Van and dental repairs gone wild

Somewhere between Colorado’s mountains and New Mexico’s hot springs, we lost our grip on time. Too many long soaks, too many lingering sunsets. Now we were behind schedule — and, to make things worse, it was Kerri’s busiest work season. Not exactly ideal for long Interstate hauls where work time is more dream than reality. But deadlines or not, we had to move. Arizona, Nevada, and Northern California were waiting, and we still had a few missions to knock out along the way.

So, we did what any responsible adults would do: we made a beeline south, stopping only for gas, bathroom breaks, and — because priorities — a whole apple pie in Willcox, Arizona. By nightfall we rolled into Tucson and parked at my old stomping grounds, the Pima County Fairgrounds, where we booked a weekend stay to prep for some serious wrench-turning in the coming days. No photos were taken.

Monday morning was go-time. A few days earlier I’d arranged for some heavy metal — new rear leaf springs — to be shipped to a local shop that rents out its lifts and tools. Rather than pay the pros $140 an hour, I rented a bay for $40 and did it myself. That’s my role in our duo: field mechanic, chief grease monkey, and van chiropractor. Marcel’s original springs were long past retirement — flat as pancakes and sagging hard under the van’s weight. The replacements were beefy seven-leaf upgrades, each rated to handle the full load solo. Perfect.

What wasn’t perfect: thirty years of rust. Each of the six bolts per side fought me like a rusted-on gladiator. With a blowtorch in one hand and an impact wrench in the other, I finally persuaded them free, taking about 30 minutes per nut. Then came the 100-pound springs themselves — awkward, heavy, and just misaligned enough to require a symphony of profanity and a few bloody knuckles.

Five and a half hours later, Marcel stood tall again — four inches higher in the rear and level for the first time since we bought him. If we’d had those four inches back when we scraped our bumper on those “impossible” hills and creek crossings in Canada and Montana, we’d have cleared them easy.

While I was wrestling metal, Kerri was fighting her own battle — a day of laptop work at a coffee shop blasting pop-40 hits through tinny speakers while she tried to meet deadlines from a wobbly wooden chair. When I picked her up, she looked more shell-shocked than I did.

We hit the Interstate again that afternoon, heading west toward Yuma. That’s when I noticed it — a slight pull to the right. Not good. I know that feeling too well; my old van, Big Blue, once crab-walked down the highway thanks to a misaligned spring. I was sure I hadn’t made that mistake again, but here we were again – crabs. A few days later, at an auto shop near the California border, the mystery was solved: one spring was 0.6 inches shorter than the other. You’ve got to be kidding me!

There was no time to fix it — the next mission was an appointment in Los Algodones, Mexico, for long-overdue dental work. It had been two years since our last visit to a dentist in Guaymas, and apparently, all that work needed redoing. Two hours in the chair apiece, deep cleaning, a few fillings, and we were as good as new — or at least able to chew again. Of course, you can’t leave Mexico without real tacos and a pharmacy stop. Mission accomplished. We crossed back into the U.S. with full bellies, clean teeth, and zero border delays. A win all around.

The two nights before our dental adventure we’d camped at the Painted Rock Petroglyph Site — a familiar spot we’d visited years earlier, still as peaceful and historic as ever. Evenings were cool and quiet, campfires glowing under the stars. The night after the appointment, we hopped across the California line (hrmmm) to American Girl Mine Road, where we set up camp once again, as we had also done in years past.

The following morning, we swung by that same auto shop — the one that diagnosed our lopsided springs — and, bless them, they sent us on our way without charging a dime. At this point, I’ve accepted that Marcel crab-walks just a little, and that’s fine. It’s part of his personality now — a quirky strut that says, “Yeah, I’ve seen some things.” I will take care of it once settled at Kerri’s Parent’s place.

We shot back into Arizona like we were escaping gravity itself, then hooked north toward Quartzsite along a highway blessedly located in a “free” state. If you’ve been around this blog long enough, you already know—California and I don’t mix. Oil and water. Brake dust and fresh paint. I’ve said it before, my favorite road is any one that leads out of California. I will—and did—drive an extra hundred miles through Arizona and Nevada just to avoid crossing the border into good ol’ “Californistan” – where freedoms and rights die under heavy taxation.

But hey, we were pointed north and in a free state, and that felt like enough of a victory.