Thursday we traveled to Pawhuska, OK. This is the home of Food Network’s The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond. Her intro says she lives in the middle of nowhere. It was the most rural place we visited, but it is a beautiful area. It was an hour north of Tulsa.
We arrived in town a little early. The first thing we did was find the local tour company that we had found on YouTube. We had been looking forward to the tour and had not been able to find a way to book online ahead of time. We found the building on the edge of town. It is closed but there is a sign in the window that says next tour 2:00 with a phone number. Jeff calls the number and the man said that they are closed until Tuesday that they are planning for a wedding. We then went back to the Osage Nation Visitors Center on the corner where you turn towards downtown. Then we went into the downtown area and found a parking spot. We walked to a couple of stores before lunch. The ladies at The Buckin’ Flamingo were all nice. They specialize in turquoise jewelry. They have cases and cases of beautiful jewelry. They told us they sale live on Facebook every Sunday night at 7PM for 50% off. There was one lady there that gave us a little history of the area and a book and movie recommendation, “Killers of the Flower Moon” by David Grann. Several of the stores had it available for purchase, but I didn’t pick up a copy.
We decided the night before to go ahead and make lunch reservations at Ree’s restaurant at The Merc, It was a good thing that we did. There was a large group that got into the restaurant right in front of us. We stood to the side of the host stand and let the other host know that we had reservations so we were taken directly to our table. Thankfully we did not have to stand in line behind them. They give very generous portions and the food was delicious. They bring an appetizer of biscuits. I had the chicken fried steak with green beans and a side salad and Jeff had the Farmer’s Breakfast, 3 eggs with potatoes and he did the 3 meat sampler.
After lunch we rode through the Tallgrass Prairie. We saw lots of Bison. It was cool to see those big bison just out roaming. There are signs around that say not to get out of your car. I saw somewhere that says if they are in the road not to blow your horn at them or they may charge your car. The lady at the welcome center said that they also have white tailed deer on the prairie.
When we got back to town it was time to check into our hotel. We stayed at the Frontier Hotel. When we were booking our trip they did not have the calendar out that far for The Boarding House, the hotel that Ree Drummond owns, and we didn’t want to take any chances that it sold out quickly. They gave us a welcome letter at check-in with some history of the building. The building that this hotel is in is a five story triangular building that was built in 1912 or 1915 and resembles the Flatiron Building located on Times Square in New York City. When the city of Pawhuska was constructed there was a small triangular shaped piece of land left in the middle of town. For years it was used as a park until this building was constructed in 1912 or 1915. This page that they gave us states both years so does anyone really know? It was used for businesses during the oil boom days and housed commercial businesses like a jewelry store, 100 lawyers, a beauty shop, tobacco stands and doctors offices.
Our room was on the first floor right on the main road that runs through town. It bothered me a little that I was right beside the road, although there is not a lot of traffic.
We spent the rest of the afternoon resting and then grabbed dinner at P-Town Pizza another restaurant that Ree Drummond owns. It is upstairs in a building and downstairs is Charlie’s Sweet Shop (her other business), but Charlie’s never looked open even though the door was unlocked, I checked. We never saw a worker in there and it was kind of dark. We didn’t go in to see if anyone would come from somewhere else and provide service. It may have been monitored by the pizza restaurant upstairs. For dinner I had the Mercantile Strawberry Lemonade. The salad is big enough for 2, but Jeff doesn’t eat salad so I just ate all I wanted and then picked out the good stuff. We just went with a cheese pizza. Everything was delicious. After dinner we walked around downtown before heading back to our hotel.
Friday morning we had reservations at The Merc for breakfast. Although we didn’t really need them for an early breakfast as it was not at all crowded. After breakfast we grabbed directions to the ranch from the register at the store. I tried to get them before breakfast but they weren’t giving them out yet. I guess they want to be sure that no one comes super early before there is someone working to greet them.
Breakfast was huge portions and delicious. We reserved a booth this time. It was beside the table area we sat in the day before, but the pictures make it look like a different restaurant. Didn’t really realize that while there. I had Edna Mae’s pancakes. I went with the butter trio and had whipped butter, honey cinnamon butter and raspberry butter. They were all good, but I mainly used the raspberry butter. Jeff had the Crunch French Toast breakfast. The French toast is crusted in cornflakes and Cap’n Crunch cereal. The waitress also brought us 3 syrups, cinnamon vanilla, sea salt caramel and classic maple. We tried them all but I think we both ultimately ended up using the classic maple.
After breakfast we got ready for the day and headed out to the ranch. The directions are written to head west, not left or right, but west and then by mileage and to look for certain landmarks along the way. We first had to figure out which way was west. Then we had to figure out how to access the tripometer in the car. But we made it and were greeted by a herd of cattle just grazing and laying in a green area on the side of the driveway.
There was a lady there that greeted us, answered questions and took our picture in the kitchen. She told us to look around and that we were welcome to open any doors and drawers as we went. It was really neat to be there and now when we watch her on TV we know where she is and can look for things that we saw. There was a bench right inside the door that I have seen in some of her shows. I didn’t sit on it, but I did see it. There were some people just lounging in the living room area watching some of her old shows that they had playing on the TVs in that area. It was awesome that she and Ladd open it for visitors. The lady there told us that it was Ladd’s idea to do it when they first opened the restaurant and the wait was so long. It gave the people waiting something else to experience while they waited. That they would call them on the phone when their table was ready and hold the table to give them time to drive back to town.
The day was overcast and then as we were heading back to town we ran into some smoke. Something was on fire, could have been a controlled burn. We never saw where all the smoke was coming from, but we definitely saw the smoke.
When we got back to town we walked around visiting all the businesses. We picked up a prickly pear drink from the soda fountain that was in the local pharmacy. Then we spent the afternoon resting and packing up to head home the next day.
For dinner we went to a local restaurant called Buffalo Joe’s. This is one of those places where everybody knows everybody. We started with mac and cheese bites. I had grilled chicken and a baked potato and Jeff had The Hot Hamburger which was an open faced burger on Texas toast covered with fries and brown gravy and he had a side of mac and cheese.
We did another walk around town and then Saturday morning we stopped back at Buffalo Joes for breakfast on the way to the airport.
We flew out of Tulsa. It was a small airport and not busy. We were the only customer’s at the American airlines desk. We had to check in at the airport because of the cancelled flight at the beginning of our trip we ended up with two accounts showing up. Took the agent a few minutes to figure out which one to check us in on. Once that was done we headed to security where there were 3, yes 3 people in front of us. I don’t know if is it always like this, but was definitely a more relaxed atmosphere. And this girl made it through security at both airports with no issues!!! Which is rare, I usually get stopped and checked at one or the other. At this point there is NO WAY I’d try to take something with me that I knew not to. LOL!!!
This was a very enjoyable week. One that we have talked about for years. So glad we finally planned it and went!! Is there a trip you’ve been talking about? I encourage you to plan it and GO!!! No time like the present to cross it off your bucket list. We are now talking about and planning a bucket list trip for 2027, stay tuned.