Our new ride - Aug 8, 2008 -

The past two years, we have been searching for the perfect truck. After our previous trip to Colorado, we knew we needed more power and more gears for pulling our fifth wheel anywhere there were hills and mountains. Wes knew exactly what he wanted - Chevy or GMC, 1 ton dually, Duramax engine with a 6 speed Allison transmission, diesel with a large fuel tank. He wasn't particular about color, but he liked his pewter truck we already had. I, on the other hand, wanted leather memory seats, surround sound satellite radio with a CD player, and plenty of cup holders :-)

It had become a habit to look at every truck lot we passed and to make frequent checks of the various internet sites. This particular truck has performed so well, that people who had them didn't want to get rid of them. So, there was a serious shortage of used ones. Whenever we did find one, it was gone quicker than we could get our hands on it. Imagine our surprise when Wes found one on the internet. We printed out the info and discussed if we could handle the loan on it. We thought it was a little high, but the more research we did, we found out it was about the right price. Finally Wes called the owner and talked to him about it. Seems he was getting ready to retire and just wanted to get rid of the loan. The price was just what he had left to pay on it. He already had a perfectly good truck that was paid for. After several phone calls and much discussion, we visited with our banker and decided to buy it. One problem - when would we have time in our busy lives to go to Oklahoma and get it!!

So, last Sunday, we drove to our daughter's in McPherson, KS after church and spent the night. Monday morning we headed to Choctaw, OK just east of Oklahoma City, where we met Randy and our new truck. He was very pleasant and was happy we were getting his truck. All the paper work was in order, and upon inspection and a short drive, we drove away with a new truck:-) It has just over 6000 miles on it and it still even smells new. I keep telling Wes if he custom ordered a truck, this would be it. He is very happy and excited. I am just happy to have enough power to get us over the hills and mountains.

We drove back to McPherson and spent Monday night and then headed home on Tuesday morning. We stopped by S & S Trailer Sales in Ness City, KS to be sure they had the framework for our fifth wheel hitch, which they did and then on home. We drove about 850 miles over three days and I was more than ready to get OUT of the car. My hip and back were sending me some serious messages. Wednesday morning Wes went back to Ness City and they installed the framework for our hitch. We backed the truck up to the fifth wheel and everything fit just fine, although we don't have quite as much clearance between the bottom of the RV and the sides of the pickup bed as we did before. We will have to get used to that.

Randy just happened to have an extra fuel tank/tool box combo he had purchased for the truck and never installed, so we bought that from him also. Wes just finished installing that today. Another plus - now I won't need to spend all my time looking for gas stations. In our old pickup, we needed fuel about every 130 miles. And since it is diesel, we can just pull into the truck lane and fill up. No more squeezing into the car pumps and hoping we can get out without a dent or scratch. I am looking forward to more pleasant drives.

We will make our first "test run" next week when we need to take the fifth wheel into the dealer in Abilene, KS to fix the recall on the refrigerator.

Oh - FYI - we have done the math and if we can get just 10 mpg, we will save on fuel costs, even with the high cost of diesel. Everyone with the same type vehicle assures us they get quite a bit over 10 mpg. We shall see.