Travels with Inny - Intro

Hi there, everybody!

Elise and I recently took a trip, and being a writer, I had to... well... write about it. I thought I'd make y'all read the saga of our trip to Texas. It would help, however, if you knew some of the background.

Some of you know and some of you don't, that I was recently in a car accident. I was rear-ended while at a complete stop in traffic. My wonderful red Expedition was totalled, the car I had waited all my life to own, and Jeff and I decided not to replace it, but to use the insurance money to get something cheaper and more useful. In the picture above, you can only see that the bumper is squished. What you can't see is that the entire frame of the car is bent, and that, when standing at the back, I could reach up and touch the roof, something I had never been able to do before.

So, we decided to replace the Expedition with a pick-up truck, but I wanted a very specific type of pick-up - I wanted a '97 Ford F250 Crewcab Diesel 4X4.

I know I taxed the patience of those friends who had to listen to me wail about not finding what I was looking for, but I had good reasons, I promise! I wanted a '97 because it was the best combination of newer, and still in my price range. I wanted a Ford because every work truck I see on the road is a Ford - they're built better and they last longer - and because the only lemons I ever owned were NOT Fords. I wanted an F250 because I wanted a diesel engine (I'll explain later) and they don't make the smaller F150's with diesel engines. I wanted a crewcab because anything else is too small to be comfortable for people forced to ride in the backseat, and I prefer to be the driver when I get together with people because I get carsick so easily. I wanted a diesel because they last longer than a gas engine, get considerably better gas mileage,and because you can run them on home-brewed biodiesel, a vegetable oil derivative that's easy and cheap to make yourself, and actually better for your engine, as well as being nearly zero emission...

And I wanted a 4X4 because I have needed it in the past and I anticipate needing it in the future, and I want to own this truck for the next 15 years and love it just as much then as now.

So now you know.

I think I succeeded in finding the truck to fit the bill, but it wasn't easy. I had to go to Texas - yes I know, that sounds bizarre, but trust me, I spent months looking and I seriously couldn't find the right truck without completely compromising, which would have produced results I wouldn't have wanted to live with for the next 15 years...

BUT... In order for this to make sense, you have to understand two things:

#1) The Expedition was named after Indiana Jones by my nieces and nephews (and Stefan insisted on calling it "Dr. Jones", which earned him a special place in my heart) because we had adventures and always came home okay. Elise couldn't say the "D" in "Indy", so it came out "Inny", and so the Expedition was named "Inny".

#2) When Elise was three or so, we had to take the Expedition in to have the brakes done. This was so upsetting to her that she cried almost the whole time he was gone, because she didn't understand that we would be getting him back. When I had the accident and knew Inny was going to go away for good, I told her that Inny had to leave his old body because it didn't work anymore, just like Babs our old cat had left her body to go to heaven. I told her that car spirits, unlike cats, don't have to go to heaven unless they want to, and that we had to buy a new body for Inny the car spirit to live in. This is why the Expedition was Inny AND the truck became Inny. It's succession thing... The king is dead, long live the king.

So, after finding the right truck, I had to go to Amarillo, TX, to get it. This is a journal of that trip, which I took with Elise, and some of the things that happened along the way.

Tomorrow, Episode One - "A New Hope"!