Thank you for joining us for Part 2 of our terrifying trip to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. If you haven’t read Part 1, you can find it by clicking here. Enjoy.
A few hours had already passed by this time. Finally, I got a hold of a nice tow guy who couldn’t tow us himself (because of the 36 foot travel trailer), but gave us the number of the nice people at Sanchez towing that could. He also told me I needed to call the highway patrol to get an officer out there to help guide traffic. So that is what I did. I called highway patrol and then Sanchez towing. They said they could get someone out to us in 35 to 40 minutes.
As I rounded the corner to head back to Zach and the kids, I saw a couple of trucks stopped around our rig. They had managed to get us unhooked from the RV. Upon arrival, I learned that one guy was going to pull our trailer up a half mile to a shoulder area and another man was going to tow our car up to that same area until Sanchez towing showed up. It was about 45 minutes until night time by this point. The highway patrol showed up 30 minutes later and then our tow truck pulled up right behind him. The tow truck could only take the RV or our vehicle at a time and then come back for the other. So, we decided to coast our car down the mountain and Sanchez would take the RV down after us. The highway patrol followed our car to make sure we made it down safely. We coasted into an RV park near that last gas station before the Park. But, the night wasn’t over.
They were booked! Now, we were stuck at the RV park with no vacancy. The RV showed up 10 minutes after us on the tow truck. They had to find a place to turn around all 36 feet of Beauty as we affectionately called her before the Texas hail storm, now we call her Ratchet. We quickly started to call around places, but now it was 8pm, almost completely dark out and all RV parks were closed. We were finally able to locate an RV park we could book online and it was only 22 minutes down the road. So, Zach, Lawsyn, Huxton and George went in the tow truck to the new park. Our rational was that Zach could help back the RV into our spot, hookup the rig and then get the babies fed and in bed. Knoxton, Brixton and myself stayed at the no vacancy RV park in our broken car until the tow guys could come back to get us. At one point, a nice family from Florida with four teenagers came out and offered us burgers. After about an hour and a half, the tow service got back to us and we made it back around 10pm. It was a LONG day! We had been in the car for 11 hours!
The story is not over yet…
The next day we had to get our car towed to a repair place. And then we found out that our RV spot was booked after our three night reservation. We had no car to move our RV with! It was going into the weekend and we needed to be out on Saturday! We called back Sanchez towing and they would be able to help tow us to another spot at the park, but the new spot only had enough electricity to only run one AC at a time and temperatures were rising – literally. A park we had called the night of the breakdown called us back and said they had an opening available. She would keep it open for us starting Friday for a week and then hold another week for us. Well, Sanchez called us back and said they were unable to tow Saturday morning like originally planned, but Friday night they could get it done. We had an hour to breakdown our camp and get ready for them to come and get us. Thank God the new park had reserved Friday for us as well thinking we were getting in very early Saturday morning. The kids and I got a taxi service to come pick us up and Zach came a few minutes behind with the tow company and our RV.
I know there were a lot of terrifying moments about what the heck we were going to do, but there were also a lot of moments where things worked out and people were very kind and helpful as well. We are still waiting for the car to get fixed, but now we have a place to stay and enough electricity to run BOTH our ACs.
I know sometimes we only see the positive things people experience while traveling full time, but these scary moments are a reality too. Thank you for sticking around to hear about our crazy road trip into the mountains.
Do you have a crazy story like ours? We would love to hear about it!
conquerthethrill.com 
When I was 10 years old, my family headed out in our old class C motorhome for a three week vacation across the western US and Canada. We were traveling with another family in their truck and tent trailer. We made it to Mount Rushmore, but on the way to Yellowstone the transmission in our motorhome went out in Sundance, Wyoming. After all these years I’m still amazed that we were able to find a repair shop located right next to a KOA campground. The shop worked on the transmission for two days, pushing the motorhome out in front of the shop each night so we could sleep in it. We spent those days at the campground with our friends, playing frisbee and football and card games, and then continued on our way. I’m sure my parents were stressed out about it, but for me it was just another part of the adventure. Your kids will probably have similar memories that cause them to look back and smile as an adult.
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That sounds like a fun trip! I am so glad you had a great time as a kid. I am sure our kids will feel the same way. We have been able to go to other places while we wait, so they probably won’t even remember we were broken down and “stuck” for a week or two.
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By the way, your post reminded me of the classic movie “The Long, Long Trailer” with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. You have to watch it if you haven’t already.
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I don’t think I have seen that movie. Has to be a funny one!
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