In Part 1 of his article, Where to Go Outside Branson, travel writer Rich Grant explained that, although this Missouri town draws nine million people a year for concerts, showboats, shopping and lots of nostalgia, treasures also lie out of town. Rich found so much to see, we decided to divide the article in two. Build some extra time into your Branson itinerary to go explore. As Rich said, “the big surprise here is the beauty, history, art and culture of the surrounding Ozark Mountains.”

Keep this Part 2 article handy by saving it to Pinterest to help plan your trip to Missouri. Photos by Rich Grant. Graphic by RealFoodTraveler.com.

Hungry for more? Read Part 1 of Rich’s article about travel outside of Branson.

VISIT THE MOST INCREDIBLE MUSEUM YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF

Alice Louise Walton, a daughter and heir of Walmart founder Sam Walton, has always loved art. She also happens to be the richest woman in the world with a fortune estimated in May 2018 at $41.8 billion. So, when she decided to build an art museum in Bentonville, Arkansas – look out!  Founded in 2005 and opened in 2011, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is quite simply amazing. The free museum (Walmart picks up the entrance tab for you) is comprised of a series of pavilion-like bridges filled with art that cross a stream and surround two spring-fed ponds. But that’s too simple an explanation. You really must look at a model of the facility to figure it out. It’s so complex and mind-altering that it’s easy to get lost.

The Crystal Bridges Museum has dramatic architecture that works with nature.

Much like one of Johnny Morris’s parks with gorgeous modern buildings set into a rugged Arkansas forest and canyon. Alice Walton used to play here as a child and she had world-renowned architect, Moshe Safdie make the landscape an integral part of the museum.

There’s lots to see and do. The art spans five centuries of American art with classics including Norman Rockwell’s “Rosie the Riveter,” Gilbert Stuart’s George Washington (the one that’s on the dollar bill) and others by Georgia O’Keefe, Andy Warhol, and a host of other living and dead Americans. But it’s hard to stay inside looking at art when there’s so much to see outside.

A red sculpture from the Crystal Bridges Museum.

A metal tree sculpture incorporates art and nature at the Crystal Bridges Museum.

There’s a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright that was moved here from New Jersey (where it was in danger of being flooded), and there are 3.5 miles of walking trails through forests, along a stream, and in gardens filled with outdoor sculptures. But the main thing is just looking at the sprawling museum itself, and how it has ingeniously been built into the landscape. More than 3 million people have already visited, and as the museum goes quietly about buying up new masterpieces, it is sure to gain more fame.

Bentonville is where Sam Walton opened his first Five & Dime store. Thanks to the citizens of the town, it was a huge success. The Waltons are paying Bentonville back tenfold.

Even the restaurant at Crystal Bridges Museum is a work of art.

STAY IN AMERICA’S MOST HAUNTED HOTEL

The unofficial capital of the Ozarks is an odd little town called Eureka Springs, which also goes beyond Branson.  Carved directly out of a hillside, the town has no traffic lights, no straight roads, and no streets that intersect at right angles. Once called the “Stairstep Town” because of its many staircases, the village of 2,000 is built on a slope so steep that many buildings have two entrances:  one accessed from a road on the ground floor, and a second entrance on the third floor, where the road has climbed around to meet the same building on its backside, 30 feet higher. It’s an odd feeling to see a bar with packed outdoor deck 30 feet above you, and then continue walking up the curving street until you suddenly find yourself in that same bar, but walking into it from street level.

Beyond Branson, find Eureka Springs where a banner boasts the “best burger in town.”

The great thing about Eureka Springs is that it’s filled with brick and stone Victorian buildings, marking its heyday when the population was ten times larger and (because of its 140 natural springs), it was regarded as one of the great Victorian health resorts of America. In the 1890s, an early promoter marketed the town’s healing springs as “Dr. Jackson’s Eye Water,” and people came from all over the world to be cured of whatever ailed them.

Shop to your heart’s delight in Eureka Springs, beyond Branson.

Today, the entire city has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and dozens and dozens of buildings have been repurposed as bars, breweries, restaurants, cafes, distilleries and every type of tourist shop you can imagine. There are musicians playing on the street, motorcyclists cruising the twisting roads, artists and craftsmen hawking their wares, hundreds of tourists licking ice cream cones, visitors in shorts and wildly colored t-shirts window shopping, and here and there, a slew of bars packed with fun-loving patrons. It’s a town made for chilling out. The type of place to spend an endlessly fun and lazy Sunday afternoon. And, of course, it’s haunted.

Or at least the 1886 Crescent Hotel is. The drop-dead gorgeous Victorian resort on a hilltop has 72 rooms and nine cottages, a “view bar” on the fourth floor, a spa, fine dining, and a spacious and comfortable lobby spread around an open fireplace. It’s been many things in its history besides a hotel, including a college. But most infamously, it was a hospital run by a quack named Norman Baker. He eventually went to prison for mail fraud and for doing nothing for his cancer patients other than giving them the local water. So, of course, his patients died. And the hospital (now hotel) had its own morgue in the basement. You can guess the rest. How many hotels had a morgue in the basement?

The Crescent Hotel in the distance and Morris the Cat’s grave, in the foreground.

One of the most popular activities in Eureka Springs is to take the hotel’s ghost tour. It’s billed as the most haunted hotel in America. Some people taking the tour claim the ghost activity in the hotel is so strong, that during the tour they felt like they were “touched, poked and pinched.”  Happy to report that nothing like that happened on our tour. Nonetheless, the ghost tour was fun, and all had a good time.

Best of all is the ghost of Morris, the hotel cat from 1973-1994. People have felt the ghost of Morris jump on their lap. Well, maybe. But indisputable is that Morris is buried in the hotel’s backyard, and a little exploration will take you to his beautiful little grave with a nice view of the Ozarks and Eureka Springs as a bonus.

If You Go:  For information about everything Branson and Beyond Branson in the Ozarks, visit their website, here.

-Story and photos by Rich Grant