After our last night in Ouray, Colorado, it was time to start making the trip towards Texas to meet up with my brother, Jason, and nephew Thayer as we had planned to meet them to camp for a few nights in west Texas. But first we had a ways to go through Colorado and New Mexico before crossing over the Texas state line. The drive from Ouray to Durango is really pretty, and also slightly nerve wracking in parts with super steep drop-offs and no guard rails as we drove through a couple passes in the mountains, Red Mountain I think was one of the higher ones. We stopped in Durango to walk around for a bit, buy a couple CDs (remember those? And thank god for our good ole CaseLogic full of them because otherwise we wouldn’t have made it across the country listening to the 5 songs they play on repeat on the radio. Masi actually made us two mixes that we have listened to a dozen times…why is Masi the only person who still makes, and gifts, mixed tapes?), and to stop for lunch at Ska Brewery for some wood fired pizza and beer. It was a good place to stop, and even though there were signs posted in the outdoor beer garden that said No Dogs, No Smoking, and No Smoking Dogs, we brought Murph in anyways. We just asked that he didn’t smoke.
Going from Colorado to New Mexico was actually a bit of a bummer.. at least the northern part of the state that we cut through on our way to Santa Fe, and more so just in relation to Colorado. We both loved Colorado, the landscape is incredible in every direction and pretty much everywhere you go, and then as soon as you get into NM it’s really flat with some plateaus here and there. Still a cool place to see, but just not as awe-inspiring. We had initially planned on spending more time in the state – Derek has always wanted to go to Roswell and Area 51 – but we nixed that at the last minute, so our views of New Mexico are very limited. So we make it to Santa Fe pretty late in the evening and knowing we weren’t planning to spend much time in Santa Fe the next day, decide to sleep in a Walmart parking lot. Not one of the best Wallies we’ve stayed at, and as it turned out, was the only one where we were kindly asked to leave. It was the following morning, and as we’re getting all our stuff ready to head out, there’s a street drag racing gang blowing donuts in the parking lot showing off their suped up cars. Someone must’ve called the cops because the parking lot very quickly filled up with police cars to break it up, and the cops must’ve decided the whole place needed to be cleaned up and started knocking on doors of the other parked RVs, some of which looked like they had been there a very long time with busted up windows. So maybe not the best Walmart experience we’ve had, but still counts as a free night’s stay in our books.
We headed into downtown Santa Fe to check out the town, but didn’t spend too much time there. We actually might’ve been the only people below the age of 70 walking around downtown, which is mostly jewelry stores and an outdoor market. 
There was one other stop we made in New Mexico…to Target. I knew we were going to be spending some time in Texas, and New Orleans afterwards, and for some reason I had this idea in my head that it was going to be cold and fall-like weather in those places because it would be end of October/early November. So I asked Derek if he wouldn’t mind if I ran in to get a couple long sleeve shirts, going as far as buying a wool scarf, because I didn’t pack anything for this time of year when we left Boston in August. I don’t know what I was thinking…the following week we would be in our swimsuits at a lake in Texas because it was too hot to do anything else. So lesson learned, and never ask me for advice on what to pack or what’s weather appropriate to wear.
After filling up on burritos and beer for lunch in Santa Fe (not our best decision considering where we were going next), we got back in the truck headed for our final destination of the day: the Big Texan in Amarillo, Texas so that Derek could take on the infamous 72oz steak eating challenge on Route 66.
You have an hour to attempt to eat in its entirety a 72oz steak along with all the side dishes (a baked potato, battered shrimp cocktail, a salad, and dinner roll). You can’t get any help eating it, cannot leave the table (they even give you a bucket in case you get sick), and if you do complete it, your meal is free (its a $72 plate), and you get your name proudly placed on a short list of people who come from all over the world to say that they have done the 72oz challenge and won. They also have a webcam streaming it live so people can watch you from wherever, but unfortunately their cameras were broken when we were there. And what we didn’t know is that they have you sit at a table in the center of the restaurant, on a stage, with a big timer on the wall behind you counting down, and announce your name to the whole place, in the middle of just regular customers eating their dinners. What we also didn’t know was that in order for me to be able to sit with Derek for the hour while he did this, I would have to do it too, or else watch from a table somewhere else in the restaurant and eat dinner alone. I decided to give it a shot, not with any real intention of being able to finish, but just to see what I could put down
Needless to say, the next hour went by a lot faster than we expected, and we both felt pretty sick doing it. Derek was so close to finishing, and just had a bit of steak left, but he got to a point where he was about to throw up, so it’s probably for the best. We left the Big Texan feeling physically ill and $144 poorer, with a lot of leftover steak for Murphy and a night of meat sweats ahead of us. But at least now we can cross that off our bucket list.
withoutwhatifs 