Beef! It’s What’s for Dinner! (AKA Girl’s Trip “Of Death!”)

On a beautiful summer day, I left with my good friends, Darcie and Teresa, to drive to Pawhuska, Oklahoma, population 3500, and home of the Pioneer Woman. If you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years and don’t know who the Pioneer Woman is, she’s Ree Drummond.  Ree is the wife of Ladd Drummond, a cattle baron and owner of 100,000 acres of land in Osage County, Oklahoma that’s been in his family for generations. Ree is a blogger, photographer, and now famous gourmet cook with her own show on Food Network TV. Every week she cooks up something awesome and shows us what life is like on the ranch, miles away from civilization and the closest pizza parlor, which is one reason she became such a good cook.

Ree and her family have been helping rejuvenate the dying town of Pawhuska. First, they bought a big building in the middle of town on the main street of Kihekah that at one time was a big mercantile. (We didn’t know how to correctly pronounce Kihekah, so we called it Kenickie instead, but that’s another story.) They restored the whole thing, put in a restaurant, bakery as well as another mercantile, and named it, what else? The Mercantile, or “The Merc” for short. They didn’t stop there. They then purchased three other buildings and put in an exquisite boarding house with eight rooms for tourists to stay while in Pawhuska, a pizza parlor, and an ice cream/sweet shoppe. Ree also opens the “Lodge”, the place on their ranch where they film her cooking show, at no charge to the public during the summer, and everyone is welcome to look at anything and everything. Nothing is sacred, and you can open every drawer and closet to your heart’s content.

We left Denver late in the afternoon, and as we drove across the prairie land of Colorado and Kansas, it became apparent that a huge dark cloud was following us. We called it the “black cloud of death” because we could see funnel clouds descend to the ground, then go back up, then come back down and go up, again and again. It was a little spooky.

But it wasn’t as bad as the “blue dot of death” that I saw following us. I hate to admit my naivety, but I haven’t been on a road trip in about ten years and when I accessed my Google map to see where we were, I noticed this big pulsating blue dot right on the Interstate behind us! My first thought was that it was the police who were going to pull us over because Darcie was driving like a bat out of hell to get away from the “black cloud of death”.

“I don’t want to alarm anyone,” I said calmly as I watched my iPhone, “but there’s this blue dot following us on the map.”

“Carolyn!” Darcie exclaimed. “That’s us! It’s showing our location! You need to get out more, girlfriend!”

I was relieved and embarrassed, but when she’s right, she’s right. From then on, we referred to it as the “blue dot of death” whenever any of us looked at our Google maps. Like, “From the ‘blue dot of death’, I can tell we’re close to Wichita”. Etc. etc.  I’ll never live that down.

The blue dot of death led us to a motel in Hays, Kansas for the night where we encountered an apocalypse of bugs assaulting our door. All night long we could hear these kamikaze bugs hitting the entrance to our room nonstop. Alfred Hitchcock would’ve loved it. The next morning, I took this picture outside our door, and the one next to us, proof positive that every time I take a trip with Darcie, something weird happens.

 

 

(Am I the only one who takes pictures of bugs outside motel rooms?)

 

 

 

We arrived in Pawhuska and looked for the only blue door on Kihekah Avenue, which was the entrance to the Little Rain Song Loft, our Airbnb. It was easy to find, and what a delight! No kamikaze bugs!

It was a cute boho chic loft located on the second floor of the Little Rain Song Art Studio – large, spacious, clean and unique. We especially liked the screened back porch leading down to a fire pit and patio. Every evening we would sit, drink wine, and watch the fireflies flit around the trees and bushes like little fairies teasing us to come play. Okay, maybe that was the wine talking, but it was very relaxing and memorable. If you ever need a place to stay in Pawhuska, I highly recommend this Airbnb.

We found a list of “70 things to do in Pawhuska”, and for the next two days we started checking things off. We went to “The Merc”;

Checked out the Osage Tribal Museum;

Located at the top of the “hill of death” which we made the mistake of climbing instead of using the “stairs of death”;

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is what we looked like after climbing the “hill of death”. I don’t recommend it.

 

 

Drove through the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve;

Visited the Lodge;

 

Met Yo-yo, Cowboy Josh’s dog;

Relaxed on the front porch of the Lodge;

Crossed the Swinging Bridge, aka “the bridge of death”:

Okay, one of us has very bad vertigo and could only make it the first six feet or so. And yes, that is the look of sheer terror on my face;

Ate dinner at The Merc;

Admired the Drummond Ranch’s Little Red Truck;

And looked for The Grog, the only liquor store in Pawhuska, which wasn’t on the list of things to do, but it was on OUR list.

On Sunday we slept in, and then realized that the list of 70 things to do in Pawhuska didn’t mention you had to do them before 8:00 pm on Saturday night. That’s when the Mercantile closed and so did every business in town. Yep, they pull in the sidewalks and lock the doors in Pawhuska on Sundays, and although we searched and searched there was nary a thing to do.

 

 

My ‘nary a thing to do’ pose

 

 

 

 

So, we packed it in, took one last parting shot of the Drummond Ranch, with its “Beef – it’s what’s for dinner” sign on the post, and followed the “blue dot of death” all the way back to Denver!