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Texas Two Times
Big Bend National Park & Hill Country
December 26, 2004 - January, 2, 2005
Monday, December 27
Arriving in Texas
“I’m so tired, I can’t drive any more” Brian says. At 6AM at a gas station somewhere near Dallas/Ft. Worth I needed to wake up. I slammed a Red Bull and got in to the driver’s seat trying to navigate though the rush hour traffic in the dark. Finally turned off on I-20 West where there was hardly any traffic. I watched the sunrise in the rearview mirror. After a few hours Brian would continue to drive again as I managed another small nap in the back of the truck. By the time we passed Odessa I was up and around getting excited. We arrived in Fort Stockton, TX at 1PM, checked in to the Holiday Inn Express right off I-10. Brian still had some of the ham sandwiches to eat, conveniently there was a refrigerator in our room so we could store our food until tomorrow. My fish sandwiches ran out so I got a salad from the McDonald’s next door. We were pretty tired, unfortunately too tired to get on the bikes and ride, unmotivated to unload the bikes and set up the luggage. We decided to detach the trailer from the truck and drive down to Fort Davis and Alpine to do some sight seeing and have some dinner in a few hours. We couldn’t totally waste this day. We already did a drive though the town of Fort Stockton and there didn’t look like a lot of things to see here. Although the world’s largest road runner was pretty cool.
By 3Pm we were rolling west on I-10 and took 17 South to Fort Davis though the Davis Mountains. The road was great, the town was neat and it was 66 degrees and sunny. We pulled up to Alpine and decided to eat at the Cowboy Restaurant, but after examining the menu in the window I didn’t really see anything that I wanted to eat. There were a lot of steaks on the menu, which I don’t eat and it was a bit pricey. We ended up going down the road to the Rose Buffalo Restaurant, which was a big mistake. We didn’t really have a good meal or service. Not to mention, I ordered a chicken wrap which was the special of the day and was supposed to come with rice. I didn’t receive any rice with my wrap so I started to eat and when the waitress finally came around I asked for my rice and I was informed that I received a chicken wrap appetizer instead of the special. “I was afraid that was going to happen since we also have a chicken wrap as an appetizer on the menu” she replied. I was thinking if that was the case why didn’t she ask, which one I wanted? Duh. Brian ordered some sort of spinach and pasta but didn’t really like it and said it was spicy. It took forever to get our food and to get our check. It was already 7PM and dark by the time we came out to the truck.
We took 67 back Fort Stockton. Brian was not experiencing any side effects from the accident, so we were planning on riding tomorrow. Now that we just lost half a day of riding, I needed to compress the Big Bend ride in to just two days. The Holiday Inn Express served milk and cookies from 7-9PM, so I spent the evening sitting in bed munching on chocolate cookies and working out the exact route on the laptop in MS Streets & Trips.
