Pickup Truck Adventures Part 3

As I said, I got a lot of interest in my truck. And when the truck was at the shop, the mechanic that worked on it fell in love with it. So when I got it back it came with an offer: he wanted to trade my truck for his truck, straight up.
His was a Ford F 150, newer, higher up off the ground, and more efficient on gas.
Dad and Mom said I could decide; so I had Kevin (we were engaged at that point) look at it before I committed.

I ended up with the newer truck, and I really did love that truck - my first Ford.
Nothing awful happened to me in the Green truck. (It was a lovely forest green.) By this point I was becoming a more seasoned, experienced driver. In fact, one cold winter morning I slid across an icy bridge on my way to feed horses, and remembered how to stay in control when sliding on ice. I made it across the bridge - and stayed calm the whole time.

When I got married, I left the green truck with my parents, and started driving Kevin's bigger Ford F-250. It is now more my truck than it ever was his. I love that truck. I feel safe in it. It has never let me down; it has never broken down; it is just a great all around truck. I rely on it. It's a 3/4 ton truck, with 4 wheel drive, so I can go pretty much anywhere in it, on the road or off. Thick mud, driving rain, slick ice, deep snow.... none of it fazes me when I am driving my Ford.

The green Ford was passed to my brother, and he drove it to it's death. It then sat in my parent's driveway for a few months, while Dad contemplated fixing it. Then one day this past summer, I was at their house during a thunderstorm, when I huge gust of wind blew over a huge tree in their yard; and as I stood there watching, before I could even yell "Uh, HEY! Daaaaad........" the tree fell right across the bed of the truck with a thunderous crash.

"Well, I guess I'm not going to fix it," Dad said when he came out to the yard with me.

My current truck is not without it's own little adventure tales. For one thing, I had to learn how to drive a 20-ft. flatbed gooseneck trailer, loaded down with 350 bales of hay, in that truck. And I have done it many times, without taking out a single mailbox or signpost. I will never forget my husband proudly bragging to someone that I had "loaded the hay, strapped it down, and brought it on home" all by myself. He was impressed. And I was happy to have impressed him with my hay stacking and strapping, and trailer driving skills. He is hard to impress.

In the second summer after our marriage, I was in the process of cleaning out some small barns and outbuildings on the farm. One barn was chock full of glass jars that took me over a week to sort out. I had several boxes of gallon size jars in boxes in the back of the truck, and I was going to back up to another building nearby and deposit all of the boxes in there for storage.
Parked all around the entrance to the bigger barn were various pieces of tillage equipment and other tractor accessories. There was a clear path to the door, so I eased the truck towards it.
My sister Noelle was riding in the passenger seat and just as she said "Uhhhhh...you're getting awfully close to...." There was a sccccrraaaaape at the door followed by a huge explosion. We both screamed and jumped. I leaped out of the truck and ran around the side to find I had gouged the paint on the door for about 6 inches, and I had backed into the blade of a plow I had not seen because it was covered with tall grass. The blade had sliced right into the thick 10-ply tire wall. On the brand new tire we had just had put on. And tires on this truck cost about $200 apice.
Kevin was standing in the driveway shaking his head in disbelief. I was terrified he'd be very angry with me; but all he said was, "It's nothing but a thing." (What is that supposed to mean, anyway? Nothing but a "thing"?)
I personally took the truck back to the tire company and had another one installed, and endured the jokes and jabs of the owner and the other employees, when I confessed that I had run over a plow blade with it.

Then last year, we were hauling two of our horses in the trailer on a one-lane road in the middle of nowhere when we topped a hill and the first thing we saw was another pickup truck headed straight for us. Kevin dove for the ditch and the other truck crashed into the front left quarter panel. Kevin said some not nice words as he threw open the door and thundered down the road to confront the other driver, while I checked the horses. The horse in the back was ok; but the horse in the front of the trailer had a cut over his eye. Just superficial, though.
It was one of the most scary things I have ever lived through. Watching as another vehicle heads straight for you and then crashes into you seconds later... and hauling horses just made the whole thing more terrifying. Horse trailering accidents are ..... bad. We were spared.
We got everything fixed as good as new, though; and so far there have been no more incidents in the truck.

I can tell you one thing: trucks are fun. And I look forward to many more years of having truck adventures.