Like (apparently) many millennials, I have this thing where I loosely track my horoscope to see if there’s useful insight/encouragement in the summaries. What helps me absorb the guidance is telling myself a story about how I don’t give it much credence. Did you know modern zodiac signs are actually an entire month off? And some people, like Wes (born on 12/1), were born at a time that isn’t even technically assigned a sign due to the positioning of the constellations and simply falling “in between”?
Yet, despite the story I tell myself about how little I believe, whenever I see the warning that mercury is going into retrograde I feel immediate dread. You see, despite appearances of someone who pursues challenges, I do not actually like hard things. I like the horoscopes that promise things like “fruition” and “realization” more than something about a shadow self and facing the past, whatever that ominously implies.
Sometime before December ’23, Zodiac-Instagram was abuzz about the coming retrograde. I saw it, dreaded it, and decided to file that away in the “I don’t believe in this shit anyway” category (while screenshotting the horoscopes for myself I liked).
On that note, I am finally ready to share about why we no longer have Brian the Ford F350 as our towing vehicle and now have an unnamed (and will remain that way because, superstition) Toyota Tundra.
A brief backstory of Brian: we bought it/him in Alaska in early ’22 when it became clear that our 2013 Ram, named “Fluffy” was not up to the task of, well, working as a truck. Fluffy had had a pretty chill life up to that point; zero towing but a healthy dose of schlepping us/our worldly belongings up to Alaska and on a few adventures within the state. However, when a certain 19′ Airstream Mobile Art Studio loomed on our horizon for pickup, Fluffy did the truck equivalent of suddenly developing the flu. Did we feel Fluffy (named in 2013 by a then-eleven year old Reesa who likened his white color to marshmallows, which are…) lived up to his potential? No. Did Fluffy disagree and decide on an early retirement? Apparently. So we needed a truck with towing capacity. Fast.
Enter, in February ’22, Brian the behemoth diesel F350 with an 8′ bed and cap: aptly named by a friend who offered “Brian” as a “zero-drama, hard working, Gen-X dude” name. Yes.
For the first year, Brian served us well. This was, of course, with the help of a hefty investment of cash up front to tune him up for safe towing, but he worked. However, earlier this year (’23) a little something called the transmission failed. Following that, it seemed like his AC was not quite working – in St. George, Utah, in July. His rear shocks gave out one day, suddenly and spectacularly. Plus, did he have something akin to a truck UTI? We brought him to our (wonderful) mechanic in St. George who affirmed a Toyota dealership’s assessment that there was some kind of charming engine clogging issue that over time would prove, in a word, fatal.
Cool, cool.
Wes and I decided to limp on through with Brian for winter ’23 and ’24 anyway, knowing that this is our first full year with intermittent income and winter’s a low for his guiding. We’d just cross our fingers that he’d make it and come spring, with more flush/known income, we’d trade him in and get another vehicle.
It’s cute the decisions we think we make, right?
We loaded up Brian to head north to Reno for Christmas ’23, with intent of continuing on to Death Valley National Park afterward so Wes could make use of the truck’s clearance (vs our Prius) to scout a route for work. We were feeling the jingle bell spirit in our way – a mix of holiday songs playing on the radio, a decadent tailgate breakfast in the PHX Trader Joe’s parking lot that included Eggnog Greek Yogurt, the promise of a tree and quality time with family – when, four hours into our journey, the truck began to shake violently and uncontrollably at speed after rolling over your standard bumps in the road. I gripped the wheel as best I could as I hit the emergencies and looked for the nearest safest pullout. As cars rushed past us with menacing “whooshes” that sucked in air, Wes inspected: the shocks? No.
We rolled very cautiously on and into the nearest town with a viable shop (two slow hours away) where professionals gave their official assessment: our truck had a Death Wobble.
I’m not joking. That’s not my usual hyperbole. “Death Wobble” was their diagnosis of the truck, which in a way was validating because it certainly described the terrifying experience we’d had. Further, they recommended that if we were looking to sell the truck, we get to it. Fixing aforementioned “Death Wobble” could run us up to $5,000. Whatever was happening in the front was, in their words, “heavy“.
Visions of sugar plums recent $8000 transmission replacements danced in their heads.
Blessedly, the shop charged us $35 for the news and sent us on our way after two hours. It was 2pm on a Friday, and Wes and I weighed our options and (very) cautiously continued north.
What changed was, in the two hours between the shop and Las Vegas, Wes pulled up our credit union’s information, called on speakerphone, and we asked again about that car loan for which we’d been pre-approved. Over the course of the next hour, as both of us winced when we approached any bump on the road (again, in our MASSIVE diesel F350), we secured the loan.
As I drove us through lowering, late December light on the golden Mojave landscape in the Hoover Dam area, Wes googled Tundras that fit our specs in the area. We found several and honed in on a few at one location.
By 4pm, as the sun was setting, we’d rolled into a reputable used vehicle lot in Vegas (I know that sounds like a contradiction; I just don’t feel like getting into brands here so am staying general). We moved quickly with their salesperson: here’s what we wanted, yes it was on the lot, yes we wanted to do a trade in, yes let’s take a test drive.
When the assessor swung by to grab Brian’s keys, he offhandedly said something about the title of the car.
The title. The TITLE. Wes and I turned to stare at each other in horror as the keys were handed off, and our lovely sales associate kept enthusiastically relaying steps/information to us.
We hadn’t set out with more than a vague notion that we wanted to sell Brian. In our **plan**, that wasn’t supposed to actually happen until spring or summer. The idea of selling sooner had just arisen in the mere hours since the Death Wobble. We didn’t have the title on us – why would we; that’s bad practice to roll around with one’s fully owned vehicle with the paperwork that entails you (or a fraud) to legally sell it. The title was six hours behind us, locked safely away in the Mobile Art Studio on our lovely little rented saguaro-filled property outside of Tucson.
I needed to be in Reno by Monday for a series of consulting-related meetings that required me to cosplay professional person that does not take meetings visibly disheveled and likely unshowered, tethered to her phone network for Internet from some random campsite in the desert, and can be trusted to be someplace when she says she will (I realize this is a caricature of myself that is inaccurate, but listen: sometimes I flirt with it, let’s be real). Plus, this was our shot to spend quality time with Reesa and family: the more days we spent parsing this out, it started eating into the time we actually wanted to invest, and that potentially eroded Wes’ need to get to Death Valley for work. There was a looming domino effect and, even in our pretty flexible lives, some urgency.
We got the car purchase as far as we could pending the actual signing of the paperwork and, after checking multiple scenarios under the fluorescent lighting of the waiting area – could one of us fly from Vegas down to Tucson, rent a car, pick up the title, then fly back? For the tidy sum of $1500, sure! Nope – we decided to spend the following day driving to retrieve the title, coming straight back, and finalizing the purchase on Sunday morning.
Instead of camping – the much more frugal and otherwise pleasant option – we booked the best, proximate and least expensive on what seemed to be a particularly high-rate Vegas weekend, and also rented a one-day Turo car so we didn’t have to diesel/Death Wobble our way to the trailer and back.
And, yea, folks. Saturday dawned just as Wes and I peeled out of Vegas at 7am in a (smaller) rattle trap rented vehicle. Seven hours later we arrived back at the trailer, having just left the day prior. We spent a total of five minutes there retrieving the title which was exactly where we’d responsibly stowed it, taking cross eyed selfies, and turning around in the late afternoon light. We took a video of ourselves hollering along to the chorus of “Livin’ on a Prayer” (we’re half-way-the-re) to send to a friend.
By the time we got back to Vegas, it was 9pm PT. The most difficult part of the day? The three mile drive to return the Turo, when both of us were cross eyed. We made it back to the jangly, smoky casino hotel that unique kind of tired/flat you get when you’re just utterly done. We tried to use the coupons the hotel had offered to spend $5 on the penny slots, and while I got one free drink out of it we couldn’t even figure out how to effectively use the machines.
Yes, we were so fried that Wes and I were too stupid to gamble. With that we went to bed.
What will go down in (our, tiny) history as Brian’s final “Eff You” occurred the next morning as we prepared to take his final drive over to formally swap him in and retrieve our new (used) Tundra. The hitch wouldn’t unlock where we’d safely secured it so no one could steal it (…no one, apparently, would have, so it was effective in that way). Turned the key, wiggled it, WD40’d – nothing. The $300 hitch was fastened quite securely and snugly to freakin’ Brian.
The value of calling a locksmith was less expensive than buying a new hitch, so that’s what we did. The locksmith sat determinedly on the pavement in the morning hours of this pretty desperate old-school Vegas casino with Wes crouched next to him. Me, I was trying to ignore them to save myself some stress, and instead focused on consolidating all of the many disparate belongings we store in the truck to prepare for transferring to a significantly smaller truck (boxcutter? Keep. A zip lock baggie full of bold multicolored sharpies? Sure. A slightly stained and crumpled N95? …trash).
First the locksmith tried finesse. Then, he pulled out a drill. Sparkling shards of metal sprinkled the pavement around him in a pretty, glittery powder. Finally, with nothing else working, he and Wes took turns with a method Wes later described as “wailing on it”. Apparently the locksmith wasn’t wailing hard enough at one point, and when Wes asked to take a turn he “wailed” with sufficient force to free the hitch.
The last song to play in Brian as we made his final, rumbling and lumbering F350 drive was on some local station playing a set of 90’s hip hop/R&B. I turned it up as “Party Up” by DMX (rest in peace) aired, and we pulled into the lot.
With our new (used) 2018 Tundra, we drove once again, this time (finally) toward Christmas in Reno. We arrived late that night, fairly, I will say: wrecked.
This sounds silly, but being a “watch person” as I am now I track my trends. Not obsessively (I don’t think), but consistently. Looking back at my heart rate throughout December, isn’t it curious that it spikes and stays that way mid-month, when we were on this journey, all the way through 12/31?
When Wes and I were on that 14-hour roundtrip errand to retrieve the title, the two of us were digging deep to endure – a skill we both have through physical endurance races, but also, you know. Other chapters of life. I wondered out loud at some point if this chapter was teaching us something. I wanted to take something away; I wanted this crappy, long errand to have meaning.
Since then, I’ve calmed down. I managed to be present enough through the holidays, and then Reesa’s 21st birthday (!) to enjoy it all even through the undeniable stress and how long it took me to decompress. We got to Death Valley in fairly rough shape emotionally, but that trip served as a welcome reconnect with impromptu friends and a re-set in the best setting possible: outside. In response to what we’re calling TruckGate23 and inheriting, along with most people, debt we didn’t have before in order to pay down this truck, as well as a general desire to create, I decided while scribbling in my journal at a backcountry camp over New Year’s Eve that my focus for 2024 is the word discipline.
Do I mean that in a punishing sense? Absolutely not. What it brings up for me is the relief of ticking up work a little – through art, consulting, writing, and my physical/emotional well being that is the through line of it all – bringing in a little more income, and pressing on even when it’s hard or unclear.
To be perfectly honest, a lot is unclear right now. I don’t really need an answer to that question of whether that errand had a purpose or not – I just know it was difficult, and we got through it. Similarly, I am once again looking at reinvention when it comes to this mode of our lives, how we dovetail both Wes’/my interests and professions all while sharing 19′ of Airstream trailer, and – related – how to continue to grow Alli Harvey Art/myself into this year. Some of this entails maintaining the discipline to do; some of it requires knowing when to (and actually taking) rest.
But those horoscopes, amirite? Even though I absolutely, of course, don’t give the zodiac any actual merit (nope, not me, never!), no more mercurial retrogrades for a bit, please and thank you.