Endless Adventures: First Truck Camping Trip

First Truck Camping Trip

Date: May 22nd 2021

Location: Prescott AZ

Distance: 100s of miles

Adventure Partner: Eric

Mid October 2020 I was involved in a pile up on the i17 while I was headed out of town. I was the last car to get hit. Unfortunately the aftermath resulted in my car being totaled. My Xterra with my step hitch once again did a great job protecting me from harm and I walked away with no injuries. Unfortunately Xterras are no longer in production and the used car market for them is really high priced for a ton of miles so I decided to look for something new. Mind you, my first car was a 2000 Xterra and my second car was a 2014 Xterra. As you can tell I love Xterras but it was time to move onto to something new. I researched for a few months and decided on the new Ford Maverick truck. The Ford Maverick met all my needs: Affordable, great gas mileage and AWD to name a few. I ordered it straight from the factory and 12 weeks later I was on the road for my first camping trip with my truck!

My friend Eric and I are big fans of having no set plans, grabbing gear and heading out for an adventure. We first drove up to Mingus Mountain. We were hoping to set up camp for the night and head in Jerome for the day but Mingus Mountain was only a day use area at the time.

We met a ranger while touring around the mountain and he pointed us toward a small trail to a nice overlook.

We jumped back in the truck afterwards and headed to Jerome. While in Jerome we toured around the local shops and had some Mexican food for lunch. Afterwards we headed down to Prescott ultimately to find a camping spot for the night and also check out Whiskey Row. We hung out at the Bird Cage for a bit and people watched as they walked by from an Art festival then headed to my favorite speak easy in Prescott called Public House. We both had a drink there while we played Battleship (I Won!) and Uno (Eric Won!). Afterwards we headed up behind Prescott and found all of the camping spots were occupied. That didn't matter much because we had a blast checking out the forest road all the way up to the top of the mountain then down the other side back to Prescott. We ended up driving towards Yarnell and found a camping spot about 30 minutes outside of Prescott.

Once we arrived at our spot, the sun was already going down. All the sudden while we were setting up camp we started hearing a bunch of yelling down the way. We both looked at each other and kept setting up camp. Then a truck came slowly down the way where the yelling was coming from. They pulled into our campsite blocking my truck and us from getting out. At that point we both looked at each other like this is weird. We are pretty far out, at sunset and a random truck pulls in our campsite. A guy got out of his truck and started walking towards me as I was the closest. Eric came up too as this was getting pretty weird.

The guy came up and asked if we had seen a white pitbull. His dog got out and he was looking for it. Still pretty sketchy but we said no we just got here and haven't seen a dog. The was disappointed you could tell and thanked us for our help and started walking a back to his truck. Then all of the sudden a white pitbull went running through our the farthest side of our camp out of nowhere! Eric started yelling at the guy, theres your dog! I'm not messing with you a white pitbull just literally ran through our camp over there! The guy thanked us excitedly and ran to his truck shouting the dogs name. Finally the dog went to its owner and the weird situation was over.

Always be aware of your surroundings for both people and animals. You never know who you might encounter.

After that strange encounter we finished setting up camp. Ate dinner, talked for awhile around our stoves (yep no fires) and then went to bed.