There aren't a lot of things that my wife and I disagree on, but the few things that we do are kind of big. To name just one, she loves gas-guzzling, behemoth vehicles and I think people who drive those are pathetic (unless there is a legit reason to do so).
To put it simply, she's the woman who will drive a big ass Hummer that gets 2 MPG and I'm the woman walking or biking past the gas station with the shirt that says "Nice truck, sorry about your dick."
Not that she has a Hummer, and not that I walk or bike past many gas stations these days, but you get the point.
Still, even on this one point, we agree on one thing: old trucks are pretty awesome. For me, it's nostalgia. For her, it's everything else and the nostalgia.
The first several months of our relationship was a long distance one, me in Boise and she in Ketchum/Sun Valley. A few months in, we were driving back to Boise and saw an old truck for sale. It was awesome: a black 1978 Jeep J-10. We stopped to admire the old beast, then left.
A few weeks later, my then-girlfriend and her stepdad were talking to the guy who was selling it, and she ended up buying it for less than a thousand dollars.
To make this truck just a little more bad ass, it used to be owned by a famous musician (again, this is the Sun Valley area) who used it to plow his property when it snowed. The plowing equipment (minus the actual plow) is all still intact. It's just.... well, I love this damn truck.
A couple of months after we moved to Twin Falls, my wife's dad asked us to go on a camping trip with him, waaayyyyy up in the mountains near Mackay, ID (which is pronounced "Macky" and even smaller than you imagine). I didn't want to go.
It was a bad idea. The news was predicting a vicious storm moving through and camping in weather like that is not fun. I pleaded with them to move the trip to the weekend after, when we'd have better weather, but noooo. No one wanted to listen to me.
So, I got off of work on a Friday afternoon and we loaded up the truck. The closer we got to Mackay, the darker the skies turned. About fifteen miles from the base of the mountain, it was pouring sheets of rain.
Climbing this mountain is no small feat. My brother-in-law, who also has a huge pickup but a much newer one, had to park a few miles up and then load everything up via a four-wheeler. When we passed his truck, it was dark, still pouring sheets of rain, we had been driving up the mountain for an hour and still not even close to camp, and I was having a full-on meltdown.
I had stopped screaming about what a stupid idea this was and why the F do we always do what her dad says even when we know it's a ridiculous thought and blah, blah, blah, nag, nag, nag, and just gave the complete silent treatment.
Then the truck died.
On a teeny, tiny, winding mountain road that modern trucks can't get climb, with a cliff on one side and towering trees on the other.
My meltdown didn't get any less dramatic.
We started hiking the rest of the way, and within minutes we were soaked. After about ten minutes up the trail, BIL showed up on his ATV: they were all up at camp worrying about us. It was about two miles uphill and it had taken him 30 minutes just to get to us. After another spectacular meltdown from me, we loaded the dogs in the cab of the truck with us and decided the only thing we could do was sit tight until morning.
I had gone back to the silent treatment. We sat in the cab, cold, wet, and tired. And then the windshield started to leak right on to my lap. I started laughing, and not in the "haha this is hilarious" way, but the "OMG, I'm going to lose my mind out here in the wilderness!" sort of way.
My wife, stunned, looked at me nervously. She knew that laugh. "I am so, so sorry. I should have listened to you. I am so sorry."
I laughed harder.
We sat in silence for a moment. I chugged a beer. Then another. And then maybe another. Who can be sure?
And then I announced that we were not going to sleep on this fucking mountain.
I grabbed the spotlight out of the back of truck and lit up as much of the trail as I could. I had her turn the Jeep on and put it in neutral to roll down the hill, with me on the side shining a light and keeping her from going off the road.
At one point, she rolled over a small boulder that landed right under the front driver's side tire. I swear to god, I don't know how I did this, but I told her "I'm going to push us over this, and when the truck breaks free I'm going to go flying this way" I pointed the spotlight to the brush on the side of us, the precipitous drop about five feet from that. "Whatever you do, don't hit the brakes until the truck comes off this rock. I can only do this once."
I heaved and pushed the truck and miraculously pushed it over the rock. I attribute this to pure adrenaline. I also went flying, as predicted.
It took me a minute to get back to my feet but I did, and guided the truck a couple more miles down the hill. Then we rolled over a small tree that also stuck the truck. I sighed. "OK, same thing," I said. "Except I'm going to have to jump because this is a young tree that's going to bounce back and fuck me up."
It did.
We encountered a few more obstacles and to be honest, after about 45 minutes of this I was exhausted and sore and wondering if maybe now I had the worst idea in all of Idaho. It didn't help that the rain had only gotten worse and the truck (not to mention the trail it was on) was getting slicker and slicker. Then I saw a clearing about twenty feet back and the rest was, comparatively, gravy.
The truck rolled back to that small spot and I guided my wife as she backed up in to it. Once the truck was on level ground it fired right back up. I almost cried. Wife looked at me with amazement and relief and said "let's get the fuck off this mountain."
I agreed. I went to the passenger side door and clicked the handle, but the handle was so wet that it slipped from my fingers, which sent the door swinging open at an angle, and the corner of the door slammed in to my kneecap.
Stars. Look at all the beautiful stars.
When I came to, wife was kneeling over me in a panic. "Ice water," I said. "Please pour some water on my forehead."
"I can't!" she yelled. "You're soaking! It's starting to snow! What is wrong?"
"I'm hot. Please just do it."
I was flat on my back, in the middle of a vicious storm, in the middle of a cruel mountain, lying in mud while my wife poured ice water on my face.
We somehow got me back in to the truck and my wife cracked open another beer for me. "You just drink this," she said. "Oh my god. Just drink that. I'll get us to granny's."
It took yet another hour to get off the mountain and in to "town." I knocked back as many beers as I could and remarked that I was glad I was semi-drunk when this happened, because it was really going to hurt when I sobered up.
We eventually made it to grandma's house in Mackay. I laid in a recliner for minute, despite the protestations that I immediately get into dry clothing. My knee was throbbing and I was still sick from fainting earlier. When I started feeling somewhat normal, I pulled my pant leg up to assess the damage.
Stars. Look at all the beautiful stars.
+++++++
Later that year, my wife decided to paint the truck. We had fixed the leaky windshield and the issue that made it die on the mountain, plus a few other things. For a couple of weeks I'd come home from work to find my wife in the garage with the sander and paint and all other manner of tools, and I'd open more doors and windows in the garage because she was being goofy as shit and clearly inhaling paint fumes for too long.
After her project, our questions of "how much do you want for that?" increased a exponentially.
It's a good rig. Reliable, tough, etc. But it kicked my ass
again last week.
After getting short notice that I had to be out of my apartment (got the notice on the 25th and had to be out on the 28th, and can't blame the guy 'cause I was behind on rent) we once again needed the truck.
This isn't even much of a story, sadly. My wife was in the bed of the truck pulling things up while I was on the ground handing things to her. I somehow lost my footing a bit and crashed in to the tailgate via my elbow.
Stars. Look at all the beautiful stars.
When I came to, my wife was kneeling above me asking, "Do you have ice water? Where is it? You're white. Jesus, you're whiter than a ghost."
"I don't care what anyone says," I cried. "It's NOT a fucking FUNNY bone."