Hey Honey, Can We Get a Truck?

I seem to be hearing a lot of interesting things when I wake up in the morning. That was the first thing Nathan said when I woke up yesterday morning. To which I replied with the guppy mouthed reply..."Uhhhhhhhh." Long story short, we ended up driving to Nampa, ID and buying a 2000 Toyota Tundra. Here it is:

This is the dealer's photo of our truck...yes, that's a picture of the exact truck we bought. It's an automatic 8 cylinder, full off-road package (steel plate under the engine to protect it from rocks, lifted, etc), spray-in truck bed, 4 door with back suicide doors (they open backwards), 4 wheel drive, both hi and low, which makes a huge difference when driving in the snow. Here's the interior:


Tan leather interior, back bench seat, 6 cd changer in the dash, automatic doors and locks, AC, 6 cup holders (4 in front, 2 in back). The cab of it is HUGE! I took Dana for a ride in it last night and she commented on the fact that it literally felt like we were in different vehicles. It rides SO smoothly that you can barely tell that you're in a truck, and it handles like a dream in the snow. We don't have studded tires on it and last night it snowed about 4 inches in 3 hours. Even so, when I drove it, it didn't do much slipping around at all and stopped very easily when you remember that you're driving a truck and not our Subaru. Anyway, we love it so far and we're excited about the fact that it's going to be exactly what we need in terms of a truck to head into the mountains with. So there it is. We're hoping to get Nathan's old truck sold off shortly.

Now, lest you think that we are in the habit of just randomly buying newer vehicles, we've actually been toying with the idea of buying Nathan a larger truck ever since the first snow fell. We have studded tires on his little Nissan, but, well, let's face it, it's a tiny pickup and it has 2 wheel drive and no weight to it. See?

Which, in this snow, is scary. It was a great pickup for over in the Portland area, but it's not at all suitable for our winters here. Not only that, but Nathan really does need a truck that he can take up into the mountains hunting and not worry about getting stuck. So there IS a method to our madness.