Those were the words I uttered as packed up my truck from camp.
Slowly in the cold, deciding if I really wanted to call it quits or brave another cold snowy night with foot plus of snow expected by morning. I could have done another night, but it would have been so cold and I felt like it was time to put a close on this chapter of life.
It’s rare in life when you know you have come to an end. Most of the time you see it coming, but in you are in denial until it hits you. Planned retirements are exception, rarely the rule. Maybe it’s because too often we put off the inevitable, we sit in denial. There have been too many times I’ve talked to dying people, and told them hope to see you soon.
I wanted to retire Big Red in a controlled fashion, as I didn’t want to have something like a lifter fail or transmission give out on a back road in Madison County or the Adirondacks. Or worse yet – rural Pennsylvania, West Virginia or Michigan. Something catestrophic, and then be forced to figure out how to salvage as much of my equipment, clothing and gear and get it home. And in the end, it seems like there will be retirement in a controlled fashion – December 31, 2025.
People say it’s just a now rusted out, literally falling apart truck. Get over it, move on. Throw away, buy new. It’s the American way. At one way, I get it. It would be a mistake to confuse the truck with the mountains, the rural landscape, the hills and hollows. Still Big Red meant a lot to me, even if it just was another physical thing.
Red wasn’t just a lot of money, he was a lot of experiences. I never had internet at home, so virtually all my remote work for a year and a half was done working from the cab of Red. I camped over 365 nights in him by my estimate of the past 14 1/2 years, as I know I did more then 26 nights on average each year. Especially in 2020, when I did 63 nights and every year since has been 30-35 nights camping in wilderness. Years earlier, it was probably over 30 nights a year.
So it literally was a year of my life I spent camping in Red. I saw many parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Vermont in that truck. The Green Mountains, the Alleghenies, the Hills of West VIrigina. The wilds of Allegany and Cattaragus County, NY – and west to Chautaqua County and Erie, Penna. Watched the solar eclipse from Presque Isle Penna.
One of the things I've been oddly fascinated and imaginative about is the set of switches that come built into the Ford SuperDuty Trucks - usually used by plow trucks and emergency vehicles but I could also imagine many possibilities too. While I can't emphasize enough that I haven't decided for sure on getting a SuperDuty truck, I am sure leaning in that direction come February when I start checking out trucks at dealerships.
With over a foot of snow expected tonight up in Rensselearville and temperatures all day hovering around the single digits and the breeze now gentle but still bone chilling and expected to pick up as snow came in this evening, I decided to call it quits.
It really was a hard decision on my part, ☃️ knowing this was the end for Big Red. There will be no more camping, no more trips with Red. But I also realized while the book may be closing on Red, Rensselearville State Forest, the hills and hollows – and other trips will not be coming to an end. I won’t have truck this winter, I won’t be embracing the bone-chilling cold up at camp, but I will most certainly be getting a new truck come spring. 🛻 Probably another Big Red truck – a SuperDuty most likely and installing a cap on it. With more solar, more batteries, and by next winter, getting a diesel heater so those nights under the cap winter camping won’t be so frigid. It was so cold yesterday, all I really did was set up camp, gather firewood, then started campfire for warmth. I can’t understated how much the wind was roaring up there on the hill. Truth is I wouldn’t have even gone out on this trip based on the forecast, except I wanted to go out one last time to say bye to Big Red.
With snowfall rates expected over two inches an hour, ☃️ and the wind picking up, it would have been another bitterly cold night. Maybe not as bad as last night, but there is a lot of appeal to the warmth of that heated blanket at home. Last night was the coldest night I’ve ever camped, between the wind chill and mercury which dropped below zero. Tonight will not be much warmer. Indeed, it actually wasn’t a bad thing that I came home today – when I got home I discovered my bedroom was 40 degrees. I turned off the heat when I was loading my gear yesterday to head up to camp. Ran around, turned up the heat and a space heater in my bedroom, and checked for frozen pipes and faucets. All was good and things warmed up quickly. 🚰 With the hard cold, all my camp water was pretty much frozen, as was my milk, eggs, maple syrup and likely my beer.
The more immediate concern too was I was concerned about having enough fuel ⛽ especially should the snow be heavy and unable to leave until Sunday. I only put in 10 gallons of fuel a week ago, but besides Rensselearville drove to work one day, to my parents house, Walmart, and obviously the state forest. Been keeping the fuel level down, as I don’t want to waste fuel or park the truck full of expired fuel, and because the beam that holds up fuel tank is rotted out and I don’t want excessive weight on it. It was cold and I would need to idle the truck a fair amount to maintain a safe charge on the batteries and stay warm. Plus more alarming was after four nights camping, 🏮 the propane tank was getting light and while I might have a gallon left, after another cold long night, it would be pushing it to make it Sunday, and I didn’t want to exhaust the propane in the cold. Plus the wind and cold left my toes, hands, and face wind burnt and dried out from the cold. Still, I knew it was the end for Red. Plus I wanted to drive home with no risk of snow or ice, and I figured if Red hit a bump and broke apart, on a Friday, it would be much easier to summon a tow truck and a ride home. It was fine, but I can really feel the truck falling apart, especially when it was so loaded down with all the camp gear.
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