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[Music]

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you're listening to the attempt adventure podcast a podcast about

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finding adventure every day and making your life a little more interesting

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from dallas texas i'm james barrett

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joined as always by my co-host

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michael derosiers still in bangkok thailand but uh not for very long

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assuming i test negative on my uh emergency fit to

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fly test next week then i should be in

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dallas myself all right

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so i'm getting all my documents i got to get my cdc form i got to get all my

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immigration forms because you got to fill out all these documents now when

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you're landing i got to get my fit to fly certificate i

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have to have my negative covid test

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that's a lot of stuff to go through when the united states didn't care about

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covet at all well and it's even worse when i have to come back here

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but uh yeah i know i'm getting ready to go and i'm

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excited i haven't packed yet i'm a

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terrible procrastinator when it comes to

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you packed the day before no matter how long you're gonna be there

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so anyway i'll be back soon i'll be excited to uh to see you and hopefully

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have some little adventures while i'm there

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yes sir well james you're in texas i'm soon to be in

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texas and today we're going to be talking

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about texas the lone star state

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our childhood home we're going to be talking about

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some of the best things to do and see and eat when you're there now texas is a

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pretty big state it's bigger than a lot

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of countries and that makes it a really interesting

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place to visit and travel to and and

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that's what we're going to be talking about in this episode of the attempt

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adventure podcast yeah but first james

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before any of that did you do anything

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new or adventurous this week

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i did i played golf at a brand new

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course that's down the street from my house brand new to me not brand new

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but i play terribly i'm not very good at

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golf but it's in like a little nature

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preserve type thing it's it's it's very

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nice very pretty and

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it was a good time cool i i like the idea of golf i took

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two semesters of it at college but i'm

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worse than you are because we've played

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together

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and for whatever reason i just it was just a bad day

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my dad and i were playing and i think

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about four holes in we decided we

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weren't gonna keep score anymore we just put check marks

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i become embarrassed if i keep score

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but anyway so not super exciting but but

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new and it was fun that is really fun

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very cool got some fresh air saw some

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greenery which is always nice a lot of

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geese for some reason hmm

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i i want to say hundreds but that sounds

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like a lot really at least

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at least a hundred geese wow that's when

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you when you said a lot of yeast i was thinking like twelve

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wow they were just like walking around and

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geese are terrifying for those of you that don't know

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canada geese

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they are evil they are full of hatred

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and rage and they will attack you for no reason

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or for a reason because it's fun and it

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warms their evil little hearts to do so

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and it's annoying because they're they're kind of adorable a creator made

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them adorable and like fuzzy

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and they make cute little honks but

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they are evil they are like if a cobra

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head wings yeah no no they are not ducks they are

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not ducks ducks are cool they're both water birds they look kind

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of similar they are not the same bird

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geese are huge and evil

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and will attack you they are very strong

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sometimes they bring down airplanes

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they do into the hudson see i have a theory that

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that um sully sullenberger which is a

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ridiculous name [Laughter]

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um he definitely milked the whole hero

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thing for a long time

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well i thought you were gonna say i have a theory that the geese brought down the

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plane on purpose because they're so

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oh man that's a good one though so evil

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yeah i was gonna say he hit them on

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purpose because they're evil

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which is geese

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oh wow yeah

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when we when we record in my morning it

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is goofier [Laughter]

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anyway enough about geese

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stay tuned for our brand new podcast

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goose talk we just talked about geese

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for an hour there's one episode and

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that's all you get

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anyway so you know yeah i play golf and that

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was my new thing what about you what did

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you do this week well um i hate to bring

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it back to birds but uh you know last

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week we talked about birding and

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i watched that movie the big year with

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steve martin and jack black and owen wilson it was really good it's not like

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a i mean it's funny it is definitely a comedy it's very light-hearted but it's

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not like a laugh out loud kind of comedy

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it's a comedy in the same vein as like

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um that's like the secret life of walter

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mitty it's very inspiring you know what i liked about it it was not

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mean-spirited at all a lot of comedies

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can be a little bit mean-spirited this was like the most wholesome

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like nice

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movie it was just three guys looking at birds so i watched that and

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as much as we joked about birding last

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week i thought oh that looks kind of fun so i did a little research bought the

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bird guide had it sent to my parents

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house it's waiting for me there

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and then my fiance and i bought a nice pair of binoculars like a decent pair of

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binoculars and i'm going to be trying to trying to

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identify some birds when i'm in the u.s

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so it's more just like research into an

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adventure that i would like to try but i

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watched the movie got the book got the

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binoculars so um yeah it's a start into a new type

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of adventure i don't know how serious i'm gonna be about birding i don't

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imagine myself to be like a a legit bird

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watcher like some of these guys but it's

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cool you know when birds are cool magical maybe not cool

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[Laughter]

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i do have a

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an announcement here got in touch with our friend adam from as adam goes we

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asked him a couple weeks about the tato

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sandwich and what flavor you're supposed

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to use and he sent me a message back he said yeah the original potato sandwich

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is cheese and onion you can of course use any other flavors

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but the og one is tato cheese and onion

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flavor so there you go butter cheese and onion

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crisps white bread

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that sounds good i need that yeah so see

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in the u.s we don't have cheese and onion we have sour cream and onion

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which i mean probably similar sour cream

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is kind of cheesy i guess you know

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made of the same ingredients technically

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so but there you go i think maybe a sour cream and onion chip would be

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would be good on that i can imagine that going well

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yeah i need that

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there's a a new line of lay's potato chips here in

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thailand and they are street foods around the

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world there's one from

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our own homeland the united states of america

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cheeseburger flavored oh no is it good

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and i gotta tell you james they're pretty good it tastes like a

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cheeseburger i mean as much as a potato

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chip can taste like a cheeseburger yeah they try that

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like here right now the potato chips we have

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because leis is doing their like summer

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flavors thing that they do we have like

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mango habanero which is pretty good

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um what what are the other two

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um blt

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that sounds good and then we have jerk chicken

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that does sound good that sounds good too one

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does taste like jerk chicken i don't know how they did it but it does taste

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like jerk chicken it's weird well i

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gotta say i've had some downright weird

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flavors here in thailand like weird

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flavored potato chips just don't take off americans don't eat them people go

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like they're people don't like trying new new crazy flavors people have their

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flavor they like barbecue

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sour cream and onion i'm a sour cream and onion guy when it comes down to it

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it's pretty good um but but in thailand

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lays especially they go

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crazy i mean they they have like king

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crab exo sauce a couple years ago they

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had these cooling sensation flavored one

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was like those are weird iced lemonade

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and the other one was like melon bingsu

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and they both had this weird menthol element that made your mouth feel cold

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and tingly and that's just not right

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no they did a honey butter one a while back

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which is those are delicious honey butter potato chips are delicious they

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had they they teamed up with kfc one

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year to make chicken waffle flavor which

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was actually amazing if they had those

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flavors i think they would go well because in the past lace has had like

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chicken and waffle flavor here and things like that that's really good

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they typically just try and go super crazy like as a novelty now

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i mean here things like

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chili squid wouldn't go over well

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there are a lot of seafood flavor chips here

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which are all maybe not really good most

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are really good the chili squid and the

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king crab one are super good and then

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there's like just like thai flavors they're like tom yum and lob and um and

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all that that's great also good it's

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like in thailand they flavor them after

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foods and in the u.s they flavor them

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after like ideas

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there you go that's interesting that's an interesting philosophy and i think

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you're right they're theming it like you said like

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summer theme like tropical mango or

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whatever it was like there's i wonder the

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only like during their like limited release ones do they have them like

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street taco things like that then they

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have them but they're like actual flavors are just like

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vague ideas of what things should taste

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like interesting

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the best one that's out right now as part of this world street food is this

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flavor right here this is korean cream cheese garlic and

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there is nothing that sounds amazing

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korean cream cheese garlic it's incredible you should just buy a case of

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those and just bring them back with you maybe i'll bring you a bag of these and

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a bag of the hamburger ones and you can try them yeah snack time asia

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bringing it back into your suitcases and there's no

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clothes it's just potato chips i mean it already is full

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of like food stuffs that i'm bringing home to the fam so

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yeah anyway yeah so anyways there you go well

10:39

speaking of food ladies and gentlemen one last reminder this is your last week

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to get in your monthly challenge for the month of july

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that is to take a picture of some local

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food some interesting local food that

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you're proud of you want to share with us

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you can interpret that any way you want

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we have had some amazing response we've had some really great entries into the

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monthly challenge yes we have and we'll be talking about

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that i guess maybe next week after all

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the entries are in we'll be talking about some of our favorites maybe one or

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two of our favorites that people have sent to us

11:11

hello at attemptedventure.com subject

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line challenge

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[Music]

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in this episode yeah we're talking about travel in our own home state of texas a

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place that we both know and love we both know pretty well on account of having

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lived there for a lot of our lives you

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for most of your life except for one year i

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guess yeah one year me for most of my

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upbringing except for my year of my birth in which i was

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in chicago for some reason and now

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when i live in the kingdom of thailand

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but except for that my formative years were spent in texas and i did a lot of

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road trips with my family in texas a

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couple weeks ago we had our episode about the irish road trip and we were

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both talking about how much we love road trips and we decided we wanted to do a

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texas road trip episode or at least a texas travel episode

12:12

yeah because a road trip through texas

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is a it's an undertaking

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for perspective for our maybe our european listeners texas is

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approximately the same size as france

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is it it is

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hmm fact-checking uh not because i don't

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believe you but because that surprises me

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thailand is 75 the size of texas how's

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that yes you were right texas is about the

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same size as france it is bigger than

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france so it's big it's the size of some

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countries and the interesting thing about texas is that because of its

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geography it has a little bit of

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everything it has big cities of course

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but it also has coasts and islands and

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it has mountains and deserts has forests

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it has swamps it gets real cold in the north real hot

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in other parts of it it's a massively

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diverse state it's got a lot of cool stuff to see

13:10

because of this diversity it has also a

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lot of diverse you know culture in it

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basically each region and we've split it

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up into one two

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five regions which is about right east texas north texas west texas central and

13:25

south and all are very very different

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geographically culturally culinarily

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in every way yeah and today we're going to talk about

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three of the five regions of texas we're

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going to break those up into east north and west talk about those today and then

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next time we're going to talk about central and hill country and then the

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south texas slash the gulf barrier

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islands yeah so this is gonna be a lot

13:52

of fun and let's get to it awesome here

13:54

we go so i think james let's start with each

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region let's give an overview of the region and then let's talk about some

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interesting things to do and see in that region

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and if you don't mind can we start with

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i'm sorry maybe the the least interesting region

14:08

east texas i mean you can you could argue with me

14:12

if you if you disagree with that you can i mean it's not it's definitely the most

14:18

the least happens there however it is

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very pretty it is but i actually had trouble finding

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interesting stuff to put on the list yeah there's there's not a ton um

14:28

as you start going to east texas the

14:30

first thing you hit are piney woods there's just huge

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swaths of forest and piney woods and sort of as

14:39

you keep going further that sort of turn

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starts turning swampy right as you get

14:44

closer to like louisiana

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there's not a lot of towns there's not

14:49

really any big cities in east texas

14:53

there's

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yeah i just don't know there's a lot of nature

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so it's definitely great for that a lot of forests it's great if you like the

15:01

woods like you said it's sometimes even

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known as the piney woods region of texas

15:06

but other than that there's not a whole lot you know going going on there like

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not a lot of like attractions i guess

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yeah that's a better way to put it there's because i'm sure there's a lot

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going on there and but i haven't spent much time there

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yeah i've been there for camping a lot

15:21

like i really like going out to tyler state

15:25

park i think it's a really pretty state park especially in the autumn

15:28

yeah you really feel like you're in the deep woods it's quiet it's it's nice

15:32

yeah and they have a good bike trail but i haven't been to like the towns that

15:35

much but but there's stuff to see so let's talk about so what's first on our

15:38

list here yeah first on our list is

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caddo lake state park this one is

15:43

interesting because caddo lake is the

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only natural lake in texas

15:48

texas has lots of lakes however there's only one

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natural lake the rest are

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man-made as reservoirs or i think some

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of them were just made as lakes i don't know

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yeah i think some more stock ponds yes for

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fish and stuff we have a lot of rivers

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most of the water system in texas is

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rivers not lakes so we only have one

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natural lake and it's kettle lake state park and it is swampy

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that's what i was gonna say yeah it is

16:19

but it's cool i mean if you like that

16:21

it's a cool place you can canoe and it feels like you're in kind of a different

16:24

world lots of wildlife lots of birds yeah

16:27

reptiles fish

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tons and tons of wildlife it's really

16:31

neat actually i would definitely recommend checking that out if you are a

16:34

nature person because being in a swamp

16:37

is sort of and i guess marsh is more probably more

16:40

what it is marshy swampy i don't know

16:43

the official definition yeah

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it really does feel like you're in a different world it's completely

16:48

different from like anything else

16:51

kind of spooky a little spooky

16:54

yeah i will say that if you're going to east

16:56

texas i would definitely try to go in

16:58

the autumn or winter i think autumn is the best in east texas i mean in general

17:02

autumn is probably the best in texas

17:04

yes but east texas you definitely want

17:06

to avoid the spring and summer because it's going to be real humid and it's

17:10

just unbearable

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yeah i have something else on here and

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that was the texas rose festival and the

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tyler rose museum because apparently

17:18

tyler is like the only place in texas

17:20

that is that like has

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really like a rose horticulture

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in industry i'm not sure if industry is the right word but apparently they're

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famous in fact world famous for their

17:31

roses so if you are into plants and if

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you're into flowers that would be an interesting place to check out tyler

17:37

itself is a cool little town uh has art

17:40

museum and stuff like that i haven't really spent much time in the town i

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have to admit so if anyone is listening

17:45

from tyler let us know maybe right in

17:48

yeah because we don't know anything

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about it sorry guys except except your state park which i really like i really

17:54

like tyler stevens very nice that's where the raccoons ate our cobbler

17:58

it is

18:00

they're thieving raccoons um do you have

18:02

anything else in the east texas region

18:04

no i also struggled

18:07

when i looked up things to do and stuff like that a lot of it was go camping go

18:10

to caddo lake you know go

18:13

for tyler right there's not a ton

18:15

yeah but a lot of nature a lot of camping and that's that's kind of what

18:18

you would do out that way camping fishing

18:21

anything with nature animals wildlife

18:23

that's great probably hunting if you're into that kind of thing

18:27

yes all right james a little nearer and

18:29

dearer and closer to our heart is north

18:32

texas which we also paired up with the panhandle region which is different but

18:36

we're grouping them together yeah the panhandle probably would be

18:40

like we're the north texas because that makes sense but but we call the dfw area

18:46

north texas north texas and this is

18:48

where we grew up the dallas fort worth region

18:52

is it's basically one huge city the

18:56

metroplex yeah as it is called basically

18:59

you can go from all the way

19:01

from fort worth to dallas and you're never not in a city that's sort of

19:06

right you have dallas fort worth

19:08

arlington the hilariously named del worthington

19:11

gardens it's a speed trap be careful

19:16

the unfortunately named white settlement

19:18

and yes it is named that because of

19:21

exactly what it sounds like sorry

19:23

everybody but there's a lot to do in the dfw area and

19:27

it's interesting even you know it's a big city it's a built up area but there

19:31

is cool stuff to do in the city and

19:33

outside of the city the first thing i'll say is that you know texas isn't what

19:38

people think people from abroad when they think of texas they think of

19:41

cowboys and it's actually completely not

19:43

like that but there are places that you can see cowboys

19:46

and one of the best places if you are a

19:48

tourist is the fort worth stockyards

19:51

even if you're not a tourist it's a lot of fun it really is they have the cattle

19:55

drive down the street every day

19:57

the vacant drive there's a rodeo every friday if you are lucky enough to be

20:02

in texas during the fort worth stock show it is definitely worth going to i

20:06

mean these are real cowboys this is not like a yes a show for tourists these are

20:10

like legit cowboys you know i am i am

20:13

not a i don't know because i feel like every

20:16

texan has a little bit of like cowboy in them that if you could wear boots and a

20:19

hat you would [Laughter]

20:24

if you are able to go to a place where you can wear cowboy boots and a white

20:28

hat you're gonna do it because it's fun

20:30

and the fort worth stockyards it's

20:33

definitely a place that you

20:36

you get that culture i have always said to go to

20:39

dallas for you know entertainment and things like

20:43

that go to dallas for that and go to

20:45

fort worth for culture because fort worth has kept their

20:49

wild west culture in their proud fit

20:51

yeah the city's nickname or the city's

20:53

like slogan is where the west begins and

20:55

they have that i mean even the downtown

20:58

area still has a bit of like

21:00

western flair to it yes sundance square

21:03

is yeah perfect for that you have the

21:06

stockyards which has they've kept it basically how it looked

21:09

forever the downtown stockyards has all

21:13

the old shops and everything else you can get you can still go get fitted for

21:17

like boots and probably a gun belt i don't

21:20

know all right

21:23

but it's it's a lot of fun and it's it's

21:26

neat and you get to learn a lot about the history of the of the region i

21:30

always like it a lot more than i think

21:32

i'm going to because for me

21:35

there's a big difference between

21:37

like cowboy culture and then like the

21:40

country culture that came afterwards

21:42

cowboys and like western stuff i like

21:45

i'm a big fan of that and these these people are the real deal they're not

21:49

actors and i think that's really what makes it

21:52

because texas isn't

21:54

mostly like that it's not what people imagine this is kind of exciting and a

21:57

little bit exotic even for you and me who grew up in the dallas area like

22:01

we're like oh cowboys you know just like

22:03

you would if you were like from from europe and had never seen a cowboy like

22:06

we get excited when we see cowboys because it's cool because it's not like

22:09

an everyday thing there are places in texas where that's still very much the

22:13

norm sure yeah but not in dallas

22:17

not in dallas especially north texas in

22:19

general there's not cowboys not really

22:22

the only people that wear cowboy hats are oil barons

22:26

definitely the stock yarns is definitely something to do

22:29

tons of great food in both fort worth

22:31

dallas everywhere around there definitely check it out in dallas i

22:35

would say go check out the museums

22:37

dallas has great museums the perot

22:39

museum is great the dallas museum of art

22:42

is wonderful and free the dallas world

22:44

aquarium is not free but really good no

22:48

it's a bit pricey but it's very very good

22:50

a sloth grabbed me there

22:53

no way wow they have a sloth in like a tree

22:57

that you can like go look at and it reached down and grabbed me

23:01

it was like a tarzan and jane moment you

23:03

like hold the hand no i was like i wanted to take the sloth with me at that

23:06

point we had a connection but the worker

23:08

lady said i couldn't i couldn't touch the sloth

23:11

i was like can i at least hold it it once it it chose me what would i do if i

23:15

brought home a sloth just

23:18

what does it eat i don't even know well for one i'm not sure your fiance would

23:21

be super happy with you this was a long time ago so i would have

23:24

just still had i would have been that guy with a sloth when i met her in which

23:28

case you probably would not be engaged right now if you were that guy with a

23:31

sloth like maybe she doesn't really like

23:34

sloths a guy with a sloth get a girlfriend i mean let's be honest um

23:38

it's kind of like the guy that walks around with the big snake i mean and i

23:41

have a snake he's cool he's chill yeah but he's small

23:45

so he's been on my shoulder before

23:48

he's great but no i don't know the guy

23:50

with a sloth could get a girlfriend if

23:52

you're like you're like do you have any pens you're like yeah i have a sloth

23:55

like once

23:58

yeah no you're either gonna okay that's

24:00

either going to completely derail anything you're trying to do or get you

24:03

a girlfriend there's one there's two options

24:05

anyway so that's sort of our region it's it's

24:08

great for nightlife great for entertainment yeah i would say museums

24:13

museums you know the kimball art museum in fort worth is really good

24:16

the um yeah the pro museum the kennedy

24:19

the sixth floor museum you know a lot of people travel to dallas just to go to

24:22

the kennedy assassination memorial and the museum which is very good

24:26

see i haven't been there i've lived here a long time and haven't been there

24:29

definitely check it out you can take the the train the tre between the two cities

24:33

and that's a fun experience just in and of itself riding the the tre between

24:37

dallas and fort worth yeah the trinity river express is a fun

24:40

train the rest of the public transportation

24:43

not as good but i mean it'll get you

24:45

there it'll get you there but just don't expect a lot it's fine

24:49

anyway what's next on our list next i

24:51

had dinosaur valley state park in glen

24:54

rose texas you can drive out that way

24:56

wave hello to the nuclear power plant

24:58

yeah you'll end up at dinosaur valley state park so if you are into

25:01

paleontology it's a really cool place because there's

25:04

this riverbed and there are legit

25:07

dinosaur footprints that have been fossilized in the riverbed and you can

25:09

just walk right up to them look at them

25:12

put your hand in them if you want to

25:14

i mean they're just right there you can like touch the

25:17

history and it's really cool

25:20

yeah they have a good visitor center with all the stuff about it and besides

25:23

that it's also just a really good state park it is great hiking trails it's

25:27

really pretty trails biking

25:29

yeah camping is good if the river is

25:32

high you can swim in the river you kind

25:34

of want the river to be low though so that you can see that

25:37

that's the thing yeah i know it's it's a catch-22 depends

25:40

on what it is go in the autumn because

25:42

i've been in the summer and you find the

25:44

deep part of the river and you just swim

25:46

it's nice river swimming is great i love

25:48

rivers but yeah it's it's really cool a

25:51

lot of history glen rose itself we had some great

25:54

barbecue failing that there's not a whole lot

25:58

else to do in glen rose there's a dairy

26:00

queen there's a dairy queen and a chicken express

26:04

which i've eaten in both of those things there you go yeah

26:08

yeah dinosaur valley state park is really cool cool well moving up to the

26:12

panhandle the

26:14

northernmost part of texas which kind of

26:17

is its own unique region but we're grouping it in with north texas because

26:20

it's in the north palo duro canyon also a state park and i

26:25

would argue one of the cooler state parks i would definitely the coolest

26:28

state park in texas but probably one of

26:30

the cooler state parks in the u.s

26:33

after the grand canyon palo duro canyon

26:35

is the second biggest canyon in the

26:37

entire country it is the second grandest canyon

26:40

and it's really it is cool it's impressive awesome yeah it is

26:44

impressive it is about an hour north of

26:48

lubbock or so in the aptly named canyon texas

26:53

yeah it's near amarillo near amarillo and it is i i think it

26:57

should be a national park personally

26:59

i believe it should be a national park

27:01

it is impressive enough and cool enough that it would definitely deserve a spot

27:06

as a national park if white sands can be

27:09

a national park then palondara can be a

27:11

national park not taken away from white

27:13

sands white sands is cool but i think that texas doesn't want to give

27:16

it up i think that they want to get to the state park

27:19

i think that's really what it is

27:21

great camping even better hiking and you go up there

27:25

and some of the best hiking is off trail

27:28

because there's not a ton of thick woods and

27:30

things like that there no it's real easy to explore

27:34

and so you can explore it and you can climb up a canyon which is arguably

27:38

don't do that but if you can climb up

27:41

and stand on the rim it is very very

27:43

impressive i have some videos that i'll have to find

27:47

of when i would go hiking there go to

27:50

our website attempt adventure.com we will have all these videos and some

27:53

pictures of everything we're talking about

27:55

um yeah i i'll have to go find them

27:58

but with palo duro canyon it is another

28:01

place to don't go in the summer it is

28:04

incredibly hot there's no shade

28:07

yeah i've been in the springtime and spring is nice you know it can actually

28:11

get pretty cold up in the panhandle of texas it can snow up there pretty

28:14

heavily in the winter time

28:16

which is great too if that's what you're into but autumn and spring i would say

28:20

are the best times to be at palo duro

28:23

definitely and after you have been

28:25

hiking for a full day and you're tired

28:28

and if you have worked up an appetite

28:30

don't forget to stop in at the big texan

28:32

steak ranch opened in 1960 if you are brave enough

28:37

and if you are hungry enough you can take their 72 ounce steak challenge

28:42

so here's the deal it's one of these things where like you eat the meal and

28:44

you get it for free the meal

28:47

costs 72

28:49

but it's free if you can eat it in less than one hour you have a 72 ounce steak

28:54

a bread roll with butter a baked potato

28:57

a shrimp cocktail and a salad

28:59

yeah and if you can eat it in an hour it's free and if you don't you are out

29:02

72 dollars and you will feel terrible

29:05

about yourself um

29:08

if you're going to attempt it you got to finish it

29:10

yeah apparently 9 800 people out of

29:13

about 68 000 people have accomplished

29:15

the feat and the record although it's unofficial

29:19

uh the record is held by a 500 pound

29:21

siberian tiger who ate the entire meal in 90 seconds in 1999.

29:26

yeah so there you go you can't compete with that

29:30

right he was a tiger i thought you were going

29:32

to say a 500 pound man [Laughter]

29:36

oh wow the actually the human record this

29:40

is incredible

29:42

is 125 pound competitive eater molly

29:46

schuler polished off the meal in just four

29:49

minutes and 58 seconds and then came back for seconds

29:52

how do you eat a steak in four minutes and and remain 125 pounds

29:58

i don't know competitive eating is gross let's move

30:01

on it is gross [Laughter]

30:03

but it's fun to watch the people try to do it because they start off real real

30:06

bold and they they slow down

30:08

don't get the 72 ounce meal but they have really good burgers

30:12

very good burgers i've never been there either it's always every time i've tried

30:15

to it's been very crowded it's got a

30:17

very tacky souvenir shop too which is a lot of fun the whole place is kind of

30:21

tacky oh yeah

30:23

[Laughter]

30:27

all right so now let's talk about west

30:29

texas which is super cool i'm a big fan of west texas i

30:33

think that when people think of texas

30:36

oftentimes what they imagine

30:39

if they're not from here or even if they're

30:41

actually from the us but not from texas except itself is they they picture west

30:46

texas so if you're thinking of like cowboys and like western movies like

30:51

clint eastwood that's all west texas

30:54

i think everyone thinks of el paso when

30:56

they think of texas which is you know

30:59

panther is a cool place it is but to

31:01

texans is probably one of the most forgotten texas cities because it's just

31:05

so far away it's just so hard

31:07

so far it's really inconvenient

31:11

to put it in perspective it is better to

31:13

fly into albuquerque and drive to el

31:15

paso than it is to drive from dallas to oh my gosh yeah it's like a it's like a

31:19

13-hour drive or something it's it's

31:21

terrible it's closer to los angeles than

31:23

it is dallas yeah yeah

31:26

which is wild well what have you got for west texas

31:30

james yeah the the first one i had is what you

31:34

have is guadalupe mountains hmm the

31:36

national park guadalupe mountains national park it is

31:40

free it is one of the free national parks

31:42

which is awesome it looks like a western

31:45

movie yes and it's i mean it's awesome

31:48

it's so great there we've been there a couple times

31:52

when we were there we were not prepared

31:54

to do the hike but it is a cool hike

31:58

yeah it is the highest point in texas

32:00

which for those of you in states with

32:02

mountains is not impressive but for us

32:04

it is yeah it's how tall is it

32:07

not very i mean i didn't look it up but there's a

32:11

great viewpoint at the top it's

32:15

8751 feet above sea level it takes a

32:17

couple hours to hike to the top

32:19

it's not not tiny but not even no

32:22

no it says part of the guadalupe mountain range in southeastern new

32:24

mexico and west texas uh but there's

32:27

camping you can go camping up there as well uh last time i was there there were

32:31

some guys who were planning to hike up into the mountains and do some wild

32:34

camping up there great place for it um

32:37

do watch out for mountain lions

32:39

yeah mountain lions snakes scorpions

32:44

all the desert critters if you're not

32:46

prepared to do the hike to the mountain there are some cool hiking trails down

32:49

below as well some really nice scenic trails that take you through the west

32:53

texas scrub i guess you could call it and i

32:56

love things like pine forest and things like

32:59

that like up in the mountains and things like that but there's something about

33:02

scrub it's interesting it's kind of alien too

33:06

yeah like the plants look weird

33:08

don't they like desert plants they look

33:10

weird and i have pictures of that too

33:13

when we were there that's a place that you and i have been together pretty

33:16

recently with our

33:19

oh girlfriends at the time fiance's now

33:22

yes it was really cold when we were there

33:24

too don't maybe don't go in the winter it's

33:27

really cold out there in the winter you everyone you think texas is hot uh

33:31

guadalupe mountains in like

33:34

january it's really cold really really cold yeah

33:37

it's a rough place it's it's hot during

33:39

the day it's cold at night it's very much a desert you know you gotta be

33:43

prepared for that and we were not

33:46

no so we did not do the big hike but uh

33:48

we did visit it and it's cool they also have a good it's a very small museum but

33:52

it's a good museum at the park headquarters kind of about the animals

33:55

and stuff that you'll see out there

33:58

well also out that way is the in the

34:00

davis mountains the mcdonald observatory

34:03

it's one of the dark sky spots in the us

34:05

and if you go out there it has some of the best

34:09

you know best night sky viewing it's

34:11

because it's in the desert there's very rarely clouds it's very remote so

34:15

there's no light pollution and it's got one of the big national

34:19

observatories out there and you can take a cool tour you can actually

34:23

you know look through the telescope you can go up there for night night visits

34:27

and and night experiences and things like that a really interesting place if

34:30

you're into astronomy possibly if you're into astrology i

34:34

wouldn't know i'm not

34:38

if you haven't been to a dark sky area it is

34:42

incredible i have not been to an official one but there have been plenty

34:46

of times i've been driving home from west texas at like three in the morning

34:50

and i'll just pull off on the side of the road and just sort of look up it is

34:55

incredible like have you ever actually

34:57

seen the milky way

34:59

no in the sky yeah i can't see it

35:02

because i've seen it once here in thailand

35:05

up in the the far north and like the mountains outside of chiang rai

35:09

it's insane to see it like like you think

35:12

like growing up in dallas you could see stars like i never thought oh man it's

35:15

not like new york where you don't see anything you know we had stars in the

35:18

sky but if you're actually out at a dark sky

35:22

place it just it slows your mind crazy

35:24

you don't realize how many stars are out there

35:27

and it makes you feel kind of sad to be honest

35:30

because most people will never never see that

35:34

and and you think that's what people used to see every night it's crazy it's

35:38

insane to think if i had if i had a time

35:40

machine i would love to go back to the us before

35:44

the white man came before white settlement

35:47

yeah and see what it was like

35:50

yeah alas a lot of passenger pigeons

35:55

yeah and then the next one i had on here was the uh was monahan's sandhills state

35:59

park really cool if you're not in the

36:01

mood to go slightly further out to white sands

36:05

monahan's sand hills is kind of the white sands of texas although it's not

36:09

white sand but it is really nice sand it

36:11

is great sand for sledding so people will go out there and they will

36:15

go uh sand sledding and you can rent the

36:17

sand sleds at the park and go sliding down you want

36:22

to do that that sounds like a lot of fun for sure because the thing is at white

36:25

sands the sand is gypsum and it's kind of

36:29

you can't slide very well on it but at mona hands the sand is very

36:34

slippery and you can slide really nicely apparently and it's like it's like

36:37

sliding down a hill in the snow i've

36:39

actually never done it but apparently it is a lot of fun

36:42

i want to do it did you have anything else in west texas

36:45

no it's also fun just to drive through

36:48

because it's very pretty in a barren sort of way

36:53

some of these like oil towns out there they're almost ghost towns but it's cool

36:56

it's also cool in a way and it's an

36:58

interesting side of texas that's very

37:00

different from what we get in dallas or like the central region

37:04

and it's it's that beautiful desolation

37:06

right like the moon it does kind of feel like being on the

37:09

moon it does and there are parts of guadalupe

37:12

mountains national park that kind of feel a bit lunar um but yeah that's just

37:16

that's just part one of this episode

37:18

about travel in texas we're gonna come back next week and do part two with some

37:22

other regions you know and that's just because texas

37:25

is a really cool diverse place and we're excited to share our home state with you

37:30

guys again do go to our website

37:32

attemptedventure.com

37:34

where you can see show notes for this episode along with all sorts of pictures

37:37

and maybe even some videos of things

37:39

that we've talked about in this episode and we're going to be back next time to

37:43

talk about the remaining regions as well

37:45

as some general tips for traveling and

37:47

road tripping in the great state of

37:49

texas so stay tuned for part two

37:55

[Music]

38:04

time for our favorite segment adventures

38:07

in the news and this week sir it is your

38:09

turn what have you got for us

38:11

yeah so what i have it says ben fogle

38:15

who is a adventurer tv personality

38:18

okay recreates travel adventures from home

38:21

under coronavirus lockdown ah he says we

38:24

went dog sledding went on safari horseback riding he skied across

38:28

antarctica

38:30

basically what he does is

38:32

he sets a tent up in his living room

38:35

and he got he got a sled and he tied his

38:37

dog to it okay and and was just sitting there

38:40

pretending the whole time

38:43

he went he set up a bunch of stuffed animals on his lawn and drove past it on

38:46

a jeep and called it a safari

38:49

okay it's you know it's it's sort of one

38:51

of those things where he's he's definitely making the best outfit i i

38:55

like that i like hearing about how people are

38:58

doing their best right now to try to

39:00

have these adventures when they can't get out it's not easy you know he he's

39:05

having a good time yeah

39:07

it says he teaches survival skills from his children's tree house

39:12

that's awesome i have a lot of respect for that

39:15

because it's not easy right now still

39:17

not easy i saw that and thought it was fun

39:19

yeah that is really fun a lot of people can't get out right now and so maybe for

39:24

fun buy a green screen

39:26

in like green screen yourself onto places and

39:29

just making funny instagram we could do

39:32

james we could do when i when i come in and and meet you we could even do a an

39:35

instagram or a facebook live where we

39:38

pretend that we're on an adventure as a promotional stunt for this podcast

39:42

[Laughter]

39:44

that's funny like we'll be in colorado

39:46

but we'll be pretending that we're

39:50

oh man that's really fun

39:53

yeah i think it's important for people

39:55

to understand that even when you can't get down you can still do things to

40:00

have fun because i can guarantee you this guy had fun oh yeah it's not the

40:04

same but it's it's definitely fun and

40:06

it's something that i've been bad about i've been sort of complacent in thinking

40:10

well i can't really get out and do anything so i'm just going to be lazy

40:13

but you don't have to be so you know i

40:15

want anybody listening to this to write

40:18

in tell us how you've been entertaining yourself or keeping sort of

40:21

your adventure spirit going right during

40:24

this whole time that is super cool i

40:26

want to try to do something like that i want to try to do that i mean i've been

40:29

kind of going a bit stir crazy this year locked down as have i'm sure a

40:34

lot of people and you know it's it's tough living in a

40:37

studio apartment in

40:39

in that time so you know i think that i might try to do

40:44

something like this at some point maybe i do need to get a green screen

40:47

i have a pretty good imagination i think

40:49

so you put yourself

40:52

yeah

40:54

all right ladies and gents one more

40:56

reminder of our monthly challenge which

40:59

is about food all about food find your

41:02

favorite local food spot our favorite local dish local cuisine

41:07

anything send it to us

41:09

in an email hello at attemptedventure.com subject line

41:13

challenge we're going to be talking about our favorites in a week or so

41:18

and we look forward to hearing what you've got to share with us you can also

41:22

find us on our website attempt adventure

41:24

dot com where you can find

41:26

show notes as well as pictures of all

41:29

the places all of them that we talked about in this episode so do check that

41:33

out i think the website looks great we finally got a sidebar that was a lot of

41:37

fun to set up i enjoy doing that you can

41:39

also find us on facebook instagram or

41:43

youtube attempted venture i still have

41:45

not bothered getting the twitter unlocked i might get around to that

41:49

attempt pod

41:52

but uh you know that's you know how that goes

41:55

that's all right well ladies and gentlemen thanks as always for listening

41:59

uh if you go to texas i hope you keep us in mind i

42:03

hope that this podcast at least inspires

42:05

some of your adventures so ladies and gentlemen thanks again for

42:08

listening and until next time

42:11

keep adventuring [Music]

42:17

so

42:21

[Music]

42:34

you