(Joe-in-Mesa took this video and most definitely earned his ride in the Tour Jeep)

After 3200+ miles of driving over the last 9 days we finally arrived home on Tuesday. Yes, we are tired and exhausted. It has been a LONG three days.

After Saturday’s rescue by Joe and Jan, we loaded the Tour Jeep onto Joe’s trailer and renewed our trek north, but within twenty miles we realized the brakes on his trailer still weren’t working well for us. After testing out some different truck towing modifications (more gain, more effort). We decided it was time to go to Joe’s place and see if we could make the other trailer work better.

Joe, meanwhile, had towed the trailer back to his house. Along the way his truck alerted him to a brake fault. So, it wasn’t us that was having a problem.

By the time we reached his house Saturday night, we were tired and frustrated. Two trailers weren’t working correctly, a heavy jeep needed to be Brough home, and the future weather forecast meant we needed to get home by Wednesday or risk the passes getting bad again. Thankfully, we had Jan and Joe to share some drinks, eat some food. and forget about life for a while.

On Sunday morning, Joe and I tackled the trailer issues. Our first task was to debug the running light issues. Why were some lights working and some not? After trial and error we learned it was a combination of grounding and loose wires. It was a big win when we got all the lights working!

While completing that task, we discovered the trailer wasn’t wired correctly for either of our trucks. That’s when we both learned that 7 blade plug-ins have at least two different wiring options (there could be more, but I haven’t deep dived on the topic). So, rewiring the trailer for OUR trucks, helped solve additional issues.

Once all that was done, the trailer brakes worked correctly. By Sunday’s sunset, we’d completed the work and done a half-hour test of the trailer (with FC aboard) around Phoenix.

Monday at 5am we left for Salt Lake. It was a long, somewhat nerve wracking drive given what happened on Saturday. Thankfully, things went smoothly despite encountering rain, snow, and some hail. We arrived just at sunset to and an-all-too-short visit with my sons.

Tuesday morning, again at 5am, we hit the road again. This time we were less worried about the trailer and more worried about the weather, as we had at least six passes to summit. At about 6:30am we reached Snowville, where we ran into fog an 0 degree temps.

The moon was bright at 7am, while the world around us was frigid!

I wondered just how long of a day it was going to be, but once the sun broke over the mountains, the temps improved, as did the road conditions. It was smooth sailing after that.

We must thank Jesse and Andrea for their “most excellent” hospitality and their support for buying the Tour Jeep. And, we can’t thank Joe and Jan enough for their incredible selflessness in coming to our aid, entertaining us, boosting our moral some, and helping us get the trailer road-worthy again. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Unsure if there will be updates on Thursday morning or not, but Friday for sure.

A huge thanks to Joe and Jan for saving us.

After years of successful trips, this trip seems to be a payback for all the lack of trouble we’ve had. Thankfully, we have made friends all over the country.

On Saturday morning we left at dawn. We’d driven northwest about an hour, just passing Sun City by a few miles. At that point, we found Shell station that had room for us to pull in and check over the the trailer (check hubs for warmth, lights, etc). Of the six hubs, two were hot and one was warm. In addition, the truck was showing a trailer light fault, so, we found out, the turning lights had stopped working.

Hmmm .. not good.

After checking things over, we didn’t have a firm understanding of what was happening, but knew we didn’t want to go any further with the trailer as is. After a few calls, including checking with U-Haul, which didn’t have a trailer that could carry the FC, we called our good friends Joe and Jan. Joe is a former Army Engineer, so it was fun to say that Army was rescuing Air Force.

They immediately changed their plans and came with their trailer (capable of carrying two jeeps), offering to let us take it home (and then I’d return it and come back with our trailer).

After swapping trailers, we put the FC back onto their trailer. To celebrate what looked like a victory, and to wait one of Ann’s former Khobar Tower colleagues (who wanted to make a quick visit to say hello), we enjoyed a beer in the FC, just hanging out and talking: our first group event! What great fun that was!

David, Joe and Jan having a drink in the FC.

Eventually, Joe and Jan had to leave, so they took our trailer home, testing it along the way (during which they found the electric brakes were having an issue.

Meanwhile, Ann’s Khobar Tower friend arrived, so we spent a few minutes meeting with Tim. It turns out that Tim had grown up in a jeep club near Pismo Beach, and his dad still had a built CJ-3A. So, Tim shared pics of the FC with his Dad, which of course both thought was cool.

Once Tim left, and with Joe’s trailer in tow, and the FC atop to it, we drove to Wickenburg, but our truck was having some problems talking with his trailer brakes. They would work, but not as good as we expected. We experiment with the “gain” and the “braking effort”, but that didn’t seem to do enough to make the brakes work like I wanted.

By then it was 3pm. Long story short, we decided to return to the Phoenix area to stay at Joe and Jans and fix our trailer. So, I’ll be going through all the wiring and working on the brakes. So, that’s the task this Sunday morning.

What a crazy trip!

This is the big surprise… Jesse and Andrea have agreed to sell us the San Juan FC Tour Jeep that Jesse built from the cab up, along with the trailer. You can see more pics from the build here: https://thefcconnection.com/jesse_ybarra’s_tour_jeep_journal.htm

We consider this a great honor and can’t thank Jesse and Andrea enough! Jesse was instrumental in encouraging us to visit the round-up for the first time in 2012. Ever since that first visit I have wanted an FC tour jeep, but given there are only three of them, I never thought it would be a possibility.

Much more about this later, as we have a long drive home in front of us!