Truckster’s Desert Trek

On Monday, John and I began the final leg of this summer’s Great American Road Trip. I flew out to San Diego over the weekend to take the reins from Steph who is headed to New York to begin her career in advertising. I’ve traded my desk chair for the Truckster’s driver’s seat to accompany John on this 1,300 mile journey back to HomeAway HQ in Austin, TX.

Sand dunes in SoCal

The trip turned out to be quite an adventure! The first day we experienced multiple border checkpoints and saw some of the most breathtaking scenery through the deserts and mountains of Southern California and Arizona.

Sandstorms---very dangerous!

After a long day of driving, we stopped to grab a bite to eat in our destination of Tucson and had the unfortunate occurrence of a dead Truckster. It wouldn’t start! We all know the Grisowlds had their own maintenance issues in Arizona but we promise we didn’t fly the Truckster 50 yards off a cliff!

Skiing anyone?

With unsuccessful attempts at jump-starting the Truckster, AAA was quick to the rescue and informed us that the solenoid on the starter was malfunctioning…solendoid?…sounds like something on the space shuttle. The coolest part of this unfortunate ordeal was that John and I learned a nifty trick, how to hotwire the Truckster.

Check out this video of John demonstrating the use of our new key to the ignition, a Swiss Army knife.

Mechanics are like Truckster doctors

The next day, instead of creating suspicion to everyone observing us starting the Truckster in the future, we had the solenoid replaced and were on our way to Fort Davis, TX for pit stop number two on the way home.

After that long ordeal, it was very rewarding to rest our heads in this lovely Tucson vacation rental. Huge beds and a huge TV can cure any day’s woes.

Tomorrow, we complete the journey to Austin!

-Adam