We usually plan our vacation nights well in advance. On a massive loop tour around the western half of the country, we did just that, except for a stretch across New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. We left that open to options to see where our energy ended that day. Around mid-afternoon, we pulled out the Atlas to project where we could end up. We checked our Tiple-A Trip Tik and books for lodging and, ideally, something to see.
Now, I know this will sound ridiculous to those in a large swath of the country, but we had no idea what awaited us in Branson, Missouri. We wondered why such an out-of-the-way place had this cool Titanic Museum in a building where the façade was made to look like the actual ship. It was even surrounded by water. We figured it was just an ordinary town in “drive-over country.”
Tired as we were when we neared, our minds were ready for dinner, the museum, and the pool. Then—BOOM! Snail-paced traffic.
This was no sleepy town; it was a Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Niagara Falls-type tourist haven. Talking to folks during this adventurous night, we learned it was a hotspot drawing vacationers from many of the surrounding states and beyond. But you probably already knew that.
They were shocked we had never heard of it, and after several conversations, we were shocked, too.
To this day, we laugh about our naivety.
We experienced something similar on a lengthy East Coast loop tour. On the road back to Ohio, we wanted to break up that drive with a couple of stops, so we picked the Baseball Hall of Fame and Falling Water. The rolling wooded hills on the way to Cooperstown, New York, for a bucket list stop of mine to see the hall of fame, lulled us into a charming, low-key mood. I mentioned earlier that we usually book stays far in advance. Well, when we did, we had no idea our stay would be smack in the middle of the Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony Weekend in Cooperstown.
The otherwise sleepy and gorgeous small town was packed with baseball fans from Cincinnati and Chicago to see Barry Larkin and Ron Santo inducted into the Hall. It was quite shocking to stumble into the middle of this scene so unexpectedly, but it made the day even more special. We kept pinching ourselves and asking, “How could this be happening?”
Crazy!
On a jaunt through rural Colorado, we turned a corner in a town to find ourselves in the strangest situation out of the blue. A full-on Fourth of July parade was in the opposing lane, with floats and all. We didn’t do anything wrong. For some reason, the whole street wasn’t closed, leaving our lane open to legitimately drive on. On one side of us was a curb lined with lawn chairs several rows back. My wife could slap five with some; we were so close. On the other side, shadows swallowed our vehicle from the big floats just out of my reach on the driver’s side. Granted, our speed went from 25 miles per hour to barely five miles per hour.
We had the best seats in town for the spectacle we never saw coming!
Hitting the road less traveled out of Arches National Park, I wanted to make good time on our way to Rocky Mountain National Park. Somewhere along the desolate road we whizzed past a scene out the side window that had us doing double-takes all around. We drove on a bit, wondering about the shell of a town that disappeared from the rear-view mirror. We determined we had to go back to check it out. We entered the old ghost town with a slow roll, trying to take in the shabby condition nature left barely standing. It was a rubble reminder of what was once a mining and railroad town dating back to the 1800s.
Our quick research said it was a ghost town with no residents for years. Yet, we pulled around a corner, and a car pulled out from a shanty-looking building. It was a post office of sorts, I guess. Nobody was there, though. The car left a trail of dust.
My family felt like we were trespassing and didn’t want to stop. I got out to take some photos, anyway, promising to be quick. The whole vibe of the place crept my family out, so they stayed in the car and just said, “Hurry up!”
That’s when a door opened across the way. First, I never expected a door to open anywhere. Doors didn’t seem to be anywhere, and this one seemed to be on the façade of a pile of debris you might see in a bombed-out building.
A teeny young woman approached me with a gun on her hip and a dog by her side.
I looked at my vehicle up ahead, then back at her, still trying to figure out where she came from and what she was doing there.
She wanted to know the same from me, adjusting her posture to ensure that I and anyone else in my vehicle knew about her sidearm.
I laughed in my head, thinking if my wife and kids had been freaked out before, imagine now.
As I explained how we came to be there, she let her guard down just enough to invite a bit of conversation. I imagined she was starved for it.
She said she was house-sitting for her friends’ place while the couple traveled to I don’t know where. I respectfully asked her if it would be okay to take some photos. She said, “Of course!” And after a bit more chitchat, she walked back into the wreckage. I wondered what the living conditions were like inside.
Later, we learned about a movie filmed there, in the ghost town of Cisco, Utah—Vanishing Point.
By Frank Rocco Satullo, The OhioTraveler, Your Tour Guide to Fun!
