Just before arriving at Ruby’s Inn Campground in Bryce, UT we passed through this cute little town called Panguitch. It was already on my radar because I heard they were doing a balloon festival in June, so I had put it on my list of places I wanted to visit. I just didn’t realize how close it was to Bryce!
We spotted the Wanderlust Cowgirl Coffee shack and had to stop! They had something on their menu called Lotus energy drinks and the “Hoodoo Hype” sounded so good (mango watermelon fruit fusion)! So I opted for one of those instead of my regular coffee. I love getting to try something new! It was really good... Jimbo said it tasted like a jolly rancher, but it wasn’t too sweet. Definitely gave me a little pick me up, but it was very mild.
As we drove down Main Street I saw several stores and restaurants that looked interesting, so we found a place to park the truck & trailer and walked up & down the street. They had one of the best antique shops I’ve ever been in! It was in an old firehouse. They also had an old movie theater called “Gem” that played free cartoons all day as well as a dinosaur exhibit upstairs with some fossils and petrified wood samples. Across the street was a restaurant called Cowboy’s Smokehouse that smelled so good!
So after sitting in the theater and watching old cartoons for a while we decided to head over to the campground to drop off the trailer and come back to have dinner at the smokehouse, then watch a movie at Gem Theater. (They were only showing one movie, Cruella, and only had two showtimes.)
Dinner was amazing! Some of the best smoked ribs & BBQ sauce I’ve ever had. They had live music, one of the local boys singing country music to a karaoke soundtrack. He was only 15 years old! It was a lot of fun because the whole restaurant would sing along on the choruses of some of the classic songs like John Denver’s “Take me home” and “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond.
Looking forward to coming back to this little town for the balloon festival in a few weeks!
(Continued in Part 2.)