Last weekend we took a weekend trip to Branson Missouri. I had last went here, to Silver Dollar City, when I was 2 or 3 years old. All I remember is riding the glass elevator and staying in a hotel room. Maybe I remember being in a cave, or I later saw a picture of a cave and recreated some false memory of it. Regardless, it was the last time my family went on any sort of vacation, ever, with Dad. I guess that’s one reason that I love to get away now, because it was such a rare treat to go anywhere when I was growing up. When my uncle Jack took mom and myself to St Louis when I was 11, it was such a life changing experience. I’ll have to do a separate post about it sometime.

So Branson…I had such range anxiety for the Tesla because there’s no supercharger in Branson. I knew we would make it to Springfield MO ok (with charging stops in Hannibal and Osage Beach). I was worried that, according to A Better Route Planner, if we charged to 90% in Springfield that we would only have 60% to last us all weekend in Branson. It’s an hour drive from Springfield to Branson so it wouldn’t make any sense to drive back to the supercharger when the battery was low. I also had never used a third-party charger before. I’d heard horror stories of these chargers being broken, and even if they did work, it was only Level 2 charger, roughly equivalent to what we have at home. I was seriously contemplating taking the truck on this trip even though that means that we would have to strap down the luggage in the bed.

We left Friday morning at 7am so that we would definitely make it to the Airbnb and the Dolly Parton Stampede in time. The drive from home to Hannibal was brutal on the battery level in the car. I charged to 97% at home and we made to the supercharger at Casey’s in Hannibal with only like 38%. That didn’t bode well for the rest of the trip but looking at the stats I see that about 10% of the use was for preheating the battery so that it would charge faster in Hannibal. The other major chunk was from me driving 85mph and going across a strong crosswind. The next drive from Hannibal to Osage Beach was much better. The air temperature was warmer and the wind was less forceful. The battery usage behaved as expected during that trip.

Going to the charger in Springfield was painless as well. We went to the station and it was half-full, which is a lot of use for Tesla’s stations. I got a notice on the app that charging was limited to 80% because it was a high-use station. That’s easily defeatable by sliding the charge level back up. I set the level to 90% and we all went to eat at a Tropical Cafe smoothie shop.

The smoothies and wraps were great. In fact, Laina and I were talking about how franchisee operations work and what it would take to open one of these stores. The charging level was awesome too. I set the level to 97% because it was charging so fast. We took off and the navigator said we would arrive at the Airbnb (14 miles past Branson) with 80% battery. And sure enough that’s what we had when we arrived. I was super happy with the battery level and that alleviated my anxiety for the whole trip.

The condo we stayed at was in a beautiful part of the state, surrounded by hills with the Silver Dollar City roller coaster off in the distance. It was a small couple of rooms but had high ceilings. There were two bathrooms and enough beds or couches for everyone.

We unpacked and got ready for the Stampede show. It was great entertainment and great food as well. Horses, pigs, chickens, buffaloes, all sort of different animals were trotted out. We noticed how White all the visitors were, in fact, the whole town was full of Whiteness. There was no one on the billboards except Whites. After the show I explained to Laina that this town, entertainment and food were the culture of my people lol.

Back home, around midnight, Elsa came into our room crying because her ear hurt so bad. We thought it was infected, or she got water in it or something. We later learned that she had fluid trapped behind her eardrums. The canal into her sinuses was blocked. So she was quiet and suffering most of the weekend, which was unfortunate for her.

Saturday we drove into an outlet mall area for some retail therapy (after an energetic morning hike). They had level 2 charging there for the car, so I thought this would be a good time to see what it’s all about. The mall area was packed. I found an empty EV charging spot, backed in, got out the J1772 adapter and started charging. It was no cost, which was cool. The charge was 48 amps, about 9kw which was excellent, better than what I had at home and much better than I expected. We went to the stores, I got a pair of Giannis Nike’s after clearing it with my family that they wouldn’t look goofy on a 47 year old guy. It was at this area that I saw a ton of Teslas and other EVs, and plenty of other non-White people. Branson didn’t seem so homogenous after all.

The battery charged back up to 90%. We got some frozen custard and drove around town. Then we went home and got ready for the 7:30 show for the Heygoods. Again, this was a massively entertaining show featuring lasers, light-up banjos, automated recliners driving around, beach balls in the crowd, an upside-down guitar player, upside-down tap dancing, a harp, plenty of fiddles, text messaging, and basically a whole cornucopia of redneck-ified family bluegrass brought into the 21st century. Their social media aspect was impressive; lots of ways to engage and spend money with them.

Both shows we saw fit in nicely with the atmosphere that Branson projects. They both ended with songs about America, with plenty of flags and patriotism. But it’s the good kind of patriotism that I grew up with, just a kind of passive, feel-good love for our awesome country. There was none of this zero-sum, jingoistic, MAGA weaponized “patriotism” that you see today, the kind where you have to put down another group in order to prove how patriotic you are.

Sunday morning we drove to Hurts Donuts and waited in line for like an hour for delicious donuts, definitely worth it. I don’t see the inflation rate going down anytime soon when I’m in situations like this. People still have lots and lots of money to spend on things like gourmet donuts.

Then we drove up to Springfield to eat at Lambert’s Cafe home of the “throwed” rolls. Should be “thrown” rolls, but this is Missoura after all. The food and portions were both great at this place. The hour-and-a-half long wait was great as well. You know, people love the experience of eating. Who would have thunk it. Then we made the long trek home.

All in all it was a great adventure and experience. We plan on going back to Branson again, this time to spend 4-5 days there to do more of the activities around there. I look forward to returning to my ancestral homeland lol.