Highway to Cybersecurity: Safeguarding Cars in the Digital Age

The digital threat landscape for the automotive industry has never been more dangerous. Legendary FBI operative and cybersecurity expert Eric O'Neill joins us to reveal how cyber attackers are targeting major manufacturers with devastating results. Right now, Jaguar Land Rover's production sits paralyzed by a ransomware attack that's already lasted three weeks with no end in sight. 

These aren't isolated incidents. Just last year, a similar attack against CDK Global crippled 15,000 US dealerships, causing nearly a billion dollars in losses. What's truly alarming is how these breaches ripple through the entire automotive ecosystem - from manufacturers to suppliers to your personal data. Eric breaks down exactly how these attacks happen, why they're so difficult to prevent, and what makes the $18 trillion cybercrime industry so dangerously effective.

But it's not just corporations at risk. Eric shares chilling stories of how ordinary people fall victim to sophisticated "phishing" scams through simple text messages that evolve into friendship before turning predatory. The conversation takes a terrifying turn as he explains how elderly victims are "fattened up" before having their life savings stolen through elaborate confidence schemes.

We also explore automotive safety from a different angle with Jeff's exploration of racing helmet evolution - from simple leather caps to today's carbon fiber marvels with potential heads-up display integration. And for those seeking autumn adventures, Marrs provides some Texas fall travel tips, from the colorful foliage of Lost Maple State Natural Area to the wine trails of the Texas Hill Country.

Want to protect yourself in this digital battlefield? Eric's upcoming book "Spies, Lies and Cybercrime" teaches you to think like a spy to recognize attacks before they happen. Visit ericoneil.net to pre-order and sign up for his free weekly newsletter with essential cybersecurity tips. Your digital safety might depend on it.

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Transcript

Welcome to In Wheel Time

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to another In Wheel Time podcast, a 30-minute mini version of the In Wheel Time Car Show that airs live every Saturday night at 8 to 11 am.

Speaker 2 0:07

Welcome to the award-winning In Wheel.

Speaker 1 0:09

Time Car Talk Show Coming up. We talk to Eric O'Neill about cyber attacks on the auto industry and why you should care. Later in Jeff's Car Culture, he tells us about helmets and how to protect your noggin. There you go, and Mars has fall travel tips in the state of texas. Howdy, along with mike. Out of this world, mars. We always need more. Jeff zekin, chief engineer david ainsley. I'm, don armstrong, so glad you could join us today. Hey, if we look a little bit different, well, it's because we got a new setup. Yeah, teasing this for quite some time and and we are here and we've got our new green screen. Actually, this isn't the green screen. This is my backyard. I've got some really cool cars.

Speaker 1 0:54

All the kids are out there, the neighbors are really complaining a lot about it, a lot of rumbling going on.

Speaker 3 0:58

Yeah, hoa is going to be after you.

Speaker 1 1:00

Listen, they're all over me. Yeah, it's been a real upset for the neighborhood here, but at any rate, we're on the air Three weeks and we thank you for joining us today. Mr Mars, he comes to us from Niterville, texas. I think it's officially called Niterland, but I like to call it Niterville. It just has a little bit more of a homey.

Speaker 3 1:22

It kind of has a little more right, a little ring to it.

Speaker 1 1:24

Yeah, a homey taste to it, the affectionate way, yeah, yeah. And so Jeff has joined us in our new studio here out in, actually, and we're in Richmond, texas, which is a suburb of Houston, so we're going to continue to call it Houston. Kind of like when we used to have the drag races over in Baytown, it was still Houston, houston and Houston Raceway Park and all of that, so it doesn't really make any difference.

Speaker 1 1:50

We all live in and around the Houston area, except for you, mars. Mars is much closer to Louisiana, where he should be.

Speaker 3 1:57

Yeah, we're almost there, yep.

Speaker 1 2:00

There's that.

Speaker 3 2:00

Y'all keep growing, though, and you'll be over here before long.

Speaker 1 2:03

Wait till you take a trip out here. We're going to have to annex you.

Speaker 4 2:07

Yeah, no, we're not.

Eric O'Neill on Auto Industry Cyber Attacks

Speaker 1 2:09

We'll never do that. Anyway, let's get right to the guest this morning. His name is Eric O'Neill. Cybersecurity expert, legendary FBI operative, oh boy, Attorney and founder of the Georgetown Group and Nexassure. Ai Works with organizations to protect themselves against cyber criminals. Eric, it's great to have you with us. Thanks so much for joining us today. We appreciate you.

Speaker 2 2:32

Yeah, don, jeff and Mars. It is great to be on the show.

Speaker 1 2:35

Well, thanks. So let's talk about cybersecurity. You know, as a regular user of the internet, nothing special, we don't do anything crazy or anything like that. I worry about cyber attacks. I worry about getting my computer infected by something that I've clicked on and it's not porn because I know everybody here is going to go oh well, we know what you're looking. No, that's not it.

Speaker 1 3:01

It's car porn. Car porn is probably more like it. Yeah, that's not it, it's car porn. Car porn is probably more like it. Yeah, but the bottom line is is that we are always getting hit upon, if you will, especially through emails about things that somehow, some way, they can hit that button where you go huh well, did I subscribe to this? And you click on it. Then all of a sudden you're infected.

Speaker 2 3:30

Yes, certainly Don, and that's why I wrote my new book Spies, Lies and Cybercrime.

Speaker 2 3:32

The idea is to explain why there are so many cyber attacks, and the simple fact of the matter is that criminals really don't care who you are.

Speaker 2 3:39

They don't care how much money you have, what you do. They only care whether you're vulnerable and they're coming after us. And, by the way, the number one way that cyber criminals are now accessing our data, getting us into trouble, breaching our systems and stealing that data that now really has become the currency of our lives is through social media. Believe it or not, Just text straight to your phone. They buy your phone number off the dark web and just send you a text that might say hey, and if you're a play person who responds and says I think you have the wrong number, they get you into a conversation and maybe weeks later, when you think you've made a new friend, they scam you. So this is a long, sometimes a long play and, just like you said, email is still one of the number one ways that they launch attacks against us, because we still tend to trust it gain by getting into General Motors or Stellantis or Ford Motor Company and all of their affiliates.

Speaker 1 4:49

Plus, let's not forget the information that each of them has prioritized with their company you know, company secrets, that sort of stuff. How does all of that get played into what you're talking about?

Speaker 2 5:02

Well, let's talk about an attack that's happening right now against Jaguar Land Rover that has brought production in the UK to a complete halt. It's gone on for three weeks and the company has said we don't even think we're going to be able to get our systems up until, I think, september 24. That's another four days and I don't know that they're going to be able to. This was a cyber criminal group. Now these cyber criminals call themselves silly names and I think because they're young and they read comic books but they call themselves shiny hunters and their buddy Scattered Spider. They all have these affiliates that work together. Cyber crime is a business. It is a massive industry and it is one of the most successful businesses on Earth. Right now, the cost of cybercrime flowing through the dark webs, or the evil underbelly of the Internet, is around $18 trillion and by next year it'll surpass $20 trillion.

Speaker 2 6:00

Attackers allegedly attacked Jaguar Land Rover and brought them down. Now Jaguar Land Rover isn't saying anything, but it looks like it was a large-scale ransomware attack, where they get in and then they take down all of their computer systems, and what this has done is created this massive supply chain attack. Factories are shut down. Their backups were compromised factories are shut down, their backups were compromised and it's become this reputational crisis for them where they have to decide are we going to pay this ransom or can we restore it? And it looks like they're having trouble.

Speaker 2 6:32

And just a year ago here in the United States, cdk Global, which is one of the huge supply chain companies that deals with all of the car sales right, so if you want to sell your car, they kind of connect you to your loans or to inventory. It's this big database company. They went down. They were taken down by a cybercrime group and that was 15,000 car dealerships across the United States that were down for over two weeks, where the only way they could sell a car is on paper, and that was, I think they calculated 900 million in losses and what's happening to Jaguar looks much worse.

Speaker 2 7:19

So I mean the long and short of this is if you can dealers, dealers, or if you can attack the, the automotive industry. What people don't realize is that that is part of our critical infrastructure right now, you know, just like lights and power or water or food, or telecommunications or finance. If people can't buy their cars, if people can't get, get a new car or even buy a used car, then that causes a crisis and it's not just money, it's reputation and people who are really upset when they can't buy that new car for their 16-year-old.

Speaker 4 7:51

Yeah, I've been with companies where they teach you how to look for bogus or different types of emails when you reply to things or you open up different attachments, and that's basically how it gets started, correct.

Speaker 2 8:04

Yes, that is one of the number one ways that this can happen. So what cyber criminals are doing is they're using old school espionage techniques of deception, imposter, attacks, confidence schemes, right, and what they want to do is fool you, get you to trust them, and it can be an email that looks incredibly persuasive. It could, for example, come from a partner or a vendor or a parts detailer, and it's coming to your company or to you. It could look like it comes from a family member or a friend or a business that you work with and you trust it because you've seen something like that before. It seems just right. And then you click on a link or you open an attachment and that's how the attackers are able to launch the malicious software that compromises your computer system and once they're in, they move.

Speaker 1 8:55

What do these criminals have to gain by this and how can they monetize it?

Speaker 2 9:01

Well, first of all, money. So if they compromise a single individual right, they might not make that much, but each person is a point of attack to a lot of other people. If they can get into with ransomware and create enough pain that the company says we're just going to pay you millions to get out of this, Well, that's a big payday. They also can use a large company attack to steal customer information, to launch attacks against customers, to be able to get into vendors or parts dealers or all of the different companies in the supply chain that work with that one company. So it can be absolutely devastating.

Speaker 4 9:52

How do they catch these villains?

Speaker 2 9:55

Well, the sad thing is they very rarely catch them. It's every once in a while they'll catch them, but most of these attackers aren't in places that have extradition. They're smart enough to sit in countries that don't care about cybercrime and don't extradite their criminals to the United States. Every once in a while the FBI and Interpol and DHS and all the different security agencies across the world get together and launch these campaigns to go into the dark web and shut them down. But bad guys have backups too, and as soon as they're shut down, they'll often just restore from their backups and come back and they just rebrand.

Speaker 1 10:29

What can we do to protect ourselves?

Speaker 2 10:32

Well, that's why I wrote my book. First of all, read my book because it teaches you not only how to think like a spy to recognize the attacks. I think the number one way to defend against these things is to see them before they cause damage. So to see when someone is using an email to attack you. To see the confidence schemes and the imposter attacks, the destructive attacks and the infiltration attacks, all the different ways that cyber criminals are coming after us. If you can see it and recognize it, that means that you will have the presence of mind to stop, think before you do that thing they want you to do, like clicking a link or opening an attachment or giving them access to your bank account. And then the second part of the book challenges you to act like a spy hunter, and that's how you take the battle to the bad guys and defeat them at their own game.

Speaker 3 11:23

So we're talking primarily about email, but what about social media, facebook, twitter? And I'm asking because I got a text a couple of times and it's you know what time are we going to dinner? Are we still going to dinner? And okay, yeah, we're still going, or no? And then a little bit later it kind of realized I don't know this person.

Speaker 2 11:43

That's right. Well, what that is is that is called a phishing. That's the technical cyber security term for a phishing attack using a phone or a text, and what they're doing there. I'll tell you a story. I tell a story in my book about a elderly gentleman who received a text, just like you did, and he replied because he's polite and he said oh, you know, you must have the wrong number. And the person on the other side started chatting with him. He was a little lonely, so he chatted back and after a few weeks, they developed a friendship. And then the person texting him, his new best friend, said just so, you know, I'm an investment, I have an investment portfolio and I specialize in investing in cryptocurrency, and you know the elderly guy you know.

Speaker 2 12:34

He says his name's Edward. He says well, you know, I don't really want to get into cryptocurrency. I have a pension. It pays me out every month. I'm great. And he said well, why don't you just give me a thousand dollars and I'll show you? I just want to show you how amazing this is. So he thinks he'll help out a friend.

Speaker 2 12:48

He has $1,000 lying around. He sends him the $1,000. It looks right. He sends it to a bank account. The new best friend invests it and then shows him a website, the secure portal website. He logs into. Edward says well, that's amazing. How does that happen? He says cryptocurrency is different. And so he invests everything, everything he owns, his entire pension fund. He clears it out, he moves it over his bank accounts, everything into it, until he's looking at a few million dollars and her husband and his grandchildren on a vacation. Except for when he reaches out to his new best friend to take that money out, the new best friend is gone, and this is what we call financial pig butchering. You fatten up the target until you take everything you can and then you disappear with the money and leave them destitute. Wow.

Speaker 4 13:49

So is it more prevalent on the individual side, like you say, the seniors or the elderly, or is it more corporate, or is it a balance of 50-50?

Speaker 2 13:54

either way, it's very prevalent with seniors because they're looking and they actually do reconnaissance. Often they will learn about you through your social media and they're looking for people who are lonely. They're looking for people who might respond, who are polite, but it happens everywhere. Some of these attacks like the one you got is probably just a list of cell numbers that the attacker bought off the dark web and he just sends out thousands of texts seeing who replies. So it's like going fishing, right, where does he get the nibbles? And then he might chat with them. I chat with these guys all the time and then finally they look me up right, cause you can reverse look up a phone number and they realize who I am and then they just rage, quit.

Speaker 1 14:37

But you know I try to string them along as long as they can, and then they rage quit I like that term.

Speaker 2 14:43

They get very angry when you've wasted their time for like a month and then they realize that you're a security researcher.

Speaker 1 14:48

So, eric, how do we get your book Spies, lies and Cybercrime?

Speaker 2 14:53

Well, you can go to my website wwwericoneilnet Somebody's sitting on com but ericoneilnet and pre-order the book. It comes out October 7th and if you want to get weekly information about how you can protect yourself, I do a weekly breach of the week and a cybersecurity tip of the week. I have a newsletter with the same name Spies, lies and Cybercrime. You can go there right from my website, click the top banner and it'll take you right to the newsletter for free.

Speaker 1 15:24

If we sign up on ericonealnet, is it free? It is, if you not going to scam us.

Speaker 4 15:29

You're not going to scam us. You're not going to scam us. You're going to steal a scam number.

Speaker 2 15:34

Well, one of the ways you know that it's more secure is when you look at my website. When you go to my website and you should look at it look for the little lock near the HTTPS in your browser that says that it's a secure, encrypted website. Now, people can spoof it, but if you click the little lock, you'll see that it's a secure website and you know you're safe. All you're giving me is your email address. That's all I need so I can send you my newsletter every week and you will learn a lot.

Speaker 1 16:01

Maybe we need that here on In Wheel Time. He's trying to take In Wheel Time from us. That's what it is. No, but I'm thinking that maybe we need that on In Wheel Time. How do we get that lock?

Jaguar Land Rover Cyber Crisis

Speaker 2 16:10

Well, you just go to a great webmaster and they can register your website as secure, so that anyone who's browsing to your website knows that they're in a secure space.

Speaker 1 16:21

Well, mr Mars, down in the right-hand corner of your screen, is the one that's going to do all of that. Eric, we can't thank you enough. It's really a pleasure, honor and great information. And the book again is Spies, lies and Cybercrime. Eric O'Neill is his name, ericoneillnet. Again, thank you, my friend. Something new comes up, give us a call. We'd love to have you on the air again.

Speaker 2 16:42

Absolutely. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 16:43

Thank you, sir, we appreciate you. You bet Just ahead Jeff's car culture and helmets for your automotive nuggin, noggin, noggin. I like the nuggin Okay.

Speaker 4 16:54

Well, you got a nug. I do have a nug, you've got a grandchild nicknamed Nug Nug.

Speaker 1 16:58

Yeah, plus, mars has Texas fall travel tips. After this break on the In Real Time Car Talk Show, the Tex-Mex dining experience is defined by Loopy Tortilla your destination for Texas' best beef fajitas and frozen margaritas. Since 1983, loopy Tortilla has served authentic and time-tested recipes made with the freshest ingredients. Atmosphere is part of the award-winning experience at Loopy Tortilla, all developed in a little house near Highway 6 and I-10 in West Houston. Visit any of the Loopy Tortillas and you'll see the same attention to detail in each and every location. Start your Loopy experience with queso flammeado and guacamole, along with a classic frozen margarita. Dine on famous Loopy beef and chicken fajitas or pepper shrimp brochette, or a fish or vegetarian entree, and finish with a scrumptious flan for dessert. Find Loopy Tortilla in Houston, college Station, beaumont, austin, san Antonio and Dallas-Fort Worth. There's a Texas location near you. The recipes are authentic and time tested, the ingredients always fresh. Loopy Tortilla it's pretty good.

Speaker 1 18:09

Apple or Android in-wheel time podcasts can be found everywhere on the stream and through downloads. Whether you're on the road or at home and jonesing for a different kind of car talk show, give In Wheel Time a try. Honest new car reviews, fun, informative interviews with real car people, weekly automotive news, features like Jeff's car culture and Mike's driving destinations all on In Wheel Time. Check us out on SiriusXM Podcasts, iheartradio or while you're shopping on Amazon through Amazon Music. Inwheeltimecom has a list and we know you love lists. Okay, that's on me. I have a new console over here. I potted up the wrong thing, it's okay.

Speaker 4 18:48

And for those that don't know.

Speaker 1 18:49

Potted up is not a marijuana term, pot P-O-D it's potentiometer.

Speaker 3 18:59

So there, I think you should just stay with pot it up.

Protecting Yourself from Cyber Criminals

Speaker 1 19:04

Yeah, we'll go with that. There you go, hey, in Little Time invites you to join us 10 to noon Central Time every Saturday for our live show about all things automotive, if you can hear it, if you can pot up. Thanks for being with us today. Time now for Jeff's Car Culture Helmets. Do they really protect your being?

Speaker 4 19:21

I don't know, do they? Well, racing, with its adrenaline-fueled speed and daring maneuvers, has always been a dangerous sport. Behind the wheel, drivers face immense risks going through curves, straightaways, side-by-side and breakneck speeds. The most crucial defense, well, it's the helmet. In the early years of racing, drivers wore soft helmets that offered a little more protection than from bugs. Imagine leather caps and goggles the bare minimum to shield their heads from the elements. But as racing evolved, so did the need for better safety gear. So cloth, the soft cloth, gave way to football leather. While an improvement, it still fell short in the crash protection. Racing was becoming faster, more intense and the drivers needed helmets that could withstand impact. Safety wasn't the priority and, unfortunately, the shows of the death rate of the drivers were really prevalent. In the 50s, it saw introduction to the first fiberglass helmets, which offered improvement, durability and impact resistance. For their predecessors, these hard helmets were a significant step towards the terms of safety, but they still lacked the features in the modern racers that they were wanting for their helmets. In the 60s, dupont introduced the game changer called Nomex. This flame-resistant material formed the basis of fireproof racing helmets. With the risk of explosions during accidents, nomex was a crucial part for the safety of the drivers. In the 70s and 80s, the introduction of the full-face helmet, which was a significant leap forward. These helmets with fire-protective hoods protected drivers from debris and fire Visors, became standard, enhancing eye protection. Also, with the advent of the computer-aided design or CAD, allowed for more precise shaping of the customized of the helmets for the person's head and the individual drivers, as well of the helmets for the person's head and the individual drivers as well. This led to the increased comfort and reduced fatigue during long races and further enhancing the safety. Then we come up to the 90s, where aerodynamics took the center stage. These sleek helmets reduced air resistance, enhancing performance.

Speaker 4 21:25

The 2000s brought lightweight materials, ensuring both safety and agility, because there's a lot of lightweight stuff on your neck. Helmets are a marvel of engineering, made primarily from a combination of carbon fiber and Kevlar. The weight adjusted is about 2.7 pounds, or 1.25 kilograms if you're in Neiderville. These helmets consist of about 12 layers, with the top layer adorned with bright designs and sponsor logos. Those are fantastic.

Speaker 4 21:53

Helmet restraint devices reduced the likelihood of head and neck injuries during crashes. Helmet restraints included straps and attached to the side of the helmets which prevented sudden head movements, basically to help in the crash. However, these devices were not widely used in the motorsports in the 80s or 90s. Only after the Dale Earnhardt incident in 2001 on the last lap of daytona was more focus given to the hans device. Looking into the future aerodynamic, dynamic shapes, integrated cooling systems and helmets more advanced than ever before, they're actually considering putting a head-up display in the visor of the helmet, which I think is cool. I've got a head-up display in the visor of the helmet, which I think is cool. I've got a head-up display in my car. I use it all the time, so it's fantastic.

Speaker 1 22:36

You know, I got one in my old Corvette 2001. Corvette's got a head-up display. It was an option back in the day and yeah, I use mine all the time. Yeah, I think it's cool.

Speaker 4 22:47

And there you go.

Speaker 1 22:54

Protect your head when you're driving in the race car. Yeah, mr mars. Yes, sir, I see. Now go ahead and put yourself back up there. Why did you minimize yourself? I? We want we wanted to see you, so could you do that? I can do that no, we want you full screen. He's, he. Mars is buried in papers over there, papers and shoes.

Speaker 3 23:13

There you go. I got to get resituated, do you?

Speaker 1 23:18

I like the way that you're at the beach with 80s cars.

Speaker 4 23:21

You just got a storm brewing in there. Who's that man?

Jeff's Car Culture: Helmet Evolution

Speaker 3 23:25

Yeah, there's another word for that. Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 1 23:30

Okay, look at all the papers that he's got.

Speaker 3 23:32

Well, I had them all in order and David told me to move them and I did, and now I'm all out of order. Why? Because, I'm.

Speaker 1 23:39

Could you not just move the whole stack?

Speaker 3 23:42

Well, I did. That was the problem.

Speaker 1 23:45

Oh, my God.

Speaker 3 23:46

No, they think different over there.

Speaker 1 23:48

When you get to the east, they think different.

Speaker 4 23:51

You got a post-it note on the back of that paper. Is it important?

Speaker 3 23:54

Yes, it is, that's so I can find it.

Speaker 1 23:57

You can't find it All right. We're moving on. Time now for Mars Driving Destinations. Fall Travel Tips in Texas.

Mars' Fall Travel Tips in Texas

Speaker 3 24:05

Yeah, buddy, first up we're going to talk about different places that you can go, and the first up is going to be Lost Maple State Natural Area. Now, this is famous for all the Uvalde maples. Now this comes off in mid-November, it's really the peak season for the color, the hiking, the camping and the stargazing, and it's really Texas crown jewel for fall foliage, because that's the time whenever people can go out there and it really does have a lot of reds and oranges and yellows things that you think about that are more up in the northeastern part of the country, but this area in central Texas has a lot of that. It's all fed by the Sabino River and it's got cooler temperatures, so it's a really great place to go camping and hiking during the fall if you want to see all the color you know I, I just can't.

Speaker 1 24:51

I don't see colors in texas in the fall.

Speaker 3 24:53

Yeah, maybe in january well, you know summer's kind of dragging on here it's not really letting. Things aren't cooling down like they're supposed to in the fall.

Speaker 4 25:03

You know we don't have good fall anyway so david's going back to the up in a few days and that's already starting to change up there.

Speaker 3 25:10

Yeah, he could get us some pictures. Yeah, yeah. Moving on let's talk about the Texas Hill Country Wine Trail. Oh yeah, Texas Hill Country. Now, if you go out in the fall, this means the harvest festivals.

Speaker 1 25:22

They have great stomps going on in the wine trail from Fredericksburg all the way over to Johnson City, which is not really that far when you say that all I can think of is that famous wine stomp that Lucy had on her show Exactly when she actually got in a real fight with the actress that was playing the wine stomping lady.

Speaker 4 25:39

Did you know that? Yeah?

Speaker 3 25:39

Yeah that really happened. No, I didn't know that. But fall is the harvest season in the Texas Hill Country wine world and it's a really good time to go out and explore the wine trail, because it's a lot cooler and it obviously runs from Fredericksburg to Johnson City. You used to, and nobody ever thought about Texas wines, uh per se, other than you were making them in the backyard, but there's actually a pretty big market for those. So during the fall you get the crisp mornings and the mild afternoons so you can go out and do these walkthroughs of these wineries and do some wine tastings. You get some award-winning whites and reds particularly the reds, because that's supposed to be heart healthy. So take care of that. Oh yeah, let's go for that.

Speaker 3 26:18

They also host great stomps and harvest festivals. Some places have live music in October and November on the weekend, so it's a great place to go out and check out the fall. Now, if you really want to get ambitious and you really want to get serious about going out and about in the fall, head down to the Big Bend country Wah, head down to the Big Bend country out in West Texas, because during the fall the weather gets better. You go out there in the summer and it's like monster. You'll melt down in the summer but during the fall and the winter time out there when it's cool, you can go hiking. They've got river trips and there's actually a lot of places you can go out there and do stargazing on the tops of these hills.

Speaker 3 27:00

Oh, it's a beautiful place and it's monstrously big. I went one time in the summer and that was it. That's kind of like going to new orleans in the summer. You learn, don't do that. But it does make it into the fall, makes it into a much more comfortable adventure destination. They've got places like the Chisos Basin, the Santa Elena Canyon and a lot of desert landscape.

Speaker 3 27:20

If you're out in there, we're looking at the cactus and things that grow out in the desert, and you can actually get over to the Rio Grande. You can do some river rafting if you want to down through there to the Rio Grande. You can do some river rafting if you want to down through there, and there's plenty of stargazing going on because a lot of people go out there during Big Ben's International Dark Sky designation. That's where the Milky Way really gets brilliant that time of year and it really offers fall offers a great time to do things like that. Also, if you want to go back to the east, you can go over to Caddo Lake. Now, this is different. It's full of bald cypress trees. They're really old and they've been around a long time, like me.

Speaker 3 27:58

Yes, Now Caddo Lake is one of those that's straddling the Texas-Louisiana border so during the fall you actually get different kind of elements of the fall going on, because they've got a lot of cypress trees, they've got Spanish moss in them and it gets kind of swampy in certain areas when you get on the Louisiana side. They got kayaking you can do, you can go by canoe. They got guided boat tours. This used to actually be the main waterway that brought ships and or ships. Boats came up bringing cargo up from the coast up until it kind of um the silt and stuff a little. Then it's shallowed out to where they can't do that anymore. But it's a great place to go if you're looking for something out in the lake area in east texas fall travel tips in texas.

Speaker 1 28:42

Mr mars, thank you so much. I hope I didn't cut you off, but the time is fast approaching that we need to take a break.

Speaker 3 28:49

Yeah, I need to figure out how to get to where I can see the clock much better. Why did that not stop?

Speaker 1 28:55

I don't know, but at any rate, when you're ready, Mr Mars, it's time. Mr Mars is now playing all the commercials.

Speaker 1 29:03

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Speaker 1 30:11

The award-winning In Wheel Time Car Talk Show now reaches 5.3 million folks each year. Check us out on inwheeltimecom, the Odyssey Radio app, youtube, facebook and just about every other entertainment source out there, including our live broadcast every Saturday 10 to noon Central Time. The In Wheel Time Car Talk Show has informative automotive guest interviews, new car reviews, along with popular features, including Jeff's car culture, the latest new cars, cruise ins and racing dates. It's InWheelTimecom. Join us. That's it for this podcast episode of the In Wheel Time Car Show. I'm Don Armstrong inviting you to join us for our live show every Saturday morning on Facebook, youtube, twitch and our InWheelTimecom website. Podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts, spotify, stitcher, iheart Podcast, podcast, addict TuneIn, pandora and Amazon Music. Keep listening and we'll see you soon.