Yeah, it snowed ®️ ☃️
Less then some of the Dire Emergency predictions said but it would have been white and snowy at camp, had I not come home last night in search of my warm bed. I really do need to get a diesel heater for my next truck. Maybe another night or two in the wilderness would have been good as soon I won’t have a vehicle, a reality that is setting in as I look at snow-covered Big Red.
Just a lot of things I’m trying to figure out as I transition to a car-free and hopefully more sustainable lifestyle as I go through the winter. 🚘 I used up the last of liquid laundry detergent I had, going to get to a big box of powder laundry detergent that will be easier to transport a small portion in a box or bottle when I go down to the laundromat. 👚 While maybe a pain to be walk with a mile with my laundry sack over my shoulder, it is what it is. Powdered laundry soap is also much less trash to manage, though that one bottle did throw out in autumn kicked up a lot of heat on a cold rainy day! 🔥 And fun to watch it melt stoned out of my brain. I can also work the buses, but that can be a challenge with the schedule, though I probably would take bus home from the laundromat. 🚍 Maybe when I visit my parents I can do my wash there too.
I also need to see if I can get milk delivery in glass 🍶 from Meadowbrook to eliminate that big source of plastic trash and if I can use my neighbor’s recycling ♻️ bin and maybe his trash can as he has offered me in the past. I’ll throw him a few bucks, maybe what the transfer station charges me when I take my cans and bottles there. 🥫 Plus, it’s better to drink real fresh milk and support local agriculture, compared to the profits skimmed off chain-store and even Stewart’s Milk. 🐮 I really loathe to subscribe though to trash pickup, because I will have a truck come spring time, and I’ll need burnables 🔥 to get fires started up at camp, and I can go back to taking my cans yearly to the transfer station for recycling or tossing them in mom and dad’s recycling bin now that they broke down and got weekly service. 🗑️ I don’t know, it just strikes me as a waste-producing service to subscribe to such a service with those giant bins. If you’re paying so much for trash, wouldn’t be the incentive to fill those massive bins with as much garbage as possible? I’ll still bring the compost out to Mom and Dad’s house which these days with my healthy eating really is the biggest part of my waste. Gonna have a lot of rich soil if someday I take over their homestead. Also, really will try to get as much as likely recyclable packaging, as that matters more if I’m not sending it up into smoke, though I could save some burnables for the spring.
It’s just werid to think next week at this time, I’ll be looking out at my driveway and Big Red will be gone. 🛻 Out to pasture, literally at my parents house until I can decommission the equipment in spring and move over all my camping gear. 🏕️ It wouldn’t have been the worse camping last night, but it would have been snowy, and I would have been digging out the truck in the snow. Maybe I would have stayed until Sunday, if Christmas Day hadn’t been so bitterly cold with the wind, the propane tank so light and my fuel gauge so low. ⛽ Plus honestly, I was nervous about driving the truck home, especially in snow, as the bed and rear axle is now pretty much now free floating compared to the front half of the truck due to the increasingly flexible frame as section loss just keeps multiplying. I don’t think the rear shock mount is connected at all solidly to the outer frame. It’s bad, but I think it will make it to Wednesday – I am going to run to Walmart tomorrow and may drive into work on New Years Eve, but then it will be parked in the pasture. 🅿️ I haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to get rid of the truck, I’ll probably to try to sell it for cheap, as I’d rather some kid with a welder and some bond get a nice vehicle to drive around for a few more years rather then go to a scrap yard. I mean the engine and tranny are strong even if the frame and rockers panels ain’t and it only has 119,000 miles or so on the odometer, and those 5.3L that haven’t developed lifter knock at this point are likely to have a few more years left.
The other question on my mind is what to do with my license plates and insurance. 🔎 I have basically three options – keep my insurance and plates as it’s not due for renewal until March 29, surrender my plates and keep my registration and ask for a pro-rated refund of my insurance, surrender my plates and cancel my registration and ask for a pro-rated refund. Trying to figure out which makes the most sense economically, 💰 based on DMV fees and the cost of getting a brand new insurance policy. My registration expires in November, and instead cancel it immediately, so I could ask for the prorated $30 or so back. Then register the new truck as new. Or I could surrender my plates, cancel my registration and then transfer the existing registration to the new truck, paying a transfer and new plates fee. Truth is that I want a very different insurance policy for my new truck – I am going to go high-deductible – as it doesn’t make sense to pay the insurance company a ton of money when I can afford to cover the losses myself. But in the mean time, I worry that dropping insurance will put me in a higher rate class, for having a gap in my insurance, even if I didn’t drive during that time period.
Regardless, a new truck is going to cost a lot more to insure, especially a heavy-duty pickup, even if it’s relatively simple XL model. So it’s best to shop around. 🛒 But it’s worth the money, as I want a good truck for traveling. I still think it might be best to get new insurance from the credit union rather then State Farm. And maybe move my renters insurance over. My insurance agent retired after 30 million years, she was the person my dad went to back in 1970s, and probably was person my grandparents used back in the day. So I don’t really have any loyalty to them anymore even though they’ve done an okay job the few times I’ve need them. Then I’ll need to find a new policy when I get the new truck, but I don’t have to be in a rush to take delivery. Most dealerships my parents say will be happy to hold a vehicle for a few weeks if you offer them a non-refundable deposit on the vehicle. Honestly, if I find the truck I am buying, I can give them bank check 💳 for the full amount, and I’m sure they’ll be hold it for me. Not that much interest on my savings account for a few weeks while I figure out what my insurance policy will be. I don’t want to get road salt on my new truck before next autumn, preferably after I’ve coated the bottom of the truck with a heavy layer of lamoline, and my truck smells like a rust-free barnyard and sheep farm. 🐑
Today it will be stay home, stay safe day. 🏡 Like many a winter day, especially that soon I won’t have my big jacked up truck anymore. Read and studying more about trucks. Maybe cook some rice up for dinner. 🍚 I thought about driving up to Salvation Army in Colonie but I don’t just don’t want to risk with my truck literally falling apart. Tomorrow I’ll go to Walmart, get the laundry powder and as many other large supplies best got the discount retailer before Red is done permanently. 🛒 I just want to drive him, take in the remaining memories. I am afraid I’ll have to add another $10 or $20 in gas, just so I have enough to get him out to his resting place on New Years Eve. 🎇 Then I’ll toast the New Years with the family, and they’ll give me a ride home on New Years Day. I’ll look out at my driveway and see Red permantly gone. Been reading more about those SuperDuty trucks, and also figuring out my options to visit Ford dealers by bus and bike. Both Metro Ford and De Paula Ford are both near the BusPlus stops which is convient, Lia Toyota if I decide to get a Taco truck 🌮 may be a bit of a ride down Central Avenue on my mountain bike, which is less great. I guess I got to buy the big Ford. Seems really nutty to buying a $60,000 heavy duty pickup truck when you’re taking the city bus 🚍 there. But it is what it is. Not going to be able to trade Red in as he’ll be off the road by then.