Our RV Adventures

Jan woke up with one of her pretty-much monthly migraines, but with one of her magic pills, and a couple of hours of peace and quiet, she felt good to go.

So about 4pm we headed back west on US60 for Pawhuska and Ree Drummond’s Mercantile to have dinner.

Getting there a little after 4:30, I dropped Jan off with the umbrella so she could get in line while I found a place to park the truck. We noticed everyone in the line was using umbrellas to ward off the sun, which is why we brought ours.

But as it turns out the place has a big stash of umbrellas for everyone to use, as well as fans set up along the sidewalks and a lady handing out free bottles of water.

Great customer service!

When we got in line we were told it would be about 45 minutes, and it was, almost to the minute.

The place is enormous inside, and it needs to be to serve 6 to 15 thousand customers a day. And of course it used to be a big department store back in the day.

We started out with appetizers, sharing a Tomato Soup with Grill Cheese Dippers,

and a order of their Whisky Glazed Carrots.

And even with this first part of our meal, we began to see that every dish is something special

The Tomato Soup was just plain delicious and the Grilled Cheese Dippers were a grilled cheese sandwich made on homemade bread and filled with 3 different cheeses, and then sliced up.

When our waiter set down the carrots the odor of whiskey just wafted over you. And yes, everything in that dish are carrots of one kind or another, even the white and black ones. Again, really delicious.

For her entrée Jan got the Fried Chicken Sandwich and made-in-house potato chips. And the bun was homemade too.

Jan also got a side of the Fancy Mac N Cheese. And we both agreed that it’s the best tasting Mac N Cheese we’ve ever had.

I got the Beef Brisket Reuben, also with homemade bread and potato chips.

The brisket was melt-in-your-mouth good, as well as the entire sandwich. And because we had filled up on the appetizers, we could only eat half our sandwiches, so we had take-home.

After our great meal, Jan of course had to check out the Gift Shop area,

and found several things she just had to have.

Then it was upstairs to the Bakery to get some of Ladd’s (Ree’s husband) favorite Chocolate Pie.

And to Jan’s disappointment, she was told that Ladd had been in just a few minutes before to get him some, and Jan had missed him.

Maybe next time.

Tomorrow’s gong to be a full day. First lunch at Monterey’s Little Mexico, then downtown to check out Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower, Frank Phillips home, an old steam locomotive, and then the  Woolaroc Museum and Wildlife Preserve.

Then it’s out to the Drummond Ranch to take a tour of the Lodge where Ree’s show is taped. Tomorrow is the last day for being able to visit so we really lucked up.

Then it’s back to The Merc for dinner.

YUMM!

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After an easy morning, we pulled out of the I-80 Lakeside RV about 10:15, leaving our lake view site behind.

In about 10 minutes we were back out on I-135 south heading for Bartlesville, OK, about 230 miles away. 80 miles later, just south of Wichita, we got on the I-35 Kansas Turnpike for the last 40 miles before the Oklahoma border.

40 miles for $4.75. Not bad.

And 20 miles later we got off I-35 and onto US60 east for the next 80 miles or so. Then about 10 miles out of Pawhuska we passed the entrance gate to the Drummond Ranch.

Doing a little reading later, I was amazed how large the ranch actually is. At 433,000 acres, the Drummonds are the 17th largest landowners in the US.

WOW! That’s Texas big.

In fact, the Drummond Ranch and The Mercantile, home to Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, is the reason we’re here in the first place. This has been on Jan’s bucket list for a while

Coming though Pawhuska a little after 2pm, we passed the place, and as we had been told, saw the line around the block waiting to get in. According to the web, they serve about 6,000 customers a day, with peaks up to 15,000. All this in a town of only 3,500 people.

We pulled into the Lakeside Recreation Park a little after 3pm and were led to our pull-thru site and got set up.

We had planned to go back to Pawhuska for dinner at The Mercantile, but then decided we wanted something closer and quicker, so we headed right down the road to have dinner at Montana Mike’s Steakhouse. And it turned out to be a really good choice. Great steaks, homemade salad dressings and rolls, and excellent service.

As we were pulling into the restaurant parking lot, we were surprised to see this sign on a restaurant right new door.

Monterey’s Little Mexico is one of our favorite places in the Houston area, and we always thought of it as a Houston chain. And it is, except  for 3 locations in OK, 2 in Tulsa, and this one in Bartlesville. Don’t know if we’ll get to eat there while we’re here.

The only downside to this park, is that just like last night’s park, I can’t get a satellite signal. But they have a good cable TV lineup, so I’m hooked up to that.

I think I may have set a new record. Somehow I managed to use 1GB of data on my MiFi . . . without being online.

I received an email from Verizon at 6:26am yesterday morning saying that I had 1GB left on my MiFi account. And then at 4:29pm, I received another email from them saying that I had now used all my 10GB of data . . . so 1GB in only 10 hours.

The real mystery is that I wasn’t online during this time, or at least,  hardly any of it. We were on the road almost all day, traveling the 330 miles from North Platte, NE to Assaria, KS.

So who was using all my data?

According to a new poll, 7% of adults in the US thinks that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.  And 48% doesn’t know where chocolate milk comes from.

I  think that explains a lot. 

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