Stillwater, OK Oct 27-29, 2018

For a few days, we’re in Stillwater, Oklahoma, the land of the OSU cowboys and the famous land runners.

In preparation for this visit to a childhood friend, I’m reading Boom Town by Sam Anderson. I highly recommend this great read. Apparently, Oklahoma is more than a state “Where the wind comes sweep’n down the plains!” This well-written book covers the history of Oklahoma City and the surrounding area, which includes Stillwater. My friend lives in Stillwater, very near the land runner line.

The famous Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 opened the Unassigned Lands. Folks hungry for land, the land runners, raced from the edge of the Unassigned Lands to claim their plot of land. In one day, Oklahoma City went from 0 to 10,000 people, just the opposite of my planned city of Columbia, MD.

Stillwater is dominated by Oklahoma State University. In the reddest of red states, Stillwater is an oasis of blue. Surprisingly, for a college town, the restaurant scene is limited.

For beer adventures, this was pretty lame. We toured Stillwater on Sunday and drove past Iron Monk, Stillwater’s craft brewery. It has a highly rated taproom but closed on Sundays. Instead, I ordered Iron Monk’s Milk Stout at Hideaway – Stillwater’s famous Italian restaurant. Once again, I missed out on Iron Monk, since the tap had just blown. After giving the poor waiter a tough time, he suggested Hideaway ’57 Ale from Marshall Brewing of Tulsa. It’s an easy drinking, slightly sweet Kolsch with almost no hop flavor.

Tomorrow, we head to Galveston, Texas.

Cheers!

Warren