Day one was the longer drives getting to Colorado, about 10 hours on the road. Living in Texas, driving out of the State takes a day if you want to drive comfortably.

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You straight shot to Colorado but it would be 18hrs. My Land Cruiser MPG isn’t the best. The 18hr drive would turn into 20hrs with gas stops and restroom breaks. Not worth it. We decided to spend day 1 in Texas and camp near the New Mexico border.

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We were 5 rigs deep on this trip and felt like I was those Australians on YouTube with the overlanding channel. The homies from Austin met up with us in Fort Worth and had quick lunch at Chick Fil A. Forth Worth is north of Houston, but felt hotter, a lot hotter.

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After the lunch break it was time to continue north west to McDowell campground. That was about 4hr drive from Forth Worth. On google maps I saw some dispersed camping in the area and pin those locations.

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Then about 6 miles out before reaching the campsite, my friend Mike with GX, had mechanical issue. The car puffed black smoke from the exhaust, lost power, and died. Thankfully we are car guys. and with everybody bouncing ideas off one another, we found out the fuel pump was starting to go out.

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We reset the ECU and thankfully it started right up. By the time we got to the campsite, it was sunset. Setting up the Roofnest tent was a breeze, and took about 5 mins. Day 1 was my day to cook dinner. I had some homemade fajita marinate soaking in pork belly since we left Houston in the morning.

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I started up the grill on my Snowpeak, and my wife did the food prep. Everyone brought food and pretty sure we wont go starving for the trip.

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I was worried about the summer night heat, but since we are near the water, the heat wasn’t too bad. We didn’t have to deal with bugs because of the Thermacell. It created a nice barrier to the pest.

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Later at night, it did get very windy. I could hear the other tents flap around. Our Roofnest tent kept us safe. The tent felt stable, and didn’t feel like the it was going to collapse. 

The next morning it was time head to Colorado. Stay tuned.

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