What Goes Around Comes Around!!!

For my 17th birthday, my parents bought me a car. Well, they wish they had bought me a car, but what they did was give me $1500 for my first vehicle - mostly I think 'cause my Mom wanted her car back!!

Anyway, 17 year old, cowboy boot wearing, horse owning, country music obsessed me quickly talked by Dad into a truck. I had visions of something black and shiny but instead let him talk me into .... this.....

No, this isn't my exact truck - I shamelessly stole the photo from an ANTIQUE car web site *sigh*

I expressed my dismay at the colour and he assured me that we could paint it (we never did) and that it ran well was most important.

Regardless of that horrid colour, I loved that truck. It carried bales of hay and straw, saddles, friends and all sorts of other things.

After a few years Mom and Dad had concerns about it's reliability and derailed my plans to move out of the house by talking me into buying a newer, more reliable car.

I don't know that a '77 Camaro was really a 'safer' vehicle for an 19 year old, but I ADORED that car despite the fact that the gas gauge dropped as fast as the speedometer rose when you floored it at a stoplight (not that I EVER did that).

When Mark and I got married, we didn't have the budget to afford 2 cars, so the gas guzzling muscle car left us.

Over the years a variety of vehicles have passed through my life - mostly SUVs and minivans. None were loved like those first vehicles and, other then the dog truck - which really wasn't a everyday 'personal' vehicle - none a truck.

About a year and a half ago we traded in my little Toyota Highlander for a brand new Toyota Sienna. It really was a lovely van, well,  maybe for someone that lives in a city - not for me though.

My issues and frustrations with it were many - no offence to Toyota. We just weren't a good match. I was constantly having to jump start it due to the cold or leaving doors open to give airflow to dogs; having the wheels taken off to wash the mud out of the hubs and stop the shimmeying; swearing at the stow away seats that where so far in the back that you couldn't talk to a passenger sitting in them from the front seat; etc, etc, etc

It was meant to haul groceries and kids, not shedding sled dogs, muddy border collies, muddy bikes, heaps of vegetation for the garden, bales of straw and an assortment of other oddities.

After a shove from Mark a few weeks back (who was sick of me complaining about the van), I took the plunge and came full circle in my vehicle owning life. Yup, I bought a truck. She is beautiful, needs no paint, and has features 17 year old me could NEVER have dreamed of.

Please excuse the cat checking it out. We have discussed that. 

It's been a long time, but I think I'm ready to love again!!!!!!!

(PS. Thanks Mark - and I appreciate you breaking your left arm rather than your right so you could still sign and finalize the paperwork yesterday!!!)