September 23 More Branson Shows

Another early start at we had tickets to see the Roy Roger’s Junior show at 10:00 at the Mickey Gilley Theatre. I made scrambled eggs with cheese and ham with toast. Didn’t know what time we’d get out of the show for lunch so that would tide us over well.

Bill and Roy Jr

Bill and Dustin

We had to be at the theatre by 9 to pick up our tickets and pay for them as they would not take a credit card over the phone. We got there at 8:45 so we once again checked out the gift shop, looked at the memorabilia and sat in the lobby and read til the doors opened. It was very sad that there were not more than 50 people there. The show was excellent although Roy Jr. (Dusty) has a much deeper voice, he sings really well. We also got to hear Dustin Rogers, who is Roy’s grandson. He actually was a fire fighter in CA and then moved to Branson when his folks moved there to open the Roy Rogers Museum and do the show and is a fireman. Sadly, the museum didn’t do well and the family closed it and auctioned off Trigger, Bullet and the rest of the great items. We were lucky to visit it when it was in CA and got to meet Roy in his old age when he was riding Trigger 3, his electric scooter. Dustin looks more like Roy in size and facial structure and even sounds more like him, but needs more work on his singing. Dusty has the same squinty eyes. They talked a lot about Roy and Dale and their lives. They had 9 children between them. Roy’s first wife died after 10 years of marriage from an embolism after the birth of Roy Jr. They did a nice tribute to Roy and all the old singing cowboys, in addition to some patriotic songs and a bit of gospel. They came down and signed items and met the audience and let you take photos, etc. Bill was happy to have his photo taken with the next to generations of Rogers as I did get his photo with Roy when he met him.

When the show was over we went kinda next door to the other outlet mall, but a lot of it was empty. Only bought a utility knife and a bottle of bbq sauce. Still looking for a new purse!

We lunched at the Mickey Gilley Café. It was OK. Most of the menu was southern fried so I had the lunch special of chicken fried steak with white gravy and Bill had a fried chicken sandwich. I videoed some of the Main Drag on the way back to the RV where Xena was anxious to see us and go for a long walk. I did some wash and tidying up and Bill did some outside stuff, I don’t really know what he was doing out there. Since the internet is spotty and today the cable was snowy, I called the office to see if they could do anything so they send a guy out. He did get the cable running better but basically someone’s rig is blocking the signal to me. They have 4 signals and said where we are normally get a good strong signal. So it still comes and goes and it’s very frustrating when I try to download photo to the blog.

No dinner with the show tonight so we had leftover enchiladas, beans and a salad. Helped make some space in the fridge. Earlier I had made some guacamole with the last 3 of the avocados I brought from dad’s tree. They will be the last we get this year but the guacamole was really good with dinner.

Bill and the Boys

Backdrop at the show

We needed to be at the theater by 7:30 when the doors opened but left at 7 and it’s only 5 minutes from here. Tonight was The Oak Ridge Boys at the Oak Ridge Boys Theatre. Good thing we were early as the place was close to full and we’d have had to park a mile away. The theatre holds over 2500 and was pretty close to full. The show was awesome! It was great to sing along to all the old hits. The Oak Ridge Boys started in the late 30’s as the Clodhoppers and were asked to perform on Saturday nights in Oak Ridge, TN and became known at The Oak Ridge Boys. Over the years as members dropped out a new one would come in and the current Oak Ridge Boys have all been there since 1965, 66, 72 and 73. So they’ve been together the longest of any and that’s 37 years, longer than most marriages. These guys have to be late 50’s into 70’s. The crowd was very responsive to the new material as well as the old songs. I left humming Elvira over and over!