The best laid plans (F150 version)

In Dallas, I drove a Chevrolet Bolt, an all-electric vehicle.  That wasn't gonna work in Washington, in part due to the month or so it would take to drive it from Dallas, what with all the stopping to recharge the battery for about 8 hours a shot.  Having a truck was going to be a little more practical as well given the 'former Christmas tree farm' status of our property.

My plan was to sell the Bolt around the same time we left Dallas and buy a new hybrid Ford F-150 (with an onboard generator capable of powering our Airstream in a pinch), either off of a lot in Washington or ordered from Ford to have delivered to a dealer in Washington.  Ever since Covid, F150s, as well as most other vehicles, became almost impossible to find. So I resorted to custom ordering a new 2022 F150 in May 2022 in high hopes that it could be delivered to Washington by August or September, since that was our original target date for the move.

That custom order wasn't actually processed by Ford until around August, automatically rolling over to a 2023.  At that point, it seemed unlikely it would be available by September, but it had also become apparent that our building permit for the new house would not get approved in time so we had decided to wait until the spring of 2023 to make the move.  Surely, my F150 would be available by then.  Surely...

Ford had other plans, or to be more precise, no plans at all.  Month after month ticked by, the status of my truck in limbo.

When assembly finally occurred, on Halloween, my hopes were temporarily raised again that, obviously, it could get delivered in the next 5 months.  Alas no.

On roughly a monthly basis, I would get an email from Ford indicating my truck had a new delivery date.  And each month that date would come and go, no truck to be found.  Finally, at the end of January, with no truck and no idea when it might arrive in Washington, I pulled the plug on the custom order and embarked on a full-scale, hard target internet search of all F-150s in the western US for a reasonable facsimile of my original custom order. 

I found only two or three that were close to my original order, one of which was in Houston.  I purchased it sight unseen, had it delivered to Dallas the next week.  I drove it in Dallas for a couple of months before putting it on the back of a car hauler for the 2500 mile journey to Seattle, where I met the driver to finally have my Washington truck.



A humorous (in hindsight) aspect of the truck delivery (from Dallas to Seattle) had to do with the exploits of Alex, the Russian(?) long haul trucker assigned the task of taking my truck.  After many near misses with the scheduling and pick up process, the stars finally aligned and Alex showed up on Van Ness to pick her up (I was on my way to Seattle to meet him when he arrived so I could put the truck in our barn).

Upon picking up my truck, he immediately headed down I35 to South Texas, spending about 4 days wandering between Houston and the coast.  When Alex finally started the actual drive north, he clocked about 1300 miles in roughly one 24 hour period, a drive that included a nighttime tear through the mountains north of Salt Lake City in a blizzard.  Just like we planned...


Alex loading the truck in Dallas for the long journey


Alex unloading the truck at the Snohomish Lowe's.


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