God & Country

"Oh, Branson..." has been the saying of the month.  This place is just silly.  On Sunday, we drove 40 minutes to the nearest big(ger) town, Springfield, to go shopping.  We were ecstatic to find out that there was a Chipotle there.  How weirded out was I when there were only caucasians working there!  And the food wasn't as good as it normally is...and we all know why!  

On Tuesday, we went to Dixie Stampede.  It's like Medieval Times--Branson style.  We were seated around an arena, much like a Rodeo pit.  The food is slopped on the plates by servers in North or South militia uniforms.  We were seated on the North side (the better side, obviously).  There's a musical frenzy complete with horse, piglet, chicken, and mini-pony racing to decide if those representing the North or the South would win.  We were winning (as we ate our whole rotisserie chickens, biscuits, corn on the cob and cream of vegetable soup with no utensils) and then the South cheated and won.  Yeah.  Well, just look at history, guys, we REALLY won.  So there.  The show ended with a finale of flag bearing horse riders with blinking lights on their costume while Dolly Parton was behind on a megatron behind singing "America, the Beautiful."  Terrifyingly wonderful.  

On Wednesday, we finally went to this mini-golf place by the hotel that's full of large dinosaur statues.  There's even a volcano that erupts!!!  They're all about the show here!  We ate again at Cantina Laredo...it's so good.

It's been really interesting getting to know the young people who live here.  They grew up here, obviously, and complain about Branson, but have no intention of ever seeing anywhere else in the world.  In a seasonal town like this one, apparently, everyone goes 3-4 months out of the year (during the slow season) without a job.  Most people work in the hospitality business, and the hotels are 3-10% full during those times.  There's a complete lack of customer service here.  I blame it mostly on ignorance, because without proper training, how are you to know how to apologize?  If a customer comes to you saying that the room you just checked them into is dirty, the appropriate response is not "yeah, ok."   But if you're learning from example, and your superior says that, what are you supposed to do?  It really is a case of they don't know any better.  And while I believe that's not the way to go through life, if that's all you know, what are you to do?

On the bright side, I leave on Sunday :-)