I'm a huge fan of The Pioneer Woman-- blogger extraordinaire and new author. So when I saw on Facebook that she was in Denver, doing a book signing for her new cookbook at The Tattered Cover on Colfax, I hurried up to get dinner for my boys ready and dragged my friend Matthew over to see her.

I should have known she would have hundreds of fans show up -- every post she writes gets hundreds of comments, and she's got 20,000 fans on Facebook -- but somehow I thought, oh, it's a Monday night, if there's not too many people there, we can take her out for a drink.

Right. The parking garage was completely full. There were hundreds of people piled into the basement room, standing and sitting and lined up both sides of the staircases. And every last copy of The Pioneer Woman Cooks was gone. Completely sold out. There was nothing left to do but head to the bar at Encore Restaurant, where we ordered Miller Lite and a Ginger Mule -- a tasty vodka and ginger beer concoction. And sat next to a lady who used to babysit Marlboro Man, and a lady who had driven down from Laramie or somewhere really far away for the event. They got there early enough to get cookbooks before they sold out.

After two hours, we checked back into the Tattered Cover and the line was actually longer than it was when we left, and there was Ree Drummond aka The Pioneer Woman good-naturedly signing each and every book, chatting and smiling with everyone. I wonder if they stayed open so she could sign them all?

I've been a fan of the Pioneer Woman for a long time. A couple of years ago, I made Thanksgiving dinner for 16 from her site. Roasted turkey, roasted garlic creamy mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes... yum. I was cooking with my laptop open. Thank goodness I didn't destroy my Mac with food splatters.

Any other Stapleton moms make it to the signing? Did you get the cookbook? Are her Thanksgiving recipes in there?