[dmlandis]

What kind of a place is Guymon to stop for a night going west from Ozarks to Denver. I have read about it and it seems like the most un San Francisco Bay Area place in the nation (where I live) - plains, red meat, and not techies. Is it worth a stop as it looks as if it is midway en route.

[eddie gein]

Yep, it's pretty much what I'd call "un San Franciso like" but it depends on what you call "stopping for a night". If "stopping for a night means" pull in, get a motel room, go to a local steakhouse or Mexican restaurant, sleep, get up, eat a good homecookin' meal at the local cafe...............and get on the road..........Yes. Steak, Mexican food and homecookin' are going to be really good there.

Anything beyond that. No.

There is an interesting little museum called "No Man's Land" museum that is about 10 miles SW at Panhandle State University that takes about an hour to look at that gives you insight into life on the high plains through the years. .

Other than that............

The sunsets (because the high plains are so flat) are similar to sunsets over the Pacific and you can see storms coming for an hour or so before they get there.

Guymon is typical of what we are seeing in the high plains. Old farming/feedlot town turning into a packing town. Guymon is now a majority minority community that used to be completely anglo. It is unique in that it has immigrants from all over the world. There are something like 30 different native languages spoken in the local school system. Mostly African and Central American.

There may be food places open by of these residents by now.

One interesting thing about Guymon is that in the 1930s the newspaper writer who first used the term "dust bowl" was in Guymon, OK when he used the term in an article. The article started with (Guymon, OK AP) and thus Oklahoma was saddled with the term "dust bowl" despite the fact that Oklahoma was one of only 5 or so states in the dust bowl and was the state contributing the least to the actual loss of top soil.

So in many ways Guymon would be an interesting cultural stop just to say you've been to a place like that.

When I was a kid and Guymon was an old feedlot/wheat/cattle town and the name "Ladd Hitch" meant area ranching power broker, I remember getting a giant stack of pancakes at the Ambassador Inn on Saturday morning out on the north end of town.

From what I understand, the Ambassador is still going along with the restaurant. I don't know how good it is anymore but it will always remain a fond memory for me.

[Bass&Catfish2008]

Originally Posted by dmlandis

What kind of a place is Guymon to stop for a night going west from Ozarks to Denver. I have read about it and it seems like the most un San Francisco Bay Area place in the nation (where I live) - plains, red meat, and not techies. Is it worth a stop as it looks as if it is midway en route.

Get ready to enjoy the feedlots as scenery.

You're in full-on plains out there in northwestern Oklahoma. A good chunk of Oklahoma resides in the lush and dense Crosstimbers...but not Guymon.

Interesting story for me and Guymon---it's the first place I had homemade biscuits with chocolate gravy. One time was enough.

[debbie at bouontiful]

I'll be stopping there in a few days on our way to Colorado. We spend one night and leave in the morning. We live in Eastern Oklahoma so it is a long drive but I always enjoy seeing the panhandle. It is just so different than Eastern Oklahoma with the hills and greenery. Might take an extra day or say and drive a few hours up to Kenton Ok and hike the Black Mesa. Hiked it last year and it was neat. 9 miles is the hike but hot a hard hike except for the mile 3 - mile 4 marker.

[tjanvier]

I should have arrived at this party a bit earlier, because I grew up in Guymon and lived thirty years in the bay area, mostly in San Francisco (Glen Park), until retirement.

"eddie gein" summed up the history and culture pretty well. My experience growing up there wasn't so much ranching and oil fields (where my dad worked) as school, "dragging main" at night, band trips, speech trips, DeMolay trips, ski trips -- any excuse to travel downstate or over to the New Mexico mountains. Guymon was greener then, Dutch Elm Disease having taken a toll. It's flat along Highway 54, but the north edge extending out along Highway 64 rolls downhill towards the Beaver River, and the west side is built along a series of high bluffs that overlook the game reserve (buffalo mainly). The Guymon Tigers football/track stadium was built in a natural bowl in one of those bluffs and is as pretty as can be found anywhere. Sunset Park and Lake hugs the bluff's west side and is spectacular for a town of this size.

We moved to the Fort Worth area a few years ago and recently decided to spend a few days in Guymon to see it, tour the "new" (since I graduated, anyway) high school, and catch the homecoming game. I must tell you, for a town of 14,000 that is relatively isolated (relative to, say, Nome, Alaska), it is a happening place. As when I lived there, it doesn't feel too isolated because it has a lot of civic spirit and self-sufficiency.

Along with the new Golden Mesa Casino, there are at least 15 full-service restaurants (besides fast food) -- extraordinary for a town this size -- a nice multiplex cinema, a good coffee house, some full-service bars, and about 10 chain hotels. The huge Pub on the Bricks downtown has good food and a full-service bar, but if you want to pop for pricier cuisine, there's The Galleon downtown, which serves Asian Fusion cuisine, or Eddies's Steaks & Seafood off Highway 54 (Linde's Restaurant when I was growing up), probably the closest thing to a Bogie & Bacall-style nightclub in Guymon. Hampton's Inn has a full-service bar and cafe alongside it named Pub 54. One ding: they could use a better selection of breakfast places; the Ambassador Inn is about the best one and it's just okay (no windows and fluorescent lighting ugh).

Do I sound like a booster? Well, what can I say -- I had a good time there. I also liked the cosmopolitan population and crossroads-of-the-world feel. When the town was half this size, it was just SO white and evangelical, and now there are almost twice as many Latinos as Anglos and a big, new Catholic Church. The Latinos are friendly as hell, and they brought the food with them. Yum.

[eddie gein]

When I was a kid and we would visit Guymon we always made it a point to eat breakfast at the Ambassador...

I always got the "full stack" of pancakes. they were piled "eye high".

[_redbird_]

Please excuse the typos as I use Siri to post since I do not have the Internet I do all my posting from my iPhone. And Siri does not like my accent, although it makes for some interesting typos.

We've driven to Denver and back several times over the years. We always take I 35 North from Oklahoma City to Salina and then I 70 into Denver or I 40 West into New Mexico and then up on north to Denver.

I lived south of Amarillo one time and I've had my share of feed lights and their smell. And my grandparents live in Southwestern Oklahoma which is pretty flat. We took a trip up and down into Panhandle Texas to see the buried city one time with the museum I was working with and it was pretty interesting.