Hello Readers!
It has been well over a month and I have not written anything! I have run a few times, but there is much bigger news. We moved to Southern Alabama. But the trip… was INSANE. Insane good? insane bad? both.
this update will come in 2 maybe 3 parts because it is just so long. Let’s back it up to why we moved…. California is just too expensive, we wanted to be with more nature and in a smaller town. Things were too toxic where we were, with neighbors and such. It was time for a major change.
We started selling off our things, Jesse mostly- he sold the boat, the kayaks.. anything and everything. We kept the essentials and donated/threw away the rest. We purchased a 24 foot trailer, we did as much work as we could on the truck to make sure it was good and ready for a long 2100 mile road trip. I had vacation days saved up, we were going to do this and have fun! Oh, that is always the plan, isn’t it?
We planned to go from California> Flagstaff> Amarillo> Fort Worth> Lafayette>Daphne Alabama (home).
We watched the weather patterns religiously, and got nervous when a big tropical storm was rearing its head on the gulf.. .wondering what kind of damage would be done, would we be able to cross? Heat advisories were going off in Texas, rain and thunderstorms were on the radar for New Mexico and Texas. We were worried.
But, we had it all planned out, we knew our hours and mileage for each day, we had hotels set up, we had spare tires, we had brand new brakes, we had extra everything. But, of course something had to happen…
Day 1/ Monday: We left bright and early 5:30am. Packed up the truck with the last of our things and we were off to meet Jesse’s dad for breakfast. It started raining. We couldn’t make it to his house because the streets were too narrow. We parked on the side of the road and his dad picked us up. We stayed for a bit there and had breakfast and then were off by 8:30am. Things were pretty smooth, but once we got into Arizona winds were HIGH. These gusts had to be 50-60mph. My car was in the trailer as well, so we were carrying a very heavy load. We made it to our destination (finally), checked in and relaxed. It was a nice day and we were ready to keep on trekking.
Day 2/ Tuesday: We got up early and were ready for the day. With COVID we always wore a mask out and were cautious about health and safety. The hotel provided a little goody bag for breakfast. Off we went by 8am. Winds high. Semi trucks were zooming past us at incredible speeds. The mix of both were stressful on all of us. Each time a truck passed us it would send the trailer fish tailing. And then.. with about 140 miles left a semi truck passed us and the wind howled and we were fish tailing and almost crashed into a guard rail. We would have been dead. I am not exaggerating. Everything flashed before our eyes, I reached out and held on for dear life, Jesse strong armed the truck and did everything he could, planning to lay the trailer on the guard rail and save us from rolling. Everyone around us slowed down, watching as disaster was going to unfold. I do not talk about God much, in fact I was never religious, but over the past few months we have really turned to Him for advice to show us the way out of our mess and misery. He watched over us. He kept us upright. He even shielded Hendrix’s eyes to where he didn’t know this happened- as he watched his tablet and did not notice the horror unfolding. As we continued down the road, other truckers behind us checked in and went slow past us. We laughed it off thinking we just cheated death.
About 50 miles down the road we started to smell something, chemicals or something burning. It got stronger and stronger, we were in the middle of New Mexico and there were no (big) towns around us. We had passed by a small town called Santa Rosa 20 miles earlier. We pulled over. We sat, we talked to Jesse’s dad.. we tried to figure out what was wrong. Jesse normally goes to worse case scenarios and I thought “there is no way the rear axle is ruined… we are OK.” We got off the side of the road to the nearest town, 2 miles down the road, where Google Maps stated there was a gas station.
There was no gas station. It was a Ghost Town. Exit number 291, for Cuervo. There are only abandoned buildings. We will forever remember this turn off. We called AAA, turns out the insurance we purchased on the trailer doesn’t actually cover it! It is for RV’s only. We paid for nothing. Truck was covered, trailer not. Our whole life was in the trailer. What were we going to do? Amarillo was too far away, and the next closest town was Santa Rosa. We spoke with a small town mechanic and they gave us a deal to tow truck and trailer to their shop. The town has less than 2600 people in it. We arrived around 10:30 at night. Exhausted, hungry, sweaty and beaten down. We found a crappy little motel, realized we lost out on $ from our hotel we had reserved already in Amarillo and just bunkered down for the night.
The following day we were picked up (2 hours later than we were supposed to) and taken back to the mechanics. It was determined the rear axle was shattered. This was no easy fix. This would cost thousands. Stressed is an understatement, we didn’t have that kind of money to just toss around. Our vacation mode quickly ended. This was now survival. We couldn’t check back into another hotel for 4 hours. So, we sat out in the sun, and waited. Most stores near the mechanic were shut down. Economy had taken a hit, whether from Covid or just in general, we had no idea.
We returned to the hotel later that day broken down and worrying about what we would do. We had to research which parts we needed, what the exact specs were on the truck, and come to the realization that this part was very hard to come by. By 4pm I decided that we couldn’t do this alone. I started a GoFundMe page to raise money, I have never been one to ask for money. Never. It makes me sick to ask for something when I feel I should be making it on my own. But, I had to swallow my pride. I was also nervous that no one would help. Boy.. was I wrong.
Messages, texts, calls, and money came flying in (we did not hit our goal, but the blessing was we were able to use this money to help with the labor cost and hotel rooms). I was in tears the rest of the day, bewildered by the support from friends and family showing their love and concern for us. My family is a “car family” we know how to work on them, how to figure out the issue and get it done. The gear heads got to work, shooting out possible options, shooting down others.. trying to figure out how to get a used part for under $2k. Junk yards didn’t have any, ebay was a lost cause, we were looking at a bill from anywhere $2.5k-$5k from a dealership.. until we found a website (on Wednesday July 1st) that said they have a used part for $1400.
We call, we talk to the sales rep, it is only 4 hours away from us. They can send it on a semi truck and get it there the next day. We jumped for joy. We gave them our card information, we thought “this is great! we will only be a couple days past our agenda/itinerary). We had planned to be in Alabama on the 3rd, so we could catch fireworks in our new town. We were obviously going to miss that, but it was OK.
So, the part was supposed to arrive Friday morning. We decided to make the most of the extra day we had to stay and went on a day trip to Colorado. That was a bad decision. We nearly were run off the road (in my car this time) by road raging locals. Who then proceded to follow us for 20 miles and fight Jesse. We called the police, couldn’t get through.. contacted a different department, they weren’t there. Left a message, provided as much detail as possible, was able to film the driver and get their license plate number. We made it to a SEEDY Colorado Springs motel, where we witnessed, prostitution, drug selling, gun smuggling among more. We slept for all of 2.5 hours that night and left at 3am. We thought well, we will get to New Mexico and the part will be delivered shortly after that and we will be on our way.
Wrong again.
No part. No contact from company. Looked up company (which I suggest everyone looks up reviews on companies prior to making a big purchase) and found out they were a scam. We contacted over and over, they said “oh it’s on a truck, you’ll get it before 6pm”
Part never showed.
We were hung up on, we were yelled at by the company for demanding too much- we were just simply wanting what was promised to us in the time frame given to us. We waited, and waited… kept our family up to date and succumbed to the fact we were probably out of the money and never getting the part. But.. we are stubborn. And we do not give up. I called. Jesse called. We all called. We bombarded the company and demanded either the part to be in our possession that day or to give us our money back. Lie after lie was told to us- first it was shipped, then it will be shipped, then it won’t be shipped till next week. We eventually got them to say they would provide a refund if we wanted it. We recorded them. We wanted to give them one more day to see if it would still come. Maybe it was just lost in transit. They couldn’t contact the delivery truck driver, so we had an ounce of hope. Maybe… just maybe we weren’t getting screwed over.
The following day… still no part. We couldn’t wait any longer. We reached out to see what could be done. We decided that we needed to purchase it new. We also decided we couldn’t wait around and spend $60 a night on hotels. Saturday mid day we left New Mexico with some clothes and left our truck and trailer at the mechanics. That day we drove to Fort Worth Texas.
Part 1 FIN.
stay tuned for more.
Run Jac Run 🏃🏻♀️ 