offer some shade if you moved your chair around a bit.  This campground stayed pretty full, even during the middle of the week.  It looked like most people use this campground as their spot from which to explore the greater Branson area.  

All sites in our loop were asphalt with a concrete area to the side with a picnic table.  There are fire rings with a flip top grill grate, but not a separate grill.  The bath house is similar to the ones I see at U.S. Forest Service campgrounds.  The shower stalls are little rooms where you can lock the door.  They had some kind of very low-flow shower head at the bath house and it was pretty hard to take a shower and get all the shampoo out of your hair.

Table Rock Lake is absolutely beautiful.  It has very clear water and is popular for fishing and other recreational water activities.  We went down to the lake several times and even tried to get Sally Mae to swim, but she didn't like it once it got above here "elbows". 

There is a paved trail that goes all the way from the State Park Marina to the Dewey Short visitor center.  We walked it (or part of it) several times while were were there.  We biked it from our campground to the visitor center.  Along this trail, you will come across the boat ramps, the Branson Belle, the Army COE office and the visitor center.

We could pick up lots of over-the-air channels on the TV from the Springfield, MO and both my Sprint phone and Rick's C-spire service had 4G (until Rick took his phone for a swim).

Woolly Hollow State Park Campground Review

We decided to go to Table Rock Lake State Park on our annual "vacation" camping trip this year.  I looked for a place to stay for a couple of days on the way up there from Mississippi to break up the drive.  I found Woolly Hollow State Park in Greenbrier, Arkansas.  The park is located a few miles off of Hwy 65, not too far north of Conway, AR.  

What a great find!  This is a relatively small campground with 30 full hookup sites and 10 tent sites.  The full hookup sites also have a tent pad.  The RV sites are very nice with asphalt parking and good space between them for privacy.  Most have decent shade, as well.  They are equipped with fire rings, grills, and picnic tables.  

We were very happy with our site #1.  This site is a pull-thru with the tent pad down a few steps from the RV site.

Woolly Hollow State Park has a 40 acre lake with a snack bar (open during the summer), boat rentals, and a swim beach.  This would be a fantastic place to bring your kayak.

We did hike part of the Huckleberry Trail.  Sally Mae is getting older (as are her humans), and she has some disc problems so she can't walk as much as she used to.  If we had stayed a day or two longer, I would have liked to walk the rest of the trail.  This park also has a 9.4 mile mountain bike trail.

The bath house was fairly standard.  I confess that I usually like to use the handicap showers, as the regular shower stalls don't have adequate space to keep your clothes dry.  That is what I did here.  The handicap shower has a separate curtained space for dressing.  The water pressure in the bath house was great, but it was pretty weak at the campsite.

The town of Greenbrier has several places you can go to get groceries, ice, gas, etc.  They had a Walmart market and a Harps grocery.  I went in the Walmart and found it to be clean and well-stocked.

Because of the close proximity to Little Rock, we were able to pick up quite a few over-the-air TV stations.  My phone (Sprint) had no service here, but Rick's (C-Spire) did.  We camped here 9/9/18-9/11/18.

We really enjoyed our stay at Woolly Hollow State Park and I would like to go back someday.

Tammany Trace in Mandeville Louisiana

One of the things we wanted to do while camping at Fontainebleau State Park in Mandeville, LA was to bike part of the Tammany Trace.  Tammany Trace is a rails to trails conversion that runs around 30 miles from Covington to Slidell.









We had previously biked the Tanglefoot Trail in Mississippi so were familiar with the rails to trails concept.  We didn't bike as much of this trail as we did the Tanglefoot, but I really liked the part of the trail we did use.  The Tammany

Trace goes through Fontainebleau State Park, so we started there and biked to the Farmer's Market trailhead in Mandeville. 

One of the things I really liked about this section was that it was mostly shaded. I also liked seeing the colorful and eclectic housing in Mandeville that borders the Trace.  I was surprised to see how many bike trails there are in Mandeville.  I would have to say that Mandeville, LA is the most bike-friendly city I have ever visited.  There were trails all thoughout the older residential section that leads to the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain.



One of the things I noticed on the section that we rode is the 4-way stops at almost all of the intersections with vehicle traffic.  I felt like this made for a safer ride across city streets.  The other thing was that in sections were there is not a cross street, there are markers painted on the asphalt of the tail to let you know what to tell 911 dispatch if you need help so that they can find you.

I noticed, once we were on the trail with Sally Mae, that dogs are not supposed to be on the trail.  We made sure that she stayed in her "chariot" and nobody said anything to us about having a dog on the trail.

It appears that the Tammany Trace gets plenty of use and biking the part that I did makes me wish we had a bike trail closer to where we live.