We were in St Francis in October 2018 as part of Big Trip #2.
Omaha to Denver is a long haul, and we wanted to get to Denver early in the day to avoid Friday afternoon traffic, so we needed an overnight stop. In the interest of getting Bugsy a new state (me too, actually!), I googled for interesting things in northwest Kansas. That’s how we ended up in tiny St Francis for a night.
Where to stay
St Francis has a delightfully weird city park next to the little city airport where you can park your trailer for free! Roadside Park has sites with power for $35, or boondock and pay nothing. There are bathrooms and a dump station (and a tornado shelter, except it was padlocked–do they come unlock it if there’s a tornado in the area?) and it was a peaceful and pretty and kind of oddball place to spend a night.
What to do
Arikaree Breaks is a random beautiful canyon winding through privately-owned farmland. You can’t hike it, but there’s a lovely scenic drive looping around it. Even though we’ve been spending so much time in the car with this mad rush across the country, we had a ball. What a surprise the Breaks were.
Nearby is Three Corners, where Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado meet. I’m a sucker for those types of tourist attractions, but we just couldn’t stay in the car any longer, and the monument itself looks like it’s not terribly interesting.
Where to eat and drink
There’s really only one place to eat in St Francis, Fresh Seven Coffee, and they close at 6 on weekdays so we didn’t make it for dinner. We did have breakfast there, though, and it was stellar. Delicious coffee! Oatmeal with fruit and nuts! Avocado toast with smoked salmon! A super cool atmosphere buzzing with locals catching up before work! Fresh Seven would be a winner in any city; St Francis is lucky to have such a place.
There are other restaurants in town, but you really should just go to Fresh Seven. We had a heavy Mexican dinner at Parkhill Restaurant & Lounge after checking the not very veggie-friendly menu at Flatiron. Neither restaurant had much atmosphere. The only bar in town, from what we could tell, is Diamond R, and it was closed, so after dinner we retired back to the Airstream in our funny little park to enjoy the evening.
But seriously, go to Fresh Seven.
PS I got a new phone in Park City (spoiler) so photos will improve in a few posts!
Hey, no beer but I do see a Margarita??? What is J drinking? Have you completed your beer mission (as in drinking all the beer between home and rural Kansas)?
It sure is flat. Guess that’s why it’s called the flatlands. Or is it?
I did have a margarita, and James had a whiskey drink. Beer would have been better! We’re still working on drinking all the beer…