July 4th 2013 visit to Shattuck Windmill Museum

July 4th started in Laverne at the centennial parade after pancake breakfast with Jim and Darla Waldrop. Then it was off to Shattuck in our Ford Retrac's for a quick lunch and then on to check out the Shattuck Windmill Museum.

Darla's checking the place out with her ever present Dr Pepper!

This old Soddy was really cool! This is a water wheel from an old mill and it seemed right at home with the windmills!

 From the dirt floor to this old bed, the soddy offered all the comforts of home; well, maybe 100 years ago!

Jim decided to take a break on one of several benches placed throughout the park area. 

The tour guide showed up to get us inside the Soddy. He was full of information in a fun way!

Don't they look like a honeymoon couple?

What on earth is that on the roof? Well, besides earth, there are some cow skulls and cactus!

Lots of windmills, each with a story to tell about the pioneer days in Oklahoma.

I was amazed at the size of some of these! 

This we were told is the Windmill Museum B and B and for a mere $3.60 per night you can get a room. There was no mention of amenities such as a bath room or air conditioning. The guide told us that is this was out of our budget we could get the Soddy for $2.00. I know where the bathroom was there!

The Shattuck Windmill Museum was well worth the stop. If you park out front you can tune your car radio in to hear all about the windmills, we enjoyed it a lot and will probably make a return visit in the fall when it's not quite so hot!

Guymon Gourmet

I went to Guymon last week on a business trip and stopped to visit with a lady I had worked with briefly a year ago when she and her husband first decided to open a coffee shop. One of Susan Barias's goals was to not only serve good coffee drinks (they told me they are both addicted to coffee) but to provide a healthy place to eat and a comfortable place for people of all ages to gather and connect. The result of that dream is Urban Bru, a coffee house that serves scrumptious frappe's  and out of this world smoothies like the Mocha frappe and the strawberry smoothie that Laura and I had for lunch. 

And speaking of lunch, Laura enjoyed this fabulous Strawberry Fields salad made with spinach and fresh strawberries and laced with nuts and cheese! She ate every bite!

 My choice was this Southwestern sandwich, filled with chicken and a spicy southwest sauce. It was HUGE, the bread was awesome and I sure did enjoy it!

 Melyn Johnson joined us for lunch and she enjoyed this Mandarin Salad along with a croissant filled with a cranberry chicken salad. (I went back that night and tried this sandwich and it was also wonderful!)

My friends Laura Girty and Melyn Johnson as we prepared to enjoy a leisurely lunch.

 Melyn's final touch to her meal is this Mocha Locha, and doesn't it look wonderful!

 Did I mention dessert? Looks good enough to eat, doesn't it?

Urban Bru is located at 418 NW 21st St in Guymon. Stop in and check out the delights when you are there. Everything they serve is made fresh right there in their kitchen every day! Stop in, sit and relax, you may see some customers engaged in a lively game of Monopoly or Scrabble, or a quiet corner may be the preferred spot for the checker game. Young, old and in between all seem to enjoy the hospitality at Urban Bru!

Escape to Kansas!

Looking for a lazy way to spend a Sunday afternoon? Labor Day 2010 found us in Great Bend KS, and after a leisurely breakfast at a Perkins near our motel, we took a short jaunt up to Hoisington where the parade was lining up. Of course our interest was the classic cars.

After a short stay there we returned to Great Bend and stopped at their ZOO. Yes, Great Bend has a zoo, and we had been there over 30 years ago with our then small children. It proved to be a welcome stopping point on a trip from Iowa to Oklahoma. Of course as with all things, it didn't seem the same as it was, but we did enjoy seeing the big cats.

This big guy wasn't bothered at all by people checking him out.

Give him some shade and he's a happy camper!

these two were pretty amazing to watch as well.

Great Bend Kansas is located on Highway 281 about center Kansas.

While I don't generally recommend chain restaurants, the Perkins here is an exception to that rule. We had evening, breakfast and lunch there and enjoyed each meal. The service was way, way above average, and be sure to check out their dessert selections!

Home Town Pride

Most of the time I think I have to travel somewhere to find interesting and cool things to see. This time I stayed right at home in Waynoka and watched a community really come together to get ready for company.

Every five years Waynoka hosts an all school alumni reunion. 2010 is the year everyone comes home. Our local chamber took a look around and tried to see the town through the eyes of a visitor. We needed some pizzaz! All of the light poles in the downtown area were in sad need of some paint, so we started with a paint the pole party. No theme, no assigned design or even pole, though downtown businesses were given the opportunity to adopt the pole nearest their business. We thought we would have a hard time getting the downtown square done before the reunion on Labor Day weekend. Artists came from everywhere to share their talents, some didn't even live "in town" but in the larger farming community we share. NO two poles are alike, everyone brought their own ideas to the pole.

What an awesome sight, Tuesday night when I locked up the liquor store to go home at 9 p.m. there were people everywhere still painting on their poles! We ran out of downtown poles to adopt, so we are reaching further out in the community. I got some pictures of the poles and in a few instances the people painting.

Our little town will have something new and creative to see, both for the returning alumni and for our tourists who will be starting the fall season at Little Sahara.

GOOD JOB WAYNOKA!

Shorty's at Buffalo, OK

Shorty's Cafe in Buffalo Ok is a new restaurant, located on highway 64 on the south side of town. Deven has spent about a year renovating the old LaMunyon Cafe and the end result is well worth the wait!

We stopped for lunch recently and had some amazing food! Pictured here is the Philly Steak Sandwich with some yummy onion rings.

This is a steak sandwich, heavy on the steak, light on the bun! And while it was very good, I couldn't eat the whole thing, so go there with your appetite firmly charged up!

yes, this is real size!

Shorty's has done an awesome job with the decor inside as well, setting an old western theme that includes a neat poster of the Sons of the Pioneers and good ole' western swing music playing quietly in the background. The walls have an aged appearance and the bathrooms are unique. I won't tell you, you, you just have to go see for yourself!

Shorty's is open for lunch and dinner most days. Deven tells me she is still working to set hours that will meet her customer's needs. If you are passing through Buffalo watch for Shorty's Cafe and stop in for a great meal!

Shady Lady in Perry

The Shady Lady is a restaurant, meeting place and catering facility located in Perry OK. The historic building was once a boarding house, and form the outside appears to have had periodic additions.

We had a delicious lunch, here is a reuben plate and of course I had eaten part of it before I decided to take the picture! couldn't wait, it was wonderful!

There was a wonderful cookbook there with special Shady Lady recipes.


and would you look at this pie!

Red Rock State Park

headed into the park is a great scenic drive!

one of the walls where Rapelling is welcome! we could see ropes hanging over the edges and rapellers on the ground.

the straight up walls of red were amazing!

Red Rock State Park is located near Hinton OK, offers RV and tent camping, nature trails, a fishing pond and swimming pool, a group camp that offers bunkhouse sleeping and a kitchen and some of the most amazing scenery in the state!

I - 70 Diner near Flagler CO

This rotating pink Cadillac gets your attention as you cruise down I-70 going either direction. We first saw it headed west on our way to Denver and decided to stop on the way back to check it out.

The diner was moved to this site in pieces about 30 years ago! The history and photos of construction phases is posted in the entryway. The interior is strictly 50's and fun to spend some time just walking around and looking at the pictures on the wall.

We were between meals when we got there so didn't get to sample the food, but if smell is an indication, I bet it is pretty good!

Jetmore Kansas, a great place to grab a bite to eat!

This last weekend we were headed to Colorado and about lunch time found ourselves in Jetmore Kansas, county seat of Hodgman County. Directly across the street from their stately courthouse was Agustino's Restaurante. Agustino's has a homey atmosphere, tables and booths in polished pine, booths big enough to seat 6 people comfortably with tiny umbrella tea lights and pretty spring flowers on each table. The food was very good; I had Talapia with a wonderful sauce and some fresh steamed veggies. John opted for the burger and fries and they must have been good because he cleaned his plate!





Of course like any good blogger I took my camera with me; why didn't I check the batteries? So a quick Google search yielded this photo, not of Agustino's, but of some local architecture that caught my eye on the drive out of town with my belly full.







The area has a lot of limestone and many buildings like the Haun Museum are constructed with limestone.




Jetmore is on US highway 283 north of Dodge City. if you are headed up that highway in Kansas I would recommend stopping in at Agustino's. Oh, and the staff was very tourist friendly too!

Frontier Village in Adrian Missouri

Frontier Village, in Adrian, Missouri, is owned and operated by the Western Missouri Antique Tractor and Machinery Association. This park is host to tractor and machinery shows and boasts attendance from more than 20 different states.

We traveled there in late June to attend a Keller et al family reunion, our first time to meet this branch of the family tree. We found this little village a week before their next scheduled tractor event and visited briefly with some tractor enthusiasts who were starting to prepare for their next big event.

A drive down the dirt lane was like a trip back in time with old fashioned businesses and buildings on each side of the road. The old church was modernized with a ramp to accommodate handicapped visitors.

Our reunion was held in a very nice modern community building that was air conditioned, a good thing in Missouri summer humidity!

According the web site I found when I got back home, “The village was a result of interest in preserving history and old agricultural ways and produced its first gas engine show in 1982. The growth continued with the first building, a school, in 1983, a red barn in 1984, and now a total of 20 buildings with 2 more under construction. In addition, there are three county bridges donated to the Village from Bates County. On a state level, the Village has the largest steam engine, the largest separator, and the oldest portable running steam engine in Missouri.”
http://www.batescounty.net/frontier_village.htm

Adrian is right on US 71 in Missouri, the park complex has some really nice shade trees and would be a welcome rest spot on a trip from either direction. See their chamber web site for monthly events listings http://www.blogger.com/.%20http:/www.adrianmochamber.com/

The "Big Mouth"

Vacation time at last! Our first real stop was to see some family in El Dorado Springs MO. We planned to attend a family reunion in Adrian MO and on the way found this small town with a "rich" history.

The Big Mouth resides on Park Ave and 7th St in Rich Hill Missouri. The Big Mouth is a coal bucket that was used to mine coal in this area. Rich Hill is known as “the town that coal built”. Sadly, when the coal mining left the area, the town became little more than a stopping place to take a picture of the bucket.
Big mouth was owned by the Pittsburg & Midway Coal co attached to the Midway Princess, a dragline that was used to remove the overburden (rocks, dirt and vegetation) from the coal deposits. (I sure wish I could have seen this in operation!) To get an idea of the size of Big Mouth, a dump truck that was used to haul out the coal could be parked inside the bucket. It held over 70 cubic feet of dirt and one scoop had a depth of 125 feet. The estimated weight was between 40 and 44 TONS!

The Midway Princes was dismantled and moved to Raton NM in the early 1990’s but Big Mouth is a permanent Rich Hill resident. The Coalminer’s Daughters use Big Mouth to host their life sized nativity scene every year for Christmas.

Visitors may stop by and take pictures and read about the history of the Big Mouth for free. Rich Hill is 20 miles north of Nevada MO on US Highway 71. http://www.richhillmo.com/

An interesting bit of history I found when I did some additional research for this post:

Dateline: Dec 4, 1919; Missouri Governor seizes closed coal mines and vows to operate them because the residents of his state are freezing in their homes due to no availability of heat source. (seems the mines had been shut down)Volunteers in Mo and from neighboring Pittsburg KS worked the mines to provide coal to the state residents and those in institutions.

Freedom Rock in Iowa

Late last fall we headed to Iowa for a wedding and stopped at my brother in law’s for a night on the way up. If there is anything more rural than northwest Oklahoma it is anywhere rural in Iowa. We decided to take the scenic route north from Crescent and wound up on Highway 25. We were traveling in the classic 58 Ford we own, a pleasure in itself. Mid morning with the windows down and this bright rock by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere (really) caught my eye. I knew I had seen it before, that is pictures of it, passed around in email probably a couple years ago. But here was the real thing!

A twelve foot high rock that is said to weigh 56 ton is sitting right beside the highway with the most beautiful art work depicting patriotic images. We quickly turned around at a safe spot in the road and went back for a closer look. A kiosk is located near the rock with information on the artist and the history of this tribute to freedom, aptly named the Freedom Rock. Ray “Bubba” Sorenson has been changing the faces of the rock every year since 1999.

What a surprise to actually see this neat spot in the middle of Iowa corn fields. A quick search when I got home produced the http://www.freedomrock.com/ web site that gives the whole story. I will never snooze on a cross country trip again, hard telling what I might miss!