Taos, NM to Dallas, TX

August 8, 2018

Taos, NM to Dallas, TX

Drive time- 7am to 7pm. 11 hours plus lost one due to time zone change

Longest. Drive. Ever.

Morning

This is what Taos looks like at 6am. It was early and I didn’t want to leave. The heat in Taos was perfect. The skies opened my eyes to the world. This is a place that will live in my dreams for some time to come.

Thankfully we packed almost everything that night before. After a quick clean up, we put the final bags in the car. Then the mountain sunrise happened.

Just stunning.

Bear loved it too.

We also encountered some loud noise coming from the airport. We had seen some planes land the first night, but this sounded different. And it was. It was a powered parachute!

So crazy!!!

There was also a hot air balloon in the distance.

Before we left Judd, we took some pictures of the interior to share!

And of course Patch and I showing you where we are. Do you like my poncho jacket? It’s the best clothing piece ever! (It’s not wool, it’s acrylic)

Breakfast

We stopped at a place that had a huge sign out front saying “Vegan Frito Pie Wrap”. I wanted that so badly but since we were on the road so early I guess it wasn’t opened yet. So we traveled a little up the road to a place named Michael’s Restaurant. My dad’s name was Michael so this was a logical stop for us. Unfortunately Jason came back with news that they had no nondairy milk, but they had tons of donuts.. for him. Haha. Since I knew Jason was going to take the brunt of the driving today, I didn’t mind eating a few granola bars on the way.

Driving forever

So we basically hauled it today. We stopped only 3 times the entire way and never for more than 10 minutes. We’d get gas, let the dogs out, switch spots, and go. We listened to Johnny Cash, Chris Stapleton, Willie Nelson mostly while Jason drove. While I drove, Jason slept in the back with the dogs while I listened to the Dave Matthews Band. In total, I drove for 3 hours and Jason did the other 8. He’s such a champ. We just ate snacks we had in the car, nothing crazy.

We passed many cattle farms in the Texas heat. It did not smell good and I felt sick looking at the conditions these poor animals were in. More years were shed and I said a prayer for these guys.

Dallas, TX

We had no intentions of stopping anywhere in Dallas for dinner. We wanted to get to the camper and get the dogs outside. Tonight we rented an Airbnb that was a 32′ airstream called the Urban Cloud.

As you can see in the pictures, this place was amazing! Grady took great care about all of the details in this camper. We loved the decor and different materials he used throughout. The dogs were super comfy too! They loved being outside and having no other dogs around (besides the two tiny dogs that we think belonged to the neighbors because they left once our dogs got out of the car) It was over 95 degrees when we arrived at 7. We only unpacked what we had to and just stretched our legs out.

It was our 10 year anniversary today! This was one of the reasons we took this long road trip. We played Farkle and laughed our butts off at jokes probably we would only think are funny at this point. It definitely has been a crazy adventure so far. 💜

Dinner

We really didn’t want to cook even though it was SUPER cold inside of the camper. I put leggings and a long sleeved shirt on and I was still cold. I had picked up some vegan ramen at Nooch in Denver so I figured that would be enough for tonight.

Adding a few veggies that we had intended for a salad made it super tasty and quick!

A long day of driving meant early to bed for sleeping. Tomorrow is NOLA!