Our Rolling Ranch House: BRANSON, MO. - PART #6, DOLLY PARTON'S DIXIE STAMPEDE!

On Saturday, June 27th, I headed out for a nice walk on this beautiful day. Towards the end of my walk, I got a cup of coffee and headed to Branson Landing to just sit along the Taneycomo Lake and watch fishermen, boaters and wildlife.

In the afternoon we headed to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede and Dinner Theater. At the entrance they have a video showing on their sign.

Ooops, sorry for the side ways picture again. Dolly's signature song is "Butterfly".

Cute girls in Southern Belle dresses greeted everyone and showed us where to pick up our tickets.

We arrived early so we could tour the horse stars of the show. Each horse had a plaque over its stall telling the name, breed and a little something special about the horse.

We found the grooms brushing them down and getting them saddled up for the show.

We headed to a large room where there they had a stage. We were treated to a pre-show of a father his step son who were jugglers. They were comical and so talented and did amazing juggling feats.

Soon another Southern Belle showed everyone to the main show arena and our assigned seats. We had great seats, up close and in the center to watch all the action.

The arena is 35,000 square feet. We sat down and soon met our server Sasha. Dinner is included in the show and Sasha took our drink order, it was unlimited sodas, water and tea.

As we watched all the excitement and entertainment, we feasted on a four course meal. There are no utensils that are provided so you eat with your hands. We had a bowl with a handle of delicious creamed vegetable soup with a tasty herb and cheese roll, a whole cornish hen, half of a large baked potato, a slice of ham, corn on the cob and a delicious apple turnover with coffee. A hot moist towel was supplied after dinner and the dinner and service was wonderful.

At the start of the show, the arena master came in riding on a Friesian. To all my horse friends that do not know horses, a Friesian resembles a light draft horse. They are light on their feet and move gracefully with elevated leg action. They are a tall black horse, powerfully muscled and have thick manes and tails with feathery feet.

If you have seen the movie Zorro with Antonio Banderas, he is riding a Friesian, although in the movie they refer to the horse as a Andalusian.

They were war horses throughout Europe. They carried the knights in armor. They almost became instinct but they are growing in numbers. About 8,000 are in the United States today.

Unfortunately flash and video was not allowed so all my pictures were taken without a flash and this cause the pictures to be blurry. But non the less, at least it will give you an idea of what we saw.

The show featured over 30 horses and top notch riders who performed a variety of tricks and skits along with buffalo and longhorns.

Here a "Roman Rider" is astride two Palomino horses. The rider gallops his horses down the line of several torches. The flame goes between the horses and underneath the rider. Then he galloped around the arena and the horses jumped through a ring of fire while he was on their back.

Unfortunately that picture came out very blurry as did my others. I tried to catch the pig and pony races, square dancing on horseback, just anything where speed was involved did not turn out..

There were several skits with music, square dancing and great magic and illusion tricks.

This was the Belles of the Ball.

There was a great lumberjack contest. The timber was brought in my draft horses pulling a wagon. It was set up and a large inflatable bag was put on the ground for safety. When the announcer said "Go" the lumberjacks raced to the top of the tall pine and then they come down so quickly almost in a free fall and landed on their feet.