Adventure 2.0 – Downsized!
January 2023 found us at our favorite nomad place to start the New Year – Saguaro SKP in Benson, Arizona! We stumbled into this gem on New Year’s Eve 2019, our first New Years on the road, and found a warm welcoming group of people whose volunteering in the community is legendary but also know how to have fun. Their annual Polar Bear Party to help the local food bank in early January always results in several thousand pounds of food and easily more than ten thousand dollars in donations, as well as a great party for all the leaseholders and visitors to the park.
After the festivities of the New Year wound down, we got to the reason we were staying here this winter instead of being on the road as we usually are: number one, purchasing a truck and number two, planning and organizing for a summer in Alaska.
Purchasing a truck to go with the Hallmark Ute truck camper we had purchased in August of 2022 was proving to be more challenging than we had anticipated. Larry had researched which truck to get based on our needs and decided that the RAM 3500 Tradesman Cummins turbo diesel would be the reliable and powerful beast we wanted. At first we had envisioned buying new, and even wandered the lots at some Dodge dealerships as we traveled in the fall, looking at colors and deciding the details of our order. But when we got right down to it, the soonest we could get a new truck was late 2023, certainly not in time for the envisioned summer trip to Alaska. We pivoted and started looking for a used truck and that was when the frustration of interacting with auto dealerships made us remember why in our lifetimes we bought few vehicles and held on to them forever. Multiple times a deal was sold out from under us, out of state dealers would insist we had to come immediately in person to start the purchase, our inquiries just wouldn’t be returned, or we couldn’t use our financing. Each time our search seemed almost over and then ended unsuccessfully, the wind went out of our sails and we felt a little defeated. We are used to setting goals and getting them accomplished but the other side wasn’t playing nice. Larry had found Your Auto Advocate on YouTube and their help navigating past the red flags, unresponsive salesmen, and evaluating each truck’s potential made the process feel less foreign and overwhelming. We took their free “Deal School” on how to negotiate, what to say, and what to expect in the financing department and it helped us feel less intimidated.
In the meantime, Larry was talking to Hallmark manufacturing who had kindly stored the Ute truck camper for us since August. We had toured the factory in late July, knowing that we wanted a Hallmark truck camper to travel in more nimbly than our Class C with Jeep in tow. Their campers are beautifully made by a family owned company, and we were impressed. Our plans to purchase one were not immediate, which was fine as they were 18 to 24 months out on their orders. As we were leaving, a couple came in to sell their 2014 Ute that was not only the model we liked, with all the features we wanted plus some neat upgrades as well as having been meticulously maintained. Hallmark let us work out a deal between ourselves and a few days later we surprised ourselves by purchasing it. We didn’t mention the Ute purchase to anyone as we felt a little unprepared buying a camper not having a truck to put it on, and honestly, we hadn’t taken but a few pictures of it on that fateful day. Hallmark had let us know if things with the truck didn’t work out they could sell the camper for us and we wouldn’t lose any money. They also wisely suggested we enjoy the Ute as it was for a season before deciding on any changes or upgrades.
One of the few photos we took of our Ute in July (on the former owner’s truck)
I was busy gathering together all the resources on Alaska that I had been accumulating for a very long time—bookmarked websites, scanned in articles from years of Alaska magazine subscriptions, travel logs and blogs from other RVers, and YouTube videos from some of our favorite channels. Thus the process of planning the summer trip to Alaska began! British Columbia campground reservations opened four months ahead to the day, so making May reservations started January 15. I’d be online in the morning waiting for the moment the website opened up the dates I wanted, and for the most part I secured the campsite I had researched. Ferry reservations and some tours for May were booked as the schedule for our trip came together. My original route changed a few times until finally falling in to place, guided by events we wanted to go to and some that would have to wait. Alaska is so big, with so much to do, and we know we’ll want to make more trips in the years to come. It was good that the weather was unusually cold for Arizona so that I didn’t mind being inside working while Larry did maintenance on the Jeep and RV as well as the Ram search.
Finally, in mid January, a glimmer of hope on the truck purchase appeared. We had lowered our expectations for the year, mileage and options on a used truck, thinking that this would be a truck we’d just take to Alaska, sell and then order the truck we really wanted. A truck we had originally passed on because it was a repo came down in price and the dealership in a small town in Ohio was fine with an out of state sale and us providing our own financing. The photos of the truck looked fine, though we really hadn’t planned on a red truck—I mean Case International Harvester Red!
It had almost all the options we had been looking for, so we put a deposit and Larry had a diesel mechanic near the dealership look it over. Once the truck got a clean bill of health we started the process of our financing as well as arranging travel to finish the purchase. I drove Larry to Tucson, stopping along the way at the REI to purchase an inflatable Advanced Elements tandem kayak that was half off (but that’s another story). He flew to Columbus, and the dealership drove an hour to pick him up. The purchase of the truck was completed with everyone he encountered along the way friendly and professional without the games we’d experienced elsewhere.
It took him two days driving to get to Denver, with a winter blizzard making his first drive in the truck a true initiation. He was really, really pleased with the truck’s performance and what great shape it was in. Maybe this truck wouldn’t be a short term ride for us after all!
I arranged his hotels as he drove and had packed him food and snacks. He took the Jet Boil so that he could stop and make coffee on the truck tailgate to break up the drive.
I flew from Tucson to Denver where he picked me up in the truck right as I got off the plane. My first impression was that the truck looked gorgeous and the interior was very nice as well! We stayed in a hotel overnight and the next day went to Hallmark manufacturing where we spent the day installing the Ute onto our Ram truck.
There they are-our truck and camper-in the same town at last!
Everyone at Hallmark was so helpful, knowledgeable and enthusiastic that the day flew by.
We filled many pages of a notebook on their instructions and advice, and they had Larry back the truck up to load the Ute on for the very first time when everything was ready. He did a great job, and we left in the late afternoon heading back to Arizona.
We camped our first night in the Ute at a truck stop in Springer, New Mexico which is really in the middle of nowhere with an overnight temperature of 19 degrees! Thankfully the Ute has a furnace and there was some propane in the tank which we used sparingly to keep us warm-ish overnight. At a WalMart stop earlier we’d picked up a throw blanket for both of us to sleep under, which was barely sufficient. We were in such disbelief and relief that we really truly finally had a truck and camper that we just laughed at ourselves. By the next day we made it back to Benson where we sat inside the Ute popped up in the driveway and it sank in we’d done it—successfully downsized from a Class C to a Truck Camper! Truly grateful, we felt only God’s grace could have put all the pieces in place.
At the very end of January we were visited by Ken and Lisa, a couple we met in March 2019 at an FMCA rally in Perry, Georgia. We had dinner and it was so much fun to hear their stories and share their happiness. Though they were already very seasoned travelers, Ken and Lisa had downsized their lives and become RV full timers nine months ago. After they left, we reflected on our first year on the road back in 2019 and how we hope to always keep the spirit of adventure and curiosity on our journey.
Our little fleet 😀
“20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover. “ -Mark Twain