Here she is parked at our duplex a couple of years ago. The truck was brand new in 1979. It runs on propane. Have you ever heard of such a thing before? The camper has avocado green and mustard yellow lino so I'm guessing it was new in the 70's sometime too. I love it. I love everything about it from the musty smell of the drawers to the ugly curtain fabric that I never wanted to change. My parents and me and my two sisters drove this baby from Northern BC to California one summer. Cray-zay! The truck and camper hold a lot of great memories for me and I was thrilled beyond thrilled when my parents gave it to us. (They upgraded to a motorhome.) We used it twice the first summer we had it when our twins were 10 months old. We then decided twice was plenty of times to camp with two crawling babies. It then came with us to Alberta where Hugh used it as his commuter vehicle for the first bit we lived here. Imagine driving that to work on the first day of a new job in a new career! After retiring from active service it sat variously in the driveway of our duplex, in the yard at Hugh's shop and then back in our driveway before being moved to the curb of our new house after great effort was expended getting it to start. Over the first four years we owned the truck and camper we spent a lot of time talking about it, moving it, and fixing it but not actually camping in it.
Then last year we had a brilliant idea to meet my parents and Hugh's parents in Banff over the May long weekend. Which meant we had to get the truck going for real. We drove it with fear and trembling all the way to Banff willing it to run until we got there. It did. We even made it home again. And then it died. And it has sat on our curb out front for the last year and a half. After our Banff drive Hugh decided he didn't trust the truck enough to really take it any distance and that it was time to sell it. I have great love for this battered old truck and camper and was trying to think of anyway we could salvage it. Until the wiring caught on fire when Hugh turned the key in the ignition last Fall. A few weeks ago Hugh got serious about wanting to put it on Kijiji so he replaced the burnt out wiring and got it to the point where all he had to do was charge the battery and we could move it/sell it. It's been sitting on our curb for almost two years and now, when it's days away from running, and we actually intend to move it we get this stupid notice.
Is anyone else suddenly singing Alanis Morissette?
Accompanying that lovely little notice was a fine for $280. I called Hugh at work and told him the good news and then I went to my chiro appointment and did a desperately needed grocery shop. When I got home at 1:30 the truck and camper were gone. Hugh called me a little later and told me that he had rushed home with a battery charger from work and tried to get it started when, wouldn't you know, it was out of propane. He ended up having to pay $80 to get it towed to the yard at his shop. So now this whole adventure has cost us $360. We should be able to recover that cost when we sell the blasted thing but seriously! There is so much I would rather spend $360 on!
Like this:
What would you do with $360?
I don't even know. I can't remember what it's like to have money that doesn't need to be spent elsewhere! Like on winter tires, or hydro bills, or phone bills...
ReplyDeleteIt's a really pretty kitchenaid though. Real pretty.
BOO! Sorry to hear you had to spend money on the truck instead of something pretty, blue and has variable speeds!
ReplyDelete