We’ve Been Through the Desert

We made it out of Texas and into the desert. Our “horse” does have a name, though. A couple. We sometimes call it Big Blue Truck, since it is bigger than Little Blue Truck, the titular children’s book character (thanks for the books, Uncle Ken!). Other times, Izzy will call it the Cat Car, as its blue color matches that of the vehicle driven by Catboy from the children’s cartoon PJ Masks.

Whatever you call it, our 2019 Ford F-350 Lariat with the 6.7L diesel PowerStroke engine, crew cab, 8-foot long bed, and 4-wheel drive, has been a great tow vehicle so far. It has plenty of power to get the trailer up and moving and strong brakes to slow it back down. We gave it its first real test through some grades north of Phoenix and it did great. We didn’t have any trouble passing the semis doing 45 while climbing the grades, and more importantly, the engine compression and fancy turbos kept the trailer from pushing us too fast as we went back down.

It’s pretty comfortable to drive as well, with heated and cooled seats, a heated steering wheel, Apple Car Play, adaptive cruise, tons of outlets, cameras everywhere, and the ability to keep track of tire pressure on both the truck and trailer.

The biggest downside is that it is huge. At over 22 feet, it is too long for a standard parking space. Combining that with a turning radius more comparable to a boat than a car, makes navigating parking lots, or any kind of slow-speed maneuvering no fun.The fuel consumption isn’t that great either. We’re lucky if our miles per gallon break into double digits while we’re towing, but we can get as high as 17 on the highway with just the truck. At least the 48-gallon fuel tank means we don’t have to stop too often.

All in all, we’re very happy with our truck. It gets us where we need to go in comfort and safety, we’re getting used to driving such a huge vehicle, and it will pull our house and all our belongings whenever we need it to.

After leaving Texas, our Big Blue Truck took us all the way to Cottonwood, Arizona. On the way, we spent three nights in Deming, New Mexico and one outside of Tucson.

Upon leaving Texas we realized we’ll miss a few things about it, including:

• small town donut shops (seemingly always run by friendly Korean people who tell you to have a blessed day)
• never being more than 30 minutes from a Walmart
• Buc-ee’s
• spotting cowboy churches

After spending so much time in a single state, it felt like we positively sped through New Mexico. We only stopped in one city, and only spent three nights there. We did find a few things to do, though.

Izzy and I found some dinosaurs and toured a museum.

And we were all able to visit a local winery. There was live music, a charcuterie board, and Charlotte and I tasted a flight of wines. (all pretty good, but I can’t recommend the green chile wine). The winery was a nice place, but it really wasn’t a great spot for a three-year-old who would much prefer a play place and a Happy Meal. I had even called ahead to see if it was okay to bring small children and was given the green light. Ah well, some things you gotta find out on your own.

After leaving New Mexico, we had a quick one night stop just outside of Tucson. On the way there, Google Maps kept giving us alerts. A bad accident had shut down all of the westbound lanes of Interstate 10. Rather than sit in traffic, we decided to pull off. We managed to drive completely around and successfully park at a big outdoor shopping mall with our trailer.

I called the RV park to see if they had any suggestions on how to get there. The lady who answered was incredibly grumpy and claimed to not even have our reservation (I distinctly remember talking to her to make it, though). She begrudgingly reserved us a spot, and we found an alternate route that only involved sitting in an extra 20 minutes of traffic. The grumpy lady was for some reason very nice in person, and we only paid $13 for the stay, so it all worked out okay.

From there, we headed north into Phoenix, the biggest city we’ve ever driven our trailer though. We had struggled with the route planning, unsure if we should drive through the mountains or through the city. When you’re towing a 36-foot trailer, narrow lanes, steep grades, and tight turns are no fun, but neither is trying to get through three lanes of traffic to make your exit. Ultimately, we decided to take our chances in the city. Luckily, we drove through Phoenix on Sunday morning, so there weren’t too many cars to deal with. Once past Phoenix, we climbed into the high desert, past a ton of saguaros, up and down a few decent grades, and into Cottonwood.

We reserved 9 days in Cottonwood, to give ourselves a chance to relax a bit from our hectic driving schedule, but this didn’t quite work out. The RV park we stayed at was large and spread out. The parking spot we found was at the bottom of a valley, with almost no cellular reception. With no internet in the trailer, Charlotte had to commute into town, finding a table at Starbucks or the local library on the days she needed to work.

We were also very excited to get to spend some time with Daniel and Rhodora, Charlotte’s brother and sister-in-law. We were able to meet up with them a couple of times to share a few meals and a gorgeous hike in Sedona. Since they don’t live too far from the campground, they were also able to help us out by providing an all-important address where we could send our packages and mail.

Another day, we ventured down to Phoenix. We got in some shopping and found a really cool playground for Izzy to enjoy.

That evening, we were able to grab dinner and catch up with one of my old friends that I haven’t seen in over a decade. (Zach and Ashley, we should have taken a quick photo!)

After that, we packed our bags, prepped the trailer for storage, and got ready for a big adventure. I’ll save that story for next time (or the next few times). Until then, see you down the road.