Getting the flavor of...Georgia’s moving earth, and more

Georgia’s moving earth

The vast Okefenokee Swamp possesses “an incredible primordial beauty,” said Mary Ann Anderson in The Washington Post. Located “as far south in Georgia as you can get without falling over into Florida,” the 700-square-mile wetland was ravaged by massive fires in 2007 and 2011, but recovery comes naturally to a landscape like this, still home to hundreds of species of animal and plant life. My guide from Okefenokee Adventures (okefenokeeadventures.com) forced me to leave our boat at one point and jump up and down on a peat mound rising out from the swamp’s black water. As advertised, the ground quivered: After all, okefenokee is a Creek Indian word meaning “trembling earth.” The water’s dark hue comes from tannic acid released by decaying plants, and it “reflects like quicksilver.” But “my favorite phenomenon of the swamp is its utter quietness”—a quietness that transforms as you listen into “a perfectly composed symphony of nature.”

Missouri’s kitschy hot spot

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Branson, Mo., isn’t just about country music, said Jayne Clark in USA Today. “A bastion of G-rated entertainment” that has had its ups and downs since 60 Minutes labeled it “the live country music capital of the universe” in 1991, the Ozarks vacation town offers oddball wonders at every turn. Where else can you board a riverboat and see a Juilliard-trained musician perform acrobatics while playing violin? (That would be on the Showboat Branson Belle.) Or how about the world’s largest ball of twine? (You’ll find the 6-ton orb sitting inside Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Odditorium.) Tragedy buffs may want to stop by the Titanic Museum Attraction, a half-scale replica of the doomed ship that displays artifacts from the wreck as well as reproductions of its staterooms and grand staircase. Last stop? Make it Dick’s 5 & 10, a “crammed-to-the-rafters” miracle of a shopping establishment that specializes in discontinued consumer products, from Betty Boop house slippers to cast-iron bacon presses.