Wednesday 16th November – arrival in Texas

We had pre-booked a campsite for two nights in Dallas to ensure we had somewhere to stay for the gig so we couldn’t slow our travels down today or choose to go somewhere extra.

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But now we didn’t have to factor in getting into Dallas for a gig tonight we went straight on to the other priority for Dallas – Gas Monkey Garage.  For anyone thinking ‘eh?’ I’ll try to do my best but this may be another time when Simon’s knowledge exceeds mine.  There is a TV show called ‘Fast ‘n Loud’ which is available in the UK on the Discovery Channel.  This is one of Simon’s favourite shows where the mechanics and other experts custom build old cars into bespoke original muscle cars. The garage has a well-stocked merchandise store attached to it.  For missing my gig, and for general brilliance, Simon treated me to a Gas Monkey T-shirt and we also invested in a bumper sticker for the RV.  The teller told us that none of the main guys were around today but that they should be around tomorrow for autographs and tipped us off that the best time of day to meet them would be around lunchtime.  But in addition to the Gas Monkey Garage, there are other premises in the area linked to the show, where spin-offs are filmed.

The ‘Fired-Up’ garage came about when employees of Gas Monkey fell out with the boss, Richard Rawlings, and struck out alone to set up another business.  When we arrived there, filming was taking place.  We hung about by the gate looking like spare parts for a while, until eventually we were invited in and got to go inside the garage to see what they are currently working on.  We met John Klump and Josh Paris from the show, who were kind enough to give us a sneaky peek of what they were currently working on, all of which is due to feature in the future shows.

The guys were really welcoming and happy to take time to talk to us about our trip too.

From there we stopped off at ASM Auto Upholstery, where ‘Crazy Sue’ does a lot of the vehicle interiors for the GMG guys and the Fired-Up Garage.  Again, she was very friendly and happy to pose for photographs:

Dusk was approaching so we headed to our posh Sun resort campsite, just squeezing in under budget at $24.50 per night.  No gig tonight as planned, just another rock ‘n roll night in the RV.