We rode the scooter over the Branson Landing Bridge to downtown Branson yesterday. In previous posts, I said Turkey Creek RV Village was across the river from Branson. It looks like a river on the map. It’s actually part of Lake Taneycomo. When I looked at the map again, I thought maybe it’s a canal between the lakes. But it’s runoff from the dam at Table Rock Lake that runs to Lake Taneycomo – that’s a river in my opinion, but they consider it an inlet off Lake Taneycomo here.

We scootered along Branson Landing past the big Bass Pro Shops store and turned up Main Street. It’s very hilly around here – only the roads along the lake are flat. As soon as you hit Main Street and go away from the lake, you begin climbing.

The traffic really backs up on Main Street. There’s a traffic light at Veterans Boulevard (Business 65). The two intersections east of there have four-way stop signs. The traffic light has such a long cycle time that traffic backs up through both stop signs on Main Street. With the traffic on Main Street standing still, the traffic on the cross streets – Sycamore and Commercial – go on through. When Main Street starts moving, everyone is confused about who’s turn it is to go next at the four-way stop.

We turned off Main Street at the first intersection and found a place to park the scooter. We walked west on Main Street and looked at the shops. It’s very touristy with gift shops and small clothing stores. I ended up buying a T-shirt. They have a free trolley bus that runs from the park at the foot of the Branson Landing Bridge through downtown. I’m not sure of the entire route it follows, but it’s subject to the same traffic snarl as everyone else.

Free trolley bus

After walking around and window shopping, we stopped at Clockers Cafe for lunch. Donna had the daily special which was catfish lightly dusted with corn meal and deep fried. I had the prime rib dip which was thinly sliced prime rib with green peppers, mushrooms, onions and provolone cheese on a hoagie roll served with au jus. Both plates were excellent. The cashier went missing as we were ready to leave. Several customers were lined up at the register waiting to pay for about five minutes before we could head out.

We made another stop at a specialty food shop. They had lots of locally produced sauces, cheese made by Amish farmers north of here and meats they prepare themselves. We tried a few samples and bought sausage sticks for snacks on the road. The homemade sausage sticks don’t have any preservatives, so we froze them for consumption later.

I was a little concerned about a thunderstorm moving in. The forecast called for heavy rain around 3 or 4pm and I could see a storm on my weather app to the west of us, so we scootered out of there.

We rode through the Branson Lakeside RV park on the Lake Taneycomo inlet west of the Branson Landing Bridge. The sites next to the water have a great view, but they’re packed in tight. Roll out your awning and it’ll reach your neighbor’s coach. From there we could see where Turkey Creek runs into Lake Taneycomo and our SKP Turkey Creek RV Village.

After crossing the bridge to Hollister, we stopped at a liquor store near the RV park. They didn’t have much of a selection, so we rode back past the park up the hill to a small grocery store we saw when we first pulled into town. It’s called Sunfest Market and they had a larger selection of beer. I bought a four-pack of Guinness stout (Donna’s favorite) and a six-pack of IPA brewed by Mother’s Brewing in Springfield, Missouri. The IPA is called Lil’ Helper and it’s billed as a “Midwest Coast IPA.” It’s strong at 7% ABV and not too hoppy at 70 IBUs, but it doesn’t match the West Coast IPAs for flavor.

Midwest Coast IPA

After we returned to the RV park, a neighbor moved into site D7 next door to us. I mentioned in my last post how our site, D8, and the one to the left of us, D9, aren’t level. It looked to me like D1 through D7 were fairly level. Looks can be deceiving. Nothing is flat and level around here and site D7 is no exception. Our neighbor ended up stacking blocks under his left front jack and raising the coach high enough to lift the left front tire off the ground to level it.

Blocks under the jack to level the coach

Yesterday’s thunderstorm passed to the north of us and we escaped the rain. Today’s forecast calls for an 80% chance of thunderstorm by 2pm. Maybe we’ll get lucky again, but my weather radar app shows a large storm cell to the west of us.