A Rough Start

It’s well-documented at this point that my transition to nomad life with my dear man was an utter shitshow. We were exhausted before we even hit the road. Starting from the bottom is not exactly a recipe for success.

Neither is having your tow vehicle give up the ghost three days into your nomadic travels.

On borrowed time

We knew we’d have to replace the Dodge Power Wagon along the way. It was old, beleaguered, and struggling to manage the load. It wasn’t the right tool for the job and after many attempts to fix chronic issues, putting any more money into was a fool’s game.

Fortunately, J had already been researching our next vehicle thinking we had six months to a year to figure it out. We thought we had time to get settled in and keep our eyes out for the truck we wanted.

Then, on a two-lane stretch of US 93 in Arizona while attempting to make a rapid, uphill exit from a dicey-as-fuck rest area with no line of sight into traffic going over 80 miles per hour, the Power Wagon lost its shit. A blood-curdling series of flashing lights and warning beeps spewed forth from the instrument panel. The truck struggled to get up to speed at all much less as quickly as we needed it to before a speeding vehicle rounded the corner into us. It was heart-stopping.

After a few minutes regaining our composure and being very grateful we were still alive, reality began to sink in. The Power Wagon couldn’t be trusted. It was going to strand us somewhere with our house in tow. Or worse, cause an accident because it could no longer do the job.

J looked at me and said, “We need a new truck.” And, after a short pause, “Like right now.”

I nodded and croaked out “Yes. Yes we do,” my heart still not having climbed down from my throat.

Limping into Phoenix

In the last few days before leaving Nevada, we’d pieced together a series of stays at Maricopa County campgrounds that would cover our first few weeks on the road. The area is extremely popular that time of year so we had to hop, not only between parks, but between campsites within the parks based upon reservation availability. The parks are true gems but the logistics were complicated and exhausting on top of our other struggles.

Our first stop was Cave Creek Regional Park. We oozed into the Phoenix area the day after our US 93 Code Brown, being ever-so-ginger with the Power Wagon. Given the uncertain nature of its failure issue and lack of reliability, we were on edge the whole day. We took a huge sigh of relief and had a substantial happy hour after getting settled in.

We finally offloaded the sidecar outfit that we’d been tripping over the last four days as it consumed all of our living space in the toy hauler. That’s on top of the piles of extra stuff we threw into the trailer at the last minute because we didn’t have time to sort it before we left. So in addition to crawling over the sidecar, we were constantly moving the extra load back and forth around the trailer every day as we tried to get settled in and organized.

And now it was suddenly time to get serious about a new tow vehicle. Everything else would have to wait.

Scrambling for wheels

We spent the first day in Phoenix getting oriented to the area. I’d never been there before and knew basically nothing about it. We picked up tacos and went to our pal Dave’s house to catch up over lunch and filled him in on our troubles.

That night back at camp, J searched relentlessly online for a truck. He wanted a 2nd generation Dodge Ram 2500 manual diesel long bed with a crew cab. Those were a lot of boxes to tick off on a 20-ish year old truck. He found some within our 500-mile search radius that were close on specs and was doing the mental gymnastics on what he was willing to forego given our now-urgent time frame.

The next morning over coffee, he resumed his search. It was Christmas Eve. He looked up from his screen and said “I think I found it.” The kicker? It was right there in Phoenix.

He said, “I think we need to go look at it today.” I agreed and we shoveled some breakfast into our pie holes and drove an hour to the used diesel truck lot where it sat.

Diesel dream

The 1999 forest green diesel beast met all of J’s desires. Every one of them. And it was in fantastic condition. You wouldn’t have guessed it was twenty years old. It had only one previous owner who had clearly been meticulous with its care.

We took it out for a test drive, trying to be as critical as we could. It was a challenge in Phoenix traffic on a rainy day in an unfamiliar, manual transmission truck that essentially drives like a tractor. But it was clear that J was loving it. We forced ourselves to step away and sleep on it even though the choice seemed clear.

The next day was Christmas of course so we spent the day enjoying the hospitality of our dear friends, Dave and Merelyn. Then it was back into the fray of sorting our tow vehicle issue.

Putting the pieces together

The decision was no longer in doubt but as with any large purchase, you need to cover your ass. So the day after Christmas, we arranged to take the truck to a nearby diesel shop for an inspection. The report came back overwhelmingly positive. They had a few recommendations but overall they were impressed with it.

We were a little in shock that not only had we found a truck so quickly, it was exactly what J wanted, it was sitting right there in Phoenix, and it was in amazing condition. It was almost too good to be true. We kept waiting for the catch.

The truck dealer whipped up the paperwork and we began finalizing the deal. That’s about the time I realized I’d forgotten our checks. They were back at camp over an hour away. I couldn’t stand the thought of driving over an extra two hours in Phoenix traffic. I was crushed. Eventually we worked out a deal with the seller. Yes, he would let us charge the truck purchase! Thankfully we have a lot of credit.

A short time later I found myself driving the Power Wagon behind J in the diesel to the local tag office to get our temporary plates. Then we bee-lined back to the diesel shop to have them do some upgrades and minor repairs. It turns out it was going to take them a couple of weeks to get the parts and do all of the work so we said goodbye to the truck we’d owned for all of an hour and headed back to camp.

Truck hokey-pokey

So now we own two large trucks and live as full-time nomads. We can’t sell the old one until we get the new one back. And we needed the Power Wagon to last long enough bridge the gap. We were also in the throes of heading to Baja for a trip with friends we’d planned long before the house sold.

That means that in the midst of the ongoing campsite shuffle we had the challenges of finding a way to get back to Nevada to get the new truck registered since it would be our travel vehicle to Baja. Going into Mexico with temporary plates wasn’t an option.

Yet another issue? The title to the Power Wagon was in a safe deposit box, back in Carson City. Awesome, right? Can’t sell the truck without the title in hand. We also needed to figure out where we could stash the trailer for the 9 to 10 days we’d be on our Baja trip. Oh, and we needed a sitter for the Adventure Dog. The complexities and dependencies quickly became overwhelming and the trip was approaching quickly.

It takes a village

Fortunately our pals Dave and Merelyn are two of the most amazing friends we know and they saved our asses. With their help we were able to put a plan together.

First, they let us ship all sorts of bits, pieces, and farkles for the new truck to their place. Then they let us store the Power Wagon at their house while we used the new truck, back from the shop at last, to tow the toy hauler to Lake Mead. From there we hopped into Las Vegas and secured plates for the truck. Next, I flew to Reno for a day, rented a car, chased down the Power Wagon title, and checked on our household goods and vehicles in storage for good measure. It was a whirlwind and we’d knocked out several of our obstacles and charted our return to Arizona.

We had a few more details still to manage, though. The biggest of which was a place for Toby and where to park the trailer while we were in Baja. Dave and Merelyn to the rescue again. They agreed to keep Toby for us and that was everything. Knowing he would be with people who adore him and not with an unfamiliar sitter meant we wouldn’t worry about him constantly.

It was down to where to park the trailer. I couldn’t find much temporary storage to begin with, much less without exorbitant fees. Dave and Merelyn offered to let us park it in front of their house—yes along with the Power Wagon, the dog, and storing other valuables for us.

It was too much; we couldn’t bring ourselves to ask that of them as well. In another stroke of dumb luck, we found a marina RV park with dry camping as our last Maricopa park reservation came to an end. They also had RV storage, but only long-term. Chatting with the friendly desk clerk, we came down to paying the $20/night fee for dry camping and we’d simply leave the trailer unattended for our trip. In the end, we came out ahead since it saved us the two nights in a hotel we would have needed to manage putting the trailer in storage. Go fig, right?

The relief of having those details sorted after weeks of not being able to solve the problem was tremendous. We decided to park the Power Wagon in front the trailer while we were gone, not only to ease Dave and Merelyn’s load, but to hopefully make the trailer not look abandoned for over a week.

Time for Baja

The plans were in place at long last. We were hopeful that stepping out of our challenges for a short time would let us return with fresh, new conviction to get ourselves settled into nomad life. And we just crossed our fingers that our 200-square-foot home would be ok while we were gone.

It was time for the beauty of Baja, our good friends, and to decompress from the unrelenting stress of the past six weeks.