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This is the fifth article in a series of 7 called Road trip from Phoenix to Mount Rushmore. Check out the introduction to this series in “Day 1, Rim Country Arizona; New Mexico; Pagosa Springs, Colorado.”
On Day 6 of our road trip, we woke up in Rapid City, packed the truck, stopped at Black Hills Bagel and Dixon Coffee Co, and headed west.
We passed Sturgis, which is only about 30 minutes northwest of Rapid City, and continued on to Spearfish. In Spearfish, we checked out an antique store. We noticed that the small downtown district had plenty of signage from a bygone era, if you’re into that.
Spearfish represented our unofficial turn toward home, as from there we pretty quickly crossed back into Wyoming and the I-90 took us due west until we headed south on I-25.
We had some unanticipated stops along I-90 as rain again threatened the drive and the tarp kept slipping off the truck bed rack. But within a few hours, we arrived in Casper, where we would spend the night in an Airbnb.
We arrived in Casper around 2:00 local time and unloaded the truck.
I went to explore downtown Casper while Maggie and our daughter relaxed at the Airbnb. Downtown Casper was possibly my favorite little downtown area of the trip. I walked around, poked my head into a few stores, and got us coffee at an interesting coffee and art shop combo called Scarlow’s Art & Coffee, inside Goedicke’s.
After bringing the coffee back, we headed to neighboring Evansville. A few miles northeast of there, we arrived at C-Bracket Horse Barn around 5:15 for the horse-riding lesson we’d planned and scheduled out for our daughter.
After that, we were all hungry, so we headed to Firehouse Pizza Wood Fired for dinner.
The next morning, we discovered another highlight coffee spot of our trip, called Copper Cup Coffee Co. We ordered breakfast here as well before heading toward Colorado.
Day 7 Stop #1: Craig, Colorado
We took a series of Wyoming state routes from Casper, which is in east central Wyoming, to the I-80. We headed west on the interstate for less than half an hour, then went for the Colorado border via WY-789, which turned into CO-13 at the state line.
About 30 minutes or so into Colorado, we approached a small town called Craig and realized we were hungry and it was lunch time. We grabbed lunch and coffee at an awesome cafe called Prodigal Son’s Coffee House & Eatery, where the food, coffee, and service were all fantastic. We also went into a couple small gift shops.
We then continued making our way south via CO-13 until we connected to the I-70, and headed west on it for about an hour.
Day #7 Final Stop: Fruita/Loma
I’m assuming we made another stop or two for gas or restrooms other than just stopping in Craig, but I don’t recall the details now. We passed Grand Junction, and exited I-70 just west of there for a tiny unincorporated community called Loma. This was where we would stay for the night on a great little farm, via Airbnb.
Directly next to Loma was another small town called Fruita. Fruita, which according to Wikipedia has a population of around 13,000 people, had an impressive amount of nice little restaurants for a town its size.
We went to one called Base Camp Provisions for dinner. It was a decent bar/restaurant with bar seating lining open windows, so that you could sit on either side, inside the restaurant or outside in a large patio area that featured a few lawn games.
The next morning, we returned to Fruita and went into City Market (the area’s Kroger chain) for a few groceries, filled up on fuel next door at Sinclair, and grabbed some great coffee a couple blocks away at Best Slope Coffee.
We would then head for Arizona!
And on an amusing note, one one of the days driving back toward Arizona – I forget now, but I believe it was on this day heading through Wyoming and Colorado – we got hailed on AGAIN. It was quite interesting this time – several drops of rain fell from the sky, followed by the “plonks” of about three or four pieces of small hail – and it was over.
Next up: Day 8 – Eastern Utah: Moab, Arches, Canyonlands, Monument Valley
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