travel | Jenna's Everything Blog

Charlie, oh Charlie. I was so excited to meet him on my weekend trip the the Pioneer Woman’s ranch. I’ve been reading about his capers on Ree’s website for over a year now, so in my book Charlie has an all-out celebrity status. When Christy, one of the other lovely guests, came running up and said “Jenna, Charlie is outside right now!” I went into a hysterical fit and made a mad dash to get my camera.

Why my camera was in my room and not around my neck, I cannot explain.

As I ran down the hallway to the room I shared with my Mom, my socks piped up “Hey, guess what you forgot? We have no traction on these smooth wooden floors!” As my purple and red argyle footwear betrayed me and I klafumped onto the floor, I thought Charlie, you’d better make it worth my while.

Limping outside to the tune of a large bruise quickly entering its yellowish brownish development stage, I found Charlie.

He was lolling about in the sun as Ree’s youngest daughter played with his soft, floppy ears.

The sun was pretty bright and there were harsh shadows (not so good for photography), so I told myself I’ll just come back a little later. Plus, maybe by then Charlie will gather his strength and actually move about. Sure enough, a little while later I spotted Charlie through the window and seized the photographic opportunity.

He was sitting on the edge of the hill, looking noble.

As he heard my limping self get closer, he turned and gave me one long, mournful look.

Goodbye forever, he said, and promptly took off.

A roll of fat slomped from side to side as he ran.

But Charlie! I just sustained a severe bodily injury for your sake! Come back and pose for me!

However, Charlie would hear naught.

Come back tomorrow to hear the outcome. Did I injure Charlie in a tit for tat all-out ranch-style animal on human fight? Did he simply disappear out of my life forevermore? Or did we make ammends and become BFF’s?

In the meantime, here are the kitties again. They were so much more compliant when I descended on them with my camera. I think I’ll call them Nelson and Winthrop.

To be continued . . .

This past weekend I hung out in Oklahoma with The Pioneer Woman herself, 7 other lovely lady guests, and a whole hoot-dang of other people, including the basset hound Charlie.

Yes, I realize I just included him in the list of ‘people.’

I keep asking myself, did it really happen?

The over 700 pictures on my camera say: it did.

I still have a feeling of disbelief as I look at these.

I’m telling you up front, I need to process this in tidbits. We’re going to start small: with our arrival at the Lodge Friday night. Other tidbits will include Charlie, the cats, feeding the wild horses, chocolate and cookie decorating lessons, all the lovely ladies I met, and of course Ree herself. The red headed, sweet, funny, blogging machine. And I mean ‘machine’ in the kindest, most admiring way possible.

Let’s just take this step by step–it all started with a white limo at the Tulsa airport.

Serge was our driver.

As we wended our way along dusty country roads, I suddenly realized how big the sky actually is. Chicago likes to cover up her celestial nudity using things like skyscrapers, trees, and generally cityscapes. Oklahoma just lets it all hang out–she ain’t hidin’ nothin.’

See? I even picked up a fun new accent!

Anyway, we arrived at the Lodge as the sun was starting to set.

Two kitty cats greeted us. They smelled a little funny and needed a bath, but they were the cuddliest creatures you can imagine. If you made so much as eye contact, they started purring up a storm.

We arrived at the same time as friends Jennifer and Ann. Ann kept saying “I’m freaking out!” over and over again, her absolutely infectious laugh ringing out loud and clear.

Ree had left us a note on one of the counters welcoming us.

“I’m freaking out!” said Ann.

My Mom and I got the bedroom at the end of the hall. It was gwaahgeous.

Hello, Mr. California King. Helllooooo scrumptious gift bag from Chefs Catalog.

I think we may become close friends on this trip.

Each of the four fabulous bedrooms had its own bathroom. Somehow we ended up with the most deluxe of the four.

I quickly made a date with the bathtub. “You and me, Saturday night, with a glass of wine, OK?” I whispered.

It was a magnificent experience–more about that later.

The hand lotions were soooo nice and scenty.

Once we had settled in, we scampered back up the hallway towards the main living area.

As we guests hung around getting comfortable, getting to know each other, getting used to our surroundings, and photographing the sunset, I floated around in my happy place feeling a little like Goldilocks.

We explored the pantry.