The truck

It began on a whim. Why rent pickups for $100 a day to do our landscaping project if we could buy one cheap? Real cheap?

We got on craigslist to see what the market looked like for a $500 truck. Not much of a market, we found. But toss in another $200 to $300 and you get something like this:



A 1982 Dodge Ram D50. Propane fueled!!! That's right. No stinking diesel or costly unleaded. This rig runs on gas that costs $2 a gallon.

We bought the truck at the Portland Rescue Mission car lot. The asking price: $795. Brad and I talked them down to $700. I'm feeling guilty about it now. The proceeds benefitted a homeless shelter, after all. But you don't go buy something like a truck with Sarah's dad and pay the asking price.

Anyway, it runs great. It was missing a muffler and burned a slight odor of gas. You can still see the old Evergreen (Vancouver, Wash.) School District logo under its burnt-red paint job. Otherwise, it's a keeper. The same day we bought it, we hauled off all the plants that we had cleared out of our back yard and picked up a yard-and-a-half of compost. Brad adjusted the idle on the truck and cleaned a gasket. I get the sense that it's going to be around for some time.

Maybe it'll be Claire's first set of wheels?