The next morning was miserable.

 “I’m calling it off. This is ridiculous. What the hell am I doing this for?” 

These were my first words as Megan stopped me from hitting snooze for the 6^th time at around 7:00 AM. She was right, of course, so I rolled out of bed, gathered the gear for the day, and headed out to the bus. At 7:30 AM we passed a digital billboard that proudly proclaimed that it was already edging up on 90 degrees with 90% humidity. Have I yet mentioned the weather? As I write this, 5 days after the conclusion of the challenge, we have just broken the record for the most consecutive days with temperatures over 100 degrees since the 1920’s! It has refused to rain in so long that we are starting to look like the “Golden State”, but the moisture has taunted us for weeks, hanging heavy in the sky and air. Why wasn’t I born in March?!!!

We hit Reimers Ranch at just after 8:00 AM and slowly started knocking off routes. To save time, Megan was climbing only one out of every 3 or 4 climbs. She was trying to encourage me and keep my spirits up, but she couldn’t help wondering why I seemed so lethargic. In answer to that, I ask how many of you have ever had an MSG & Lone Star hangover? I thought not. I did manage to eat one soup on the drive out, but at that point, I couldn’t imagine having another.

By 11:00 AM, I decided that I would have no chance of finishing if I didn’t take a break and have some soup. We headed up to the parking area where I had to face another obstacle to my completing the challenge. As I went to light the stove in my camper, I discovered that apparently I had left the master valve in the propane manifold open the last time I went camping and the slow leak had drained the tank. It was already mid-day on Saturday and I still had 8 more Cup O’ Noodles to eat. What was I to do? Well at this point, Megan came up with the saving idea, “It is a hundred degrees outside, why not cook it with solar power?” So we filled the soup with water and set it on top of a black car and when I checked it 15 minutes later, it was perfect!  This technique would be used successfully several more times throughout the day.

Over the next two hours, I was able to knock out the rest of the climbs without any major incident. I was even feeling pretty good except that my biceps seemed to be completely blown. Apparently the climbing, mountain biking and kayaking had taken their combined toll most seriously there.

When the climbing was done, we got back in the bus and I prepared the first Tex-Mex of the day. I also got a soup going and was easily able to finish both by the time we arrived at Muleshoe, a county park on Lake Travis. 

Brad and Mark had not yet arrived with our bikes, so Megan and I decided to do the trail run on one of the horse trails while we waited. This proved to be problematic. Not only was it well over 100 degrees outside and I had a fresh batch of noodles churning in my gut, but since I couldn’t keep up with Megan or our dog, Pacaya, I ended up plodding along choking on the clouds of dust that they kicked up. And unfortunately, I was all too aware of what makes up that dust on horse trails!

When we arrived back at the bus after the run, Brad and Mark were waiting. Without further ceremony, we hopped on the bikes and started the first of two seven-mile loops. The Muleshoe trail is a nice, mellow single-track that runs over shaded rolling hills. Other than a few short, steep climbs and a small handful of technical sections, it is a fairly easy ride. However, my level of exhaustion by that point in the challenge was making things difficult for me. For the first half of the ride, I just couldn’t get into a good groove. Luckily, things began improving over the last few miles, and I was starting to really enjoy the ride by the end of the first lap.

We returned to the bus between laps so I could retrieve and consume the soup I had left baking inside. This was probably the only soup of the entire challenge that I actually looked forward to. We had ridden the trail pretty aggressively and I was craving energy food. And what's better than pasta to recharge your batteries? After slurping down the noodles in about two minutes, we got right back on the bikes and finished the ride. The second lap was a blast. We ended up doing one of the fastest loops I have ever done at Muleshoe. Upon returning to the bus, we all cracked open beers and took a few minutes to cool off in the lake and celebrate the completion of all of the physically demanding parts of the challenge (other than the physical demands of holding down soup and beer while hula hooping that is!).

However, when we arrived home, the support crew was waiting for us and they had been busy. The Christmas lights were twinkling and tiki torches were burning all around the yard. Folks were already inside preparing food and more friends kept arriving bearing culinary delights. Of course, this was somewhat meaningless to me as the only thing I had to look forward to putting in my mouth for the rest of the night was cheap beer, lime, dehydrated shrimp and noodles. But the festive spirit they brought with them did wonders for revitalizing my own spirit and helping me to return to the task at hand with renewed vigor.

Mike Labinski, my song training partner, was already sitting on the deck with guitar in hand, so I pulled out my own instruments and sat down to join him. “Bring me a soup and a Tex-Mex,” I shouted, “and keep ‘em coming!” Over the next few hours, as many as 10 people joined the circle playing guitars, mandolins, harmonicas, drums and other percussion. We had a great time doing old stand-bys and several new surprises that we had never played together before. Some of the high points for me were the Let the Good Times Roll -> Scarlet Begonias -> Fire on the Mountain, Paint My Masterpiece, and a rockin’ rendition of All Along the Watchtower. At about 9:30 PM, we realized that we were falling way behind schedule.  Our pace was just too slow to finish the songs by the end of the challenge. So I was faced with a ethical decision - Was it more important to achieve the quantity or preserve the quality of the songs. We decided that it would be a disgrace to the memory of the Grateful Dead to rush through even a single song. After all, one of their greatest contributions to rock and roll was the extended improvisational jam. With that settled, we immediately broke into a 15-minute Birdsong!

“I’ve been sandbagged!” I cried in disbelief.

At this point, I must digress and explain a subtlety of Nissin brand shrimp flavored Cup O’ Noodles. There are actually three different flavors contained within this culinary category.

Most of the soups I had eaten during the challenge were of the basic shrimp variety. However, for variety’s sake, I had thrown in a few of the Shrimp Picante Style (one example of this which showed particularly poor foresight was right before the trail run!). But the shrimp with HOT SAUCE is a soup that I had learned long ago was out of my league. This type actually comes with a small packet of extremely fiery hot sauce right in the cup. Now after living in Texas for nearly 7 years, I have grown to love spicy food. But this soup sears your mouth and leaves you with rumble-gut for days.