One week ago today on Sunday I left home at the ungodly hour of 3am, leaving the Cowboy and Emmi warm and snug in their beds. It was time for a girlfriend trip to see my dear friend Kelly in Kansas City. It was raining and the trip to the airport was slow–dark, raining, watching for deer/elk–it was slow. I know this makes me sound old but we just don’t drive at night often–so I’m way out of practice.
Kansas City has a brand spanking new airport and Kelly was waiting for me with her million dollar smile. It was so, so good to see her. We talked, talked and talked some more, dined on great food, traveled to Pawhuska, Oklahoma to Pioneer Woman country, spent two nights in a cute, quaint older home Airbnb in Pawhuska, toured the area and drove back to Kansas City. I flew home Thursday afternoon to the Cowboy and Emmi.
This house belonged to the people who owned our Airbnb located right next door. I loved this house and almost asked for a tour!! Pawhuska is full of older homes such as this one–some in good condition, some in sad condition.
Kelly’s home located in a fabulous neighborhood is so beautiful and my accommodations were five star! Except for that pool that didn’t have any water!! 🙂 🙂 The pool is in the process of being refurbished.
How wonderful it is to live close to fabulous restaurants, one after another! And a grocery store on every corner! While I love the quietness and beauty of where we live on both ends of the country there is definitely something to be said for convenience!
We almost didn’t go to Pawhuska after Googling the location and reading that it could be horribly crowded. It wasn’t crowded in the least! In fact Kelly and I were wondering how the various shops stayed in business with so few tourists. Many of the old buildings in downtown Pawhuska are vacant. At one time Pawhuska was a booming town–the book Killers of the Flower Moon tells the sad, disturbing story of the murders of members of the Osage tribe who in the 1920’s were the richest people per capita in the world due to the discovery of oil beneath their land.
The Mercantile was packed full of “stuff” and not a lot of people seemed to be buying. The Pioneer Woman restaurant had a two hour wait for a table at 1:30pm–probably due to lack of staff. We chose to order food to go taking it upstairs to an open area near the coffee shop filled with comfortable seating. We dined in two Pioneer Woman restaurants and hit the ice cream shop–the food was very good.
On Tuesday we drove out to the “Lodge” where Pioneer Woman films her cooking shows. No Pioneer Woman or her Cowboy sightings but we did see her sister buying baked goods in the coffee shop. Long ago I read that the Drummond Ranch leases land to the BLM for wild horse grazing. The gentleman manning the “Lodge” told me upon hearing I was from Montana that some of the wild horses we saw in the fields were from Montana.
The Nature Conservancy Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is about 15 miles outside Pawhuska. The tallgrass prairie once spanned 14 states and covered over 142 million acres. Today less than 4% of the original tallgrass prairie remains most of it having been converted to farmland. The Conservancy uses fire and bison to recreate a functioning tallgrass ecosystem. There are 2300 bison living on the preserve.
Wednesday we drove back to Kansas City, took a walk through the neighborhood stopping to visit some of Kelly’s neighbors and dined at a delightful restaurant two minutes from Kelly’s house. In that shopping center there are probably seven restaurants from which to choose–just two minutes from Kelly’s house.
Back home in Montana it’s finally spring–we have leaves and the grass is so green! But–compliments of huge fires in Canada we have smoke–way, way too early for smoke! Driving home from the airport Thursday evening the mountains were invisible behind that wall of smoke. This morning the smoke had lessened, as I post this blog the smoke is back, obscuring the mountains totally.
We continue to work on the RV, I’ve been trying to walk 3 miles every other day with success and we try and complete all the other chores that pop up this time of year–mowing, weed whacking, weed spraying, clean the gutters, wash the windows–the list is endless!
Life is good!
Restoration Cowboy Style 
To me, it’s necessary to live in the peace and quiet but it’s so nice to be able to get away to places with good restaurants and shops. The best of both worlds. That’s why I enjoy traveling in Beluga so much. I love the final picture of Mike and Emmi and the beautiful (if a little smoky) mountains…..
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You are so right Susan–I may complain about the dearth of restaurants near either of our homes but I also would not want the constant noise of traffic and neighbors in my friend’s neighborhood.
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Hi Janna, what a nice visit with a dear friend. I love meandering streets and stores like the Mercantile and the Tallgrass Conservatory peeked my interest. Love the pair of cows…cows have the sweetest eyes and expressions. But the showstopper in this post is the last photo of Michael and Emmi.
Living in the peace and quiet is necessary which makes yummy and fun places to eat and shopping that much more special. Glad you are home…gay
We don’t like to drive at night either!
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I’m trying to capture our Emmi often now–taking lessons from you. You are right–we do enjoy eating out more when we do manage to get away.
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Oh how jealous of you two gals as I read this tale of two long time nurse friends checking out the world we live in. How did you pick the spot to visit- the book your read or the cooking show by the Pioneer Woman. You both are such amazing cooks and to your credit you set me on a path to become a Foodie of sorts. I value and miss your friendship and influence in my life.
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I’ve always thought it would be interesting to see the Pioneer Woman empire–when I suggested it to Kelly she agreed and said it was only a four hour drive from her house so off we went. Miss you too Shirley!
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What a beautiful and interesting place ,Pawhuska, is. Love the picture of the cowboy gazing at the mountain, pondering life.
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It was interesting and knowing the background of the Osage tribe made it even more interesting. While the Drummond family has lived there for generations, I would love to know how they acquired their land.
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What a fabulous trip & & time with a special friend. I recently read a Peter Bowen book that is centred on characters in Montana- one of the comments that were of note ,was that Bison have a different shaped hoof that irrigates the soil-doesn’t damage or flatten the turf the way a cattle do.Your home landscape looks a awesome & what a terrific pic of Mike & Emma.All the best.
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That’s interesting about the bison–I will have to find that book.
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Hi Janna- you may not care for the P Bowen books but Mike would probably like them—DuPre’ is a Métis sort of vigilante in modern day Montana.I really found the stories interesting as they describe managing ranching ,cattle & survival in the major weather evens.Cheers.
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What a fun trip! I’m so glad you had a good Airbnb experience. It really is wonderful to have restaurants and the other goodies of civilization, but there is a trade off, as you know. We’re hoping we’ve found a good compromise here in North Carolina. We’ve heard great things about Kansas City from other friends, and it’s on our list. We really want to see the tall grass prairie!
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We owned a home in North Ranch, an Escapees RV park near Wickenburg–it was a neighborhood but we found that older, like minded people were quiet and respectful. I bet you find the some thing in your small home community.
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I agree with everybody – that picture is wonderful. What a wonderful time you two had. Exploring quaint shops and eating exceptional food. It is way too early for all that smoke. Hope they get some rain up there.
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Thanks Sandie–hope you are doing well!
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So glad you got to Pawhuska! We had so much fun during our visit. The ice cream shop hadn’t open yet but we loved P-town and Mercantile pastries and coffee. I was luck enough to ask the correct employee in the Merc a question about the beautiful buildings in town. She shared the Osage story and explained how there was a movie being made on the story. I immediately downloaded Killer of the Flower Moon. What a sad story. This woman I was talking to explained how many of the Osage are still getting paid though not as much as one time. She herself was an official Osage Native American. Did you see that the film got a nine minute standing ovation at the Cannes the other day? Can’t wait til it is released in Oct. Love, love that final photo of Michael and Emmi, even with the smoke.
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I did see that about the film at Cannes. I have read Killers of the Flower Moon but bought a copy in Pawhuska to read again and I wanted Mike to read it. I too love that photo of Mike and Emmi girl.
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We missed both places with our shortened route last year and I’m hoping to get back to see the tall grass prairie and all the rest. Maybe the crowds will arrive after Memorial Day in which case your timing was great! Looks like another fun friend visit, it’s wonderful that you make the time to do that 🙂 Love the Michael and Emmi pics – so cute!
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The Tallgrass Prairie was so lush and beautiful–might not be that way into summer but it sure is gorgeous right now.
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What a great visit. That Tall grass is very interesting. It would have been something to see miles and miles of that back in the day.
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