The roller coaster that jacked up my heart rate

Or if you take your kids to Branson they're going to demand you return again and again

Thank you for being a subscriber.

If you enjoy this newsletter, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here.

Have feedback? Send me a note at mcrossman98@gmail.com.

---

Few places say MERICA! like Branson and Silver Dollar City, so it’s fitting that I drop this story on the Fourth of July. What follows is my latest for Cowboys and Indians Magazine. You can buy it on newsstands or read it online here. I hope you’ll read it and like it and share it with friends.

--

My friend Micah gave me a look I didn’t trust and nodded for me to follow him. We speed-walked across Silver Dollar City, an amusement park in Branson, Missouri, without his telling me where we were going.

He’s been coming to Silver Dollar City for 40 years, so he knows the best rides, where they are, and the fastest way to get to them. The fact he wouldn’t tell me where we were going ... that made me nervous. Micah and I settled into a long line for a big coaster and ... gosh, I hate to admit this, but I was frightened as I looked up at Outlaw Run. 

Apparently 50 is the age at which roller coasters scare me. Outlaw Run twists upside down three times and reaches 68 miles per hour, making it one of the fastest wooden roller coasters in the world, and all of that is great, but what those statistics don’t capture is the intensity. After a slow climb up the first hill, it screamed full throttle for our entire ride.

No, wait, that was me screaming.

I have no idea how many roller coasters I’ve ridden, but I have never, and I mean never ever, been as exhilarated as I was on Outlaw Run, a $10 million jolt of energy that opened in 2013. My heart pounded — I checked my Fitbit, and my heart rate reached 90 as I waited in line, 115 in the middle of the ride, and stayed there for several minutes after. 

So not only is Outlaw Run the best roller coaster I’ve ever been on, it’s also a great workout. 

Micah and I climbed out of our seats and floated across Silver Dollar City to find our kids and wives. Adrenaline put my senses on high alert. The wind nicked my face; the smell of deep-fried something created a longing in my stomach that I would soon satisfy. I heard something, it was faint at first and grew ever louder ... dad ... Dad ... DAD!

What?

This is a family vacation story. Shouldn’t you, um, mention your family?

Ah, yes. I took my kids to Branson to show them a good time and had so much fun myself I almost forgot about Whatshername and Whosit, who in turn enjoyed themselves so much on our four-day trip there in the fall that they immediately started pestering me to take them back, which I did for Thanksgiving ... and the spring ... and Thanksgiving a second time. Silver Dollar City at Christmastime is as great as Silver Dollar City in the fall with the added bonus of 6.5 million lights, 1,000 Christmas trees, and holiday-themed shows.

---

Fishing and Riding and Reading and More

While Micah and I rode Outlaw Run and other big coasters, our kids built their courage on smaller rides. If Silver Dollar City has a ride for everyone, so the Branson area has something for everyone. I’ve pulled trout out of its creeks and bass out of its lakes, learned to use a map and compass in its forests, and eaten a steak the size of my head on a patio at the exclusive Big Cedar Lodge.

My wife, kids, in-laws, and I all enjoyed being transported in time at the Titanic Museum Attraction. We coveted the opulence and shuddered at the terror of that most infamous of disasters. 

In nearby Springfield, I gaped at the region’s natural history on display at Wonders of Wildlife National Museum & Aquarium. With 350,000 square feet, 800 species of wildlife, 35,000 live animals, and a 1.5 million-gallon aquarium, it’s the largest immersive wildlife attraction in the world.

Mansfield, Missouri, is just over an hour’s drive from Branson, but my wife and two girls love to read, so of course we visited the Laura Ingalls Wilder House. We went to her gravesite, and there we met a man who said he met Wilder, author of the Little House series, when he was a boy; his mother owned a beauty salon and Half Pint her-grown-self was a frequent customer. 

That was several years ago. I must confess I have often wondered since then if he was being 100 percent honest or if there’s a secret agreement among Mansfieldians to claim a connection to Wilder when they meet outsiders. 

After several visits to southwest Missouri since then, I’ve decided I don’t care if it’s true.

Come for the fun. 

Stay for the legends. 

There are plenty of them.

---

A Land of Midwest Sensibilities, Southern Accents, and Western Hearts 

Branson is in southwest Missouri, close to the Arkansas and Oklahoma state borders. It’s too far north to be considered the South, too far east to be the West, and too far south to be the Midwest.

Culturally, it feels like a stew of all three regions. The people radiate Midwestern friendliness and Southern hospitality. At first, I thought the barista at Branson Landing, a popular outdoor mall, was joking with her accent as she described how her first day in her new job was going. But then she kept talking ... her strong Southern twang, far from the only one I heard, stood out against flat Midwestern accents.

Like the West, Branson is built on legends, some of which happen to be true, such as this one, from Silver Dollar City’s own history: “... It began as a hole in the ground.”

That hole in the ground is Marvel Cave. The Herschend family leased it in the 1950s and offered tours. They built an 1880s Ozark village on top of it to give customers waiting for a tour of the cave something to do. They named it Silver Dollar City and handed out silver dollars as a promotional gimmick. When customers went home, so the legend goes, they would spend those silver dollars, people would ask where they got them, and, voilà!, free advertising. 

Silver Dollar City featured a blacksmith, general store, and ice cream parlor. Town “residents” performed street theater and funny skits about the feuding Hatfields and McCoys. In its first year, Silver Dollar City drew 125,000 people — far more than the cave.

The Herschends added a craft festival in 1963. Soon woodcarvers, candlemakers, weavers, potters, and more were regulars. Today the cave is still there. The “town” above it grew into an amusement park with the scariest coaster I’ve ever ridden (as I mentioned) and the best amusement park food I’ve ever had. (pro tip: Try everything.)

We stuffed ourselves with barbecue for dinner. I thought we’d slowly walk out. But Whosit, my younger daughter, had spent all day screwing up the courage to ride Thunderation, a roller coaster, and now she finally declared herself ready. I hustled her to the ride before she could change her mind. 

It was dark by then, and there was no line, so we climbed right into our seats without having to wait. As we sped through a swirling righthand turn, the top speed reached 48, and it felt even faster. I grabbed her hand to comfort her. The smile on her face proved that unnecessary. 

We arrived at the bottom of a hill and started to climb. She hates going down big hills — thinks every descent is too fast, too vertical, too argh. The only reason she was on this ride was her sister and friends promised her the ride didn’t go down any big hills. As we crept up, up, up, I looked over, certain she was going to be crying. Her eyes were wet all right, but that was because of the wind and speed. Her hair was swept off her face, and her smile swallowed her ears. 

We reached the top of the hill, raced our way down through a labyrinth of turns, and the end came far too soon.

She insisted we ride again.

---

On the Magic of a Great Show

As the hole in the ground with Silver Dollar City on top of it grew in popularity, so did Branson. Tourists first flocked there after reading Harold Bell Wright’s book The Shepherd of the Hills. The first live music show on The Strip, the Baldknobbers Jamboree, opened in 1959. Today Branson is home to more than 45 theaters and 80 shows.

Whatshername, my older daughter, is a literalist. She believes in right and wrong, black and white, yes and no. She hates not knowing. If I wanted to be mean to her, I’d tell her a riddle but not the answer to it. She doesn’t like to be tricked, to see with her eyes that which she knows can’t be true. 

I say all that so that I can pay illusionist Rick Thomas a compliment: We attended his show Mansion of Dreams, and he thoroughly baffled all of us to the point it bothered my daughter. She couldn’t reconcile the tension between her eyes and brain.

The younger one is more of a detective and saw Thomas’ tricks as mysteries to be solved. After the show, we tried to figure out how Thomas got that audience member’s watch into a seemingly unopened can of soup (and changed the time on the watch), how his assistant’s head could appear to spin completely around, and how the hell he got the dogs, motorcycle, and helicopter on stage. 

I’m sure Google and/or YouTube could tell us, but the conversation in which we tried to figure it out was far more gratifying than learning the truth would have been. 

In other words, I’m siding with the legend, again.