It was a Bittersweet Day.

Saturday we picked up the new truck.

This should have been a happy moment, but the whole way into Canon we talked about how this would be the last ride in our truck.

We remembered the trips we had taken in the truck over the last 9 years and how Derek had grow up riding in the back seat.

We saw and talked about many things riding in the truck.

Once when making the 19 hour trip back to the Twin Cites while passing through Denver we spotted a glow in the sky that we thought may have been city sky glow, but it seemed to far north. We turned on the radio thinking we would hear about a major forest fire, but we heard that it was a happening that rarely makes it this far south...the northern lights.

Or the listening to books on tape and staying in the truck at rest areas until the end of a chapter. I heard every Harry Potter book this way.

Watching Derek go from being small enough to sleep on the floor in the backseat to the 20 year old who said that the trip home last Christmas would probably be the last road trip with us for him.

And the plans. Lotsa plans on when to move. When to build. What we would do when we had the time.

I am sure that the new truck will become a member of the family as we have new adventures, but for now we keep thinking about the member that we left at a car dealership.

It was a great truck for us and I hope it gets a good home...it deserves it.

We Take the Next Step's.

Marlys and I took the next step in our plans to someday retire.

You need to read all of this post, so as not to thing it is just about buying a car, oops I guess I let it out of the bag.

We bought a new truck last weekend to replace our 3/4 ton 1999 Ford F250 Super Duty. This has been a great vehicle that has seen us through many of the events in our migration to Colorado started back in 1997. Our truck has 195K miles, but it is running strong (knock on wood).

But we needed a bigger one. What you say, a bigger one. Yes we need a bigger one to haul around our next weekday home.

Our apartment has been OK, but it isn't our place, so we are going to buy a truck camper and full-time it, at least on weekday's and vacations and going to NASCAR races and driving up the Alcan to Alaska and going to Goose Bay Labrador, via the Trans-Labrabor highway.

We are looking at two different floorplans of Okanagan truck campers. We are targeting these because they have slideout that significantly increase the feeling of size when inside. This was one of the same things that lead us to buy the trailer we stayed in at Pinon Rock until we built the house last year.

These campers are built in BC and are year-round rated so that we can use them when we go skiing or work my next targeted job as a greeter at Breckinridge during the ski season.

You probably noticed that they both have "living room" areas with sofas. Heck you can even get an optional fireplace (electric).

The construction is also different from other campers (and most other RV's) in that it uses monocoque wall construction vs. an aluminum or wood frame. Although there is wood and aluminum in the walls the interior and exterior skins are glued and pinch sealed together, making for a strong stressed skin construction.

And they weight in the 4K lbs range, which is the reason for the big truck.

But we plan to leave the apartment and live in camper moving around between different Walmart parking lots on a nightly basis. There are 20 stores in the Denver metro area so we should have a pretty good selection.

Not really.

Well at least the Walmart parking lot part.

We are going to look for a year-round RV Park. We have a couple in mind closer to the mountains.

This will be the great experiment.

BTW: We bought another Ford. A F-450 Super Duty King Ranch model. It cost as much as our first house. It also has some options that I can't figure out why they would put them on a "man's" truck, like a navigation system. Everyone knows that guy's never get lost. I am sure Marlys will like it.

Here is a picture I plagerized from a Ebay ad.