I played around with a few titles for this post, like “The Reality of Finding a Pick-up Truck in a Pandemic Climate” and “Our Terrible Truck Saga,” and the folder with my collected notes on the subject is called “The Truck Shit.” If that doesn’t set the tone for this multiple-month ordeal…
Mark and I have been looking non-stop for a sturdy, decent SuperDuty Ford pick-up truck to carry a truck camper, our new set-up, with extended travels in South America on the horizon. I was not going to write about this quest until it was a done deal (spoiler alert!), unlike when I touched on buying one of those cute houses (and land) for sale in Baja this past winter, which didn’t end well. (Read that post here.)
WARNING: This is a very long post, so browse the photos, skip to the end, or settle in with a cup of tea or coffee. Or, better, an alcoholic beverage.
(As always, click on or hover over the photos to read the captions.)
Why did we sell Zesty?
The first question that might arise for most long-term readers of this blog is probably why we changed gears and got rid of a perfectly-maintained and awesome campervan? A few reasons:
- While we loved Zesty, his components – besides being European – were 15 years old; we didn’t want to risk breaking and sourcing uncommon parts in remote places, a continent removed.
- We wanted a sturdier vehicle with high clearance and 4WD, as many boondocking areas (free parking without facilities; our main way of camping) are located along dirt roads.
- The mileage was still relatively low and the van kept its value the last four years.
- We wanted to sell Zesty on the US West Coast, where these vehicles are desired. You can read here how that went.
- If we sold the van, we would HAVE TO finally change campers and make that trip to South America happen – it would be the fire beneath our bums…
- Mark and I (and our two previous dogs) owned a truck camper before and traveled throughout Mexico and Central America with it for one year. It was the perfect set-up for such an adventure. (If you’re interested in photos and snippets of that adventure, check out this site and scroll down to “California Coast” and below. No blogs back then.)
Do we regret selling Zesty?
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