The county shut down completely, banned rentals, and required all second-home owners to leave. Too many people got sick for the medical facilities up here to handle. Skiers brought the sickness and the ski company was slow too close. Crested Butte is one of the towns that spiked in the early spring. That evening, driving into Crested Butte, we immediately saw the signage. You could touch nothing and had to keep your mask on until you were seated at your table. You were instructed to read the menu and decide exactly what you wanted before coming inside, fully masked, and ordering. In Fort Garland, the small restaurant where we had lunch had their menu posted on a window. So, Colorado does not play when it comes to this virus. The skiers took the virus to the tiny mountain towns and things got very bad very fast. Now, you must understand that Colorado was hard hit early by the pandemic. Our next stop of the trip was in Fort Garland, Colorado. We went from zero to 100% in thirty miles. In New Mexico, everyone we saw was wearing a mask. Wednesday morning, after leaving Dalhart, we crossed into New Mexico and stopped to get gas (which was 50 cents higher than in Texas). Then I thought back on our stops in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma and realized there was a pattern. It wasn’t until we hit Dalhart that I became concerned about being exposed. We are very careful to wear out masks, use our hand sanitizer and keep our distance. Also, if we come down with Covid-19 you can trace it straight back to the good people of Dalhart Texas. Let’s just say Evans got to share my excellent pancakes. I ordered the 2x2x2, which I thought would be two eggs, two pieces of bacon, and two small pancakes. Our darling waiter, Luis, who like everyone else in Dalhart, Texas was not wearing a mask and seemed oblivious to the worldwide pandemic, encouraged us to go to The Grill for breakfast. Sometimes what you get is so much better than what you thought you wanted. It was surely the best brisket I have ever eaten. What you want in North Texas is brisket and that is what we had. By the time we got there, I was hungry, frustrated, and put out that there were no Mexican restaurants open. The only game in town was called the XIT Woodfire Grill.

Here’s the thing, in a tiny town in North Texas at 8 pm during a pandemic, most restaurants are already closed.

I checked “restaurants near me” on Google and found several small, local Mexican places.

That evening we stopped in Dalhart, Texas.

Xit woodfire grill menu