Tuesday, March 27, 2018 - Early Morning Wakeup; Breakfast & Shopping at The Merc; Tour of Pawhuska;Tour of Kaw Lake; Ponca City Pictures; Return to Bentley - Dinner, Laundry, Resting!

Tuesday, March 27 & Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Tuesday, March 27, 2018 - Early Morning Wakeup; Breakfast & Shopping at The Merc;  Tour of Pawhuska; Tour of Kaw Lake; Return to Bentley - Dinner, Laundry, Resting!

Today was a busy day from the time I woke up until - well it still is as I am writing this Tuesday evening, although it may have slowed just a little.  I was up at a little after 4 this morning to start the coffee, and to write yesterday's post.  At 5 I woke Dean up.  Our plan is to leave here as close to 6 so we can and drive to Pawhuska for breakfast at The Pioneer Woman's Mercantile.  It was about 6:15 when we left the campground.  It was raining and very dark.  Dean commented it has been a long time since he's driven in the dark.  Being in unfamiliar territory was even worse, and with rain and fog it wasn't all that fun, but we made it to Pawhuska just fine.  It was a little eerie when I started seeing these red lights flashing around us until I realized it was the lights on the big wind turbines.  

We pulled into the parking lot across the street from the Mercantile at 7:02.  The Mercantile opens at 7:00.  Guess who were the first two people in the door?  Yes, we had the place to ourselves.  

 The flowers were carved in the wood on the wall.  It was really beautiful.

Totally empty except for the two of us!

We had a wonderful young waitress, Josie.  She was extremely attentive, answered our questions, and visited with us off and on while we were there.  It was at least 10, maybe 15 minutes before anyone else arrived for breakfast.  I asked Josie if she thought the reason it was slow today was due to the rain.  She said you just can never tell, although Tuesday's are always their slow day.  She told us last week was extremely busy since it was Spring Break and yesterday (Monday) was also very busy.  I'm glad we didn't arrive in Ponca City on Sunday - it might have been a much different morning for us.

Well on to the breakfast menu.  I took a picture to share with you. We can't wait to go back and who knows we might end up going back again tomorrow.  It was that good.  (We did discuss it, but did not go back)

So what did we have?  Dean had "The Farmer's Breakfast" - 2 eggs over medium, sausage, ham and bacon, "Crispy Bits" breakfast potatoes, and a biscuit that was one of the best we've ever tasted.  There is only one other biscuit we've had that we would compare it to.  Years ago we visited a restaurant in Door County Wisconsin that had the lightest and tastiest biscuits ever and these were very similar but Ree's were twice the size.  Today it was served with homemade jam.  Oh my!   

I had "Eggs In A Hole".  Two nicely butter toasted slices of bread with a circle cut out of the middle and an egg cooked inside of each slice.  They gave me the two toasted circles so I could also have homemade jam (raspberry).  Yummy!  It came with the same "Crispy Bits" breakfast potatoes, sausage and bacon.  I also ordered a Cowboy Coffee - "Shot in the dark style" with sarsaparilla and topped with frothed milk.  It was great!

Sorry - I forgot to take pictures before we started eating.  

Cowboy Coffee!

Dean said this breakfast actually compares very well to Circle L (what he compares all breakfasts to - our hometown cafe in Oswego, KS).  That is really a HUGE compliment from him as there has to date been only one other restaurant that even came close.  It is now in third place to Circle L.  

I asked Josie if I could take a picture of her, so she moved around to stand by Dean.  

From here, we headed into the Shopping area of the Mercantile.  Only a few other people came in during the time we were there.  We didn't buy anything, however it was nice to take all the time we wanted to look, without having to walk around someone, or feel like you needed to move on before you were finished because of the crowds.  We felt pretty special having the place almost to ourselves.  

Literally - it was only Dean and I in the shopping area for almost the entire time we were there.

We were about ready to leave when I remembered we had not gone upstairs yet.  Dean said, What's up there?  Me:  The bakery!!  Dean:  Oh, I thought that was just offices or something.  

We walked through the bakery line and looked at all of the treats and finally decided we would take a package of 3 cinnamon rolls.  They really look good, but we are far too full to even think about tasting them right now.

They had the counters decorated for Easter.

Dean took this picture of me upstairs.

It was about 8:15 when we finally left and walked back to the truck.  We drove all around Pawhuska, checking out the sites.  I wanted Dean to see the Triangle Building, which I think is fascinating and he agreed it was a very neat building.  

We drove on up the street north of it by several other stores.  We saw a sign "Welcome to Pawhuska, Gateway to theTallgrass Prairie" so we followed the road.  

Later another sign indicated it was several miles until we would arrive, so we decided to save that for another trip.  We did drive by some very nice houses.  I thought it was interesting they had a Hillcrest Drive (so does Oswego), and it sits on a beautiful bluff overlooking a beautiful valley.  Similar to our Woodcliffe Drive, that is adjacent to our Hillcrest Drive.  

Dean wanted to check out the RV Park.  We talked to someone who told us there was a cattle crossing at the entrance and we weren't sure exactly what it would be like.  The RV Park was called Settle Inn.  It was a very nice little park and we would definitely stay here.  

Sorry for the rain drops.

Nicely laid out park.

Do you see what we saw?

The drive home was really beautiful.  Unfortunately many of my pictures didn't turn out well but here are a few.

It was just gorgeous!

Entrance to the Drummond Ranch

Wind turbines dotted all over the area.

Loved this old combine.

We stopped at Bentley on our way back, and then we took a tour of the Kaw Lake Area.  We visited each of the Corp Campgrounds.  Every campground was very nice with good sized sites that offered both 30 amp electric an water hookups.  We really liked the Sarge Campground the best I think.  They had a nice group of sites near the water and it would make a great place for a casual campout.

We enjoyed driving through Kaw City.  It's kind of unique that the city is in the middle of the lake. 

We thought Kaw City's Welcome Sign was also unique and fun!

Cute deer!

After our drive around the lake we drove in to Ponca City and revisited a few places that Stan and Linda showed us last night.  

Pioneer Woman Statue 

The Pioneer Woman Statue was voted on and selected by the entire nation in 1926.  12 sculptors created bronze statues depicting pioneer women.  The statues traveled by train and were voted on by thousands of people.  Bryant Baker's "Confident" was selected as the statue to honor pioneer women across the nation.  "Confident" was dedicated in 1930 with over 40,000 people in attendance, with Will Rogers serving as Master of Ceremonies for the event.  A museum is nearby honoring women of the past and today.

 Marland Mansion

Oil tycoon E. W. Marland (and a former Governor of Oklahoma) built this mansion in 1928.  It is a 55 room castle modeled after the Davanzati Palace in Florence, Italy, with 24-karat gold leaf-covered ceilings and million-dollar chandeliers.  It is open for tour by the public.  We did not get a chance to do that on this trip but we hope to include it on a future trip.

This might have been the gatekeeper's cottage or the gardener's?  It is at the entrance to the Mansion.

Beautiful pond with young boy fishing or enjoying the out of doors.

Marland Mansion

Statue of a man (possibly a Grandpa) with his children or grandchildren.  

The original entrance to the Mansion has been closed off.  Entrance is now from the side.

I cannot remember where this marker was, but I love the way the metal art depicts the history of Ponca City.

On our return to Bentley, we stopped at the Overlook at Kaw Lake.

Picture taken from the overlook.

After all of this, we were ready to return to Bentley and rest.  I did a few loads of clothes and it was a good feeling to get them done.  I made a sausage pizza for dinner - one of our favorite things to make in our cast iron skillet.  It was delicious.  Later we had the cinnamon rolls we bought at The Pioneer Woman's Bakery for dessert.  We never ate lunch today we were so full from our breakfast so we were pretty hungry by 6:00 this evening.

I started working on the blog but I was too tired to finish it tonight.

Tomorrow we do not have much planned.  I had hoped to meet up with a friend in the area.  Unfortunately she has to attend meetings out of town tomorrow for work, but we will manage to get together at another time - hopefully this fall.  We did have a nice chat on messenger and that was great in itself.  Thanks Kathy!

Wednesday, March 28, 2018 - Quiet Day; Walmart Trip

We were both ready to just stay in today and that's what we did except for a quick trip to Walmart to buy a few groceries.  We were literally almost out of food to eat.  I'm making a roast for supper and we are just having macaroni and cheese with it.  It sounds sooooo good.  Sometimes simple is best, isn't it?  We'll use the leftover roast later for hash...one of our favorite meals. 

I did three more loads of laundry - it doesn't take long to amass a pile of clothes over a week and now it's all taken care of.  Sewer is a good thing!  Lol!   

There really isn't anything else to tell.  We've just been a little busy and a little lazy today.  We'll pull up stakes tomorrow and drive 100 miles north to Wichita where we will spend a week with the oldest and youngest sons and their families.  We look forward to seeing them all.  I'm sure I'll have lots to share once we are there.