Out With The Old, In With The Not-so-old

Seven weeks ago Tina and I bid farewell to our 1995 Toyota 4Runner. It'd seen us through thick and thin over the half-dozen years I owned it; sporting nearly 170,000 miles, it shuttled me on numerous climbing, and backpacking trips, days of kayaking and cycling, and it was the dogs home away from home. The power windows worked only intermittently, the seats were shredded, the manual transmission slipped, and there was a permanent layer of Sawtooth's trail dust and climbing chalk on the inside. It was my "Rig".

The Rig met an untimely end at an intersection near here, when I made a left turn in front of an oncoming sedan. In my defense, neither Tina or I saw it until it was on top of us. We weren't injured in the collision - in fact, the dogs, who were standing in the back at the time, were barely knocked off their feet. The accident seemed like nothing more than amusement park bumper cars - the other driver hit us square on the passenger rear tire, which sent The Rig spinning clockwise as though the front end was anchored and sent the impacted tire bouncing down a side street.

So, six weeks ago Tina and I became the proud owners of a 2007 Toyota 4Runner - charcoal gray, automatic, power everything, clean. Way too comfortable, powerful, and tidy to be the rightful heir to The Rig.  Seriously, if you have to worry about scratching the truck or getting it dirty, and without the "feel" of a manual shifter and 4-wheel drive, would you consider taking it into the Upper Hell Roaring trailhead?!?

There may be hope yet that I can break it in. As one small step in its indoctrination, I've begun to put my brand on it.