Notes

One of my real assholely friends on Facebook, the smoldering garbage dump of the Internet had to ask me other day when I was posting about how much I’m grieving about the loss of Big Red in not too many days. Red was really special, we had a lot of good times together in wilderness. And I mean, I could have Red’s badly rusted frame fixed. It’s not a money issue in the debate to fix or toss and buy new – but I know it’s time for him to be some other country boy with a welder problem or actually his dream jacked up truck. It has only 119,000 miles and minimal lifter knock and beyond the frame and body rot, with some welding and bondo could be a beautiful truck for the right kind of auto person in the future.

Truth is not many people actually kill themselves around the holiday or even the New Year, despite the myth portrayed in the media. Suicides peak in spring time, which by then I’ll probably be in a new Ford F-250 Superduty regular cab truck, and probably have a shiny new cap order to go over that 8 foot 2 inch bed.  I really look forward to seeing more of America, especially the Upper Peninsula and the Midwest, away from wokeness and densely populated East Coast. I’d love to get to Missouri, Arkansas and eventually to places like Rocky Mountains and Idaho but one step at a time.

While I live in the dumpiest of dumpy apartments, and I refuse to turn up the heat, I like it here. Actually, it’s not that bad compared to truly sad living conditions of working poor in trailer parks and rundown housing when I was knocking doors in Plattsburgh this past autumn.  People are like, why don’t you just buy a small house somewhere rather then making your landlord rich? I actually doubt he’s getting rich with the amount of rent I’m paying him after property taxes and all the other random landlord shit they have to do.

Well, I want enough land that I can have fires and burn shit and have pigs and other livestock for their manure and meat – and grow other shit in the hog shit like carrots and onions to eat. I’m also aware of my parents homestead, and how their fading away. That said, I need to figure out my conversation. And you know my thoughts on New York beyond retirement. At least with my Superduty and it’s 250 amp alternator and Godzilla engine, and big bed I can load it up with a ton of gear and head out for the woods. Next year, I plan to do a lot of remote work out of the truck, and if I add a second solar panel and additional batteries to the new truck, and if I head up to Green Mountains I could remote in to work for extended periods just like I did during the pandemic.

I keep seeing ads for financing cars and trucks, and how they advertise low monthly payments, but as I’ve worked hard to get where I am, I’m once again paying cash for my next truck. While money is never unlimited, I can pay whatever I want for my next vehicle, but I also realize it’s money that will be gone as soon as I’ve cut the bank check and that the truck will only last for 10-15 years – basically until I retire. Then I’ll need yet another truck. Yet, I want a vehicle that provides a lot of enjoyment, that I can travel and see America and maybe figure out where I want to settle down roots. But even a fairly basic 3/4 ton truck is going to be a hell of a lot more expensive then even a nice Toyota Tacoma. And that gives me pause, because I know the money will be gone.

While inevitable capital gains and future savings will replace the lost money, it’s only a matter of time when the pleasure the truck gave me will be just memories and photos, like Big Red is soon to be in my mind. But I also want to get the right truck for me, something reliable, basic, that provides enjoyment and a way to see America in a reliable vehicle that I enjoy to drive.

I’m taking the winter off from driving, so I have a chance to really think this all through. Going vehicle-free is going to pose it’s challenges, but I also know it’s idiotic to get a new truck during salt season, especially with the sting of he rotted frame on my old truck – and that I drive so few miles during the winter month. And I want to like Taco trucks, but they seem like mini-sofas on wheels after my big jacked up truck. How will I carry a week’s plus worth of camping gear? Still even if I do put 35s and a leveling kit on a F-250 in some ways it won’t be like Red. That said, I did see on Metro Ford’s website a Big Red  F-250 Regular Cab 4×4 Long Bed, and it had my name written all over it. Though not in local stock! But it’s so hard to find many trucks in that configuration, except in fleet white. Probably because 90% of people who order such big trucks in such a configuration just want a plow truck.

Maybe it will be worth my money to do a custom order, but I want to keep the final bank check under $60k or 4k a year if it lasts for 15, 6k a year if it lasts for 10.  What will taco truck, reduce my yearly cost to 3k or 4k? And maybe save $500 in gas a year? For what, less enjoyment as I travel in a cramped, pissy little truck.  That said, I don’t spend too much on a basic, but big truck with manual hubs that I’m going to have to throw away in 10-15 years, which will occur much too soon. I always knew Red would come to his end much too soon, but so will his replacement. Time goes by so quickly when your an adult.

With the Capital Gains I’ve been getting over the past few years in markets, my six-figure income, my experience, and love for traveling and big ol pickup trucks, I’m not going to cheap out just to save money on something that gives me a lot of joy. I might live in a mold-infested apartment that I keep at 48 degrees and lacks television or internet, but my love is open road, spending nights in wilderness under my truck cap next to a fire. Money is a means, and you should spend it on things that really give you pleasure.

If a F-250 burns more gas and costs more to buy, but that’s what I want, I should get it. It’s not like I spend money on hotels and I’m loathed to spend money at campgrounds where I get yelled at for tossing a plastic wrapper in the fire. If I have to special order a regular cab long-bed 4×4 just so I don’t have to get fleet white, then so be it. Even if I do retire at age 56 along with my Super duty truck, I will probably at that point be building that off-grid homestead, have livestock to feed and won’t have the time or ability to travel like I still can while I rent and are still young. A farm or homestead dream means you live and spend most of your farm. Having great views, mountains, a small town and freedom to have all the firearms and bonfires you want is great, still it’s not like the freedom to travel when you are still young.  If I can’t shoot my guns and burn shit on my own land right now, then at least I can spend my weekends, vacations and remote work days up in wilderness doing such things.

Truth is I’m looking forward to heading out camping on Christmas one last day with Big Red. Just some solitude to think and relax as snow falls on the land, we might get a half foot while I’m up at camp. One last time with Red before he’s done, even if I know bigger and better life is ahead with whatever my next truck will be. While the next few months will be different without a vehicle, I drive so little in winter, and the road salt, it just doesn’t make sense to get even that Red F-250 I love at Metro Ford now. But I promised myself not to bite until February and not take delivery before April when the road salt is mostly over. And I will be smelling like sheep farm as I spray the fluid film lanolin all over undercarriage. I’d much rather my new big truck smell like a barnyard then have it’s life cut short by that corrisive road salt.

You can kind of see why I love this truck already. I work hard for shit like this, put up with a lot of crap in urban life, taking slow city buses, pulling all nighters and climbing over the homeless downtown. And I’m saving and investing every penny I can towards that off-grid homestead, but I also want a good truck to see America, camp, travel, and be my home along the dirt road, where I have my freedom unlike any developed campground or hotel.