Maybe I’ll be retiring Big Red sooner then I expected 🛻

Big Red failed his inspection due to frame rot. While it’s certainly possible that the frame can be fixed, at this point I am not sure it’s worth putting several thousands bucks into a truck to have a bunch of steel welded onto a rotted frame. They left the sticker on the truck so I could drive it home and get repairs, though it expires at the end of the year.

I asked Mom and Dad if I could keep the truck at their homestead until the end of winter. I want to pull the CB radio, kayak racks, solar panel, relays and other camping equipment from the truck before I scrap it. I want to see if one of my friends who has an Silverado 1500 would like the cap. I think it’s probably okay to use through the end of the month, as while the rot is bad, especially after they poked at it and marked it, it’s not going to get that much worse over the next two weeks. I need gas, and I will fill the tank one last time, as I want to get out camping after Christmas. But then on December 31st, I’ll park it, take off the plates, return the plates to DMV and cancel my insurance.

So maybe my paranoia about something being wrong wasn’t totally wrong last summer. Things really were wallowing around in the backend, because the whole frame was flexing as it bumped up and down on the road. I just knew something was wrong and I did see the cancer growing last summer, and tried to wash it – but I know most Silverados end their life this way. Next truck, I’ll have to get oil coated after fall and get it pressured washed up on a lift in the spring.  I did regularly crawl under the truck and wash it with the pressure wash at the car wash, but alas 14 winters and summers was just too much for it.

I am planning to go car-free for the winter. I don’t regularly drive much except to Walmart and out to my parents house, and that very occasional trip to winter camp, ski, or hike – though not this year as my skis broke two years ago. My parents said they could give me a ride out there to visit. Busing it sucks with only the local bus but I’ll have my mountain bike to ride when weather allows. It will allow me to save money, and it’s silly to get a brand new vehicle during salt season. It’s healthier and better for environment not to drive. And spring will arrive before you know it.

Unlike many people, I am not facing a car payment as I can buy a new vehicle with cash I’ve had earmarked for this purpose for a number of years. I am still not sure what I am going to buy – new or used? I am kind of still infatuated with those big trucks, specifically a red F-250 4×4 regular cab long bed. But the gas milage is bad but so much room for camping and gear. And it would be such a bitch to park in those pissy little urban parking lots. Then the other option in my mind is a Toyota Tacoma 4×4 with a 6 foot bed. Maybe that’s the only tsensible option with reliability and good milage, and easy parking. But I like the big trucks, and don’t really love extended cabs, even if they are popular with people with families and bros to load in it. Chances are it would be much more easier to get used gasser F-250 then a used Tacoma with the long-bed. But the later is certainly cheaper new. And I kind of would like to have cruise control for on the highway, which I don’t know if Big Fords have on their basic models. I am not at all convinced on reliability of current generation of Chevy gasser engines.

Of course, if the internet were to believed, if you don’t want to be impoverished for the rest of your life, you should get drive a 20-year old Honda Civic. They are reliable, they’re cheap and frugal. And buy a plastic house in suburbs which you must use your frugal Honda Civic to commute to. Houses are good investments, even if you’re expected to rip out $10,000 a year of them to keep them up to date and buy all kinds of equipment and get in tons of contractors  to maintain them. But the plastic houses in suburbs with 100-square foot television and 3-yard dumpsters in front are their own kind of impoverishment.

Time lasts forever until it’s over. And then you just have memories of good times that were.