#094 : ESCAPE TO THE OZARKS / BRANSON, MISSOURI

Yes, there's a Trump store.

Great American road trips! They are not in my purview, not least of all because I can’t drive. So when my dad told me he had one planned—from Kansas City, Missouri, through the Ozark Mountains, stopping in Bentonville, Arkansas (home of architect Moshe Safdie’s Crystal Bridges) and possibly Mississippi, then finally to New Orleans, Louisiana, for his 50th reunion at Tulane School of Medicine, I asked if I could come.

He said I could, if I could, on Day One, make it to the Kansas City Airport for a 10 AM pickup.

“We’re driving straight to Branson,” he said.

“Where?” I said.

*****

Branson, Missouri—population 12,605—is located right in the Ozark Mountains. On Reddit, people call it “Christian Vegas”, or “Redneck Reno, but with no slot machines”. They complain about the horrible traffic (you have to drive from attraction to attraction), “meth vibes”, extremely overpriced mini-golf, and how the entire “failing tourism district” of a city is slanted towards both young children and the conservative right.

I have to see this, I thought.