Goodbye old friend

We agreed to terms on an Odyssey this week. We're just waiting on one with the color we want to come in -- it should be any day.

So this week was bittersweet for me as I had to face the fact that I needed to sell my truck. The truck was the most reliable vehicle I have had. When your previous vehicle had stranded you at the grocery store, the mall, on I-40 in the mountains, and been towed from the Bluegrass Parkway in rural Kentucky one learns to appreciate a reliable vehicle. The Toyota was an awesome truck -- I didn't know how many people agreed with me until I tried to sell it.

When I bought my truck in '99, I looked for a long time for a Toyota Tacoma. I knew that's what I wanted after having a lot of trouble with Ford and Chevrolet vehicles (see: Bluegrass Pkwy above) -- I wanted to try something different. But used Tacomas were few and far between to find. I ended up finding one -- a lease turn-in that I jumped on. Six years later all I had done was the basic, routine maintenance on the truck that had served us well. Trips to the nursery, Lowe's, the dump, moving furniture, meteor watching, and on and on -- trucks are very handy.

I came home on Wednesday night, snapped a few photos, (wiped a tear from my eye), and went to cars.com to place an ad on the internet. I thought I could get a lot more for it selling it on my own than trading it in. And I had previous difficulty finding one when I was looking for a truck, I was hoping scarcity played in my favor. Worried I was being too aggressive, I priced it at $300 over blue book value. By Thursday evening, I had three people call (one all the way from Charlotte) and one guy come by to test drive it. By Friday I had another half dozen people call -- one from Ohio who said he would've jumped on a plane to fly down here for a Toyota with low mileage like mine. Nevertheless, I sold the truck in less than 24 hrs to a guy looking for a reliable hunting truck.

So now we put our faith in the dealer's hands -- always a good place to be, right? -- that our van will come in anyday as they are telling us. Last night we went to a multiples club sale (which doubled as a minivan convention), and we had the only truck in the lot. So I guess it's time.