Long, Long Trip, Part 5. The Conclusion.

 

I am now back to my friends in the Pelican State. The dog gets a great new home. The friends get to play tourist in Louisiana and Texas and then they head back to Arizona, going right through little isolated Van Horn, Texas. The repair shop finally notifies me late on Jan 10th that the truck is “fixed,”  the $400 worth of parts installed. I pay the bill over the phone. My girlfriends volunteer to pick up my truck on Friday morning Jan 13th. T.A. becomes an official member of W.W.D.D.P.A. (Women Who Drive Diesel Pickups of America) which is a society I just made up. She’s a brave lass! This is great timing. It means I did not have to travel six hours back to Texas myself to get my truck.

Everything goes well for 262 miles/420 km.

The engine quits and T.A. glides off the interstate highway into a large parking area in New Mexico at the Continental Divide. It is an absolute miracle - the timing of it - that she is able to safely get off the road. I get a phone call…

After a number of calls, my friends are able to leave my truck and continue their trip to Arizona. A tow driver picks it up later and takes it into Lordsburg, New Mexico where, surprisingly, there is a Ford Dealership, which means actual Ford trained mechanics. They reassure me that they will get a look at it soon. Soon? 

I call them every couple of days. They are just about to get to it. Again and again. Meanwhile I am getting rides, and borrowing a car in order to buy the necessities of life. Must Have Coffee! My community college night school classes begin but I can’t get there. Please don’t drop me from the class!

After an entire week goes by with nothing from the Ford experts, they finally - on a late Friday afternoon - regret to inform me that nobody on staff has the expertise to diagnose what is wrong with my truck. Why he didn’t know this within a day, I do not know. They recommend the truck be towed to my town. The best diesel shop in the area is right here where I am living. Okay. So I call for another tow, this time about 82 miles/130 km. For those keeping count, this is tow number five of the trip. The final tow is set for Monday Jan 23.

A freak snowstorm hits on Monday Jan 23. A snowstorm in the southwest! Tow truck does not leave for New Mexico as it is snowing there too. It is not a crippling storm, but where it only snows even a little bit maybe once a year, any snow is significant. I go take snow pictures and wait.

My baby, or my beast (nickname depends upon my mood) truck finally arrives in my town on Tuesday Jan 24, about three weeks later than I expected. And it sits in the shop parking area. And it sits. The diesel shop is slammed with work. As is the case in many professions, there are not enough people to fill the jobs. Finally the main issue is identified. Parts are ordered. Contributing issues are also identified but these can be addressed later. 

It is a humbling experience to live far outside a town and have no transportation available. Although people continually offered me rides or to loan me their vehicle. I have so many wonderful friends! But I kept busy getting a lot of material ready for the landfill and one just doesn’t load up a borrowed vehicle with refuse! Anyway, it had been 50 years since I had been without ready access to transportation. Oh, a day here and there, of course. But this was now 4 weeks without my truck. Thank goodness so much commerce can be transacted online. Cat food and cat litter came to my door by FedEx and UPS. Happy cats are a priority! 

The day my baby finally came home and finished its trip from NY to AZ was February 2nd. I can go to my college night classes. I can go to the dump. I can go buy groceries, coffee even (!), just anytime I want, day or night. I can just step out my door and jump in the truck and go anywhere I want, whenever I want. As long as I can afford the fuel! This is a freedom I will never take for granted, ever again. The experience has been challenging, I applied much patience. But the joy of being blessed by strangers, and friends alike, it was just priceless. May they all reap outsized rewards in return!

For any mechanics out there, the main culprit was an ICP sensor. Once the other nagging issues are taken care of next week, the diesel expert believes I will have a dependable truck for at least the next 100,000 miles. I certainly hope so. It is a wonderful beast! Even if it did give me some grief - and a long, long trip!