July 2012. Without a tent, camping in the truck has always been a fair-weather affair. Which in Washington limits options. So I decided to change that. With products that contained the letter Z. You think I'm joking, but I'm not. You'll see. The way I've always seen it, tent camping is reasonable if you have more than two people, but it's also very limiting. You can just roll up to a great spot, and be ready to go. You have to find some flat ground, setup a tarp, setup the tent, etc. etc. etc. Plus, everything gets dirty on the…
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January 19, 2012 We had our biggest snowstorm ever in January 2012 - 6+ inches that stayed on the ground for over a week. Of course, in Seattle, that wreaks havoc and this day was no different. At 8pm a call came in from Shahar - he'd slipped into a ditch and needed help. An opportunity to tow? Traction chains required? Yes and yes and sign me up! Of course, the truck didn't just pull him out of the ditch. It dragged him home.
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2008. I forgot to lock the truck last night. Actually, I rarely lock my truck. I mean, we live in a neighborhood of 75-80 year-olds. But apparently there is some hooligan in Woodridge too. A hooligan who opened the truck, rummaged through the glove box, and took several invaluable artifacts: My Tacoma owner's manual. My gas log The piece of door jam sheet metal that had my VIN information They did not take: My Maglite flashlight My tape measure The $20 in the change tray OK, obviously this guy was a moron. In terms of real value, he missed the…
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June 23, 2008. There was a time when I was working with Dad on some job site when we went and filled up the back of his Jeep (1989 Cherokee Laredo) with bags of concrete, and he pulled out a bike pump to inflate his rear shocks. I was hooked. It took me 8 years, and lots of heavy trips to the dump (from home renovations) but I finally bit the bullet and bought some Gabriel air shocks. Installation was straight forward for a pro, but I was far from a pro, having only ever disabled the daytime running lights.…
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November/December 2006 It's snowing! The truck loves snow. Snow means pulling people out of ditches, driving on roads that are impassable by cars, and having an all-around good time. One night I headed over to pick up Gina from school (the buses had stopped running) and the unthinkable happened. Getting off the Montlake exit in Seattle, the car in front of me slammed on it's brakes. I did the same, and started to fishtail. Already going slowly, it didn't take long (time or distance) to come to a stop, but just as the truck came to a rest, the font…
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I found out today that the truck loves landscaping. That is all.
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November 12, 2004. Two weeks after moving from an apartment in Redmond to a house in Bellevue, we were setting up the house after work (at about 10pm) and there was a knock at the front door. And then, Gina found me in the back room and said, "someone needs to talk to you." Headed to the door, I had no idea that I'd soon hear that the son of the neighbor across the street had backed out of their driveway and into my truck, with his GMC Jimmy. The result - Toyota of Burien cut out and replaced the…
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August 1, 2001. While the ABS brakes may have been a lucky break (in certain on-road situations), one thing I wasn't going to put up with were the daytime running lights (DRL) that I couldn't turn off. Three things bugged me: First, what if I wanted to drive around a campground with just my parking lights on, so as to not disturb other campers. Second, they used the same bulbs as my headlights, and I didn't want to have to pony up $3 too often. And lastly, just imagine what they'd do to my gas mileage. I mean sure, it…
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It was early days with the truck, and of course it was fun to drive. There were a couple things that were annoying - the clutch pedal was creaky, there was a shimmy at ~63MPH - but nothing major. The Toyota dealer took care of the clutch pedal pretty quickly, but the shimmy stuck around and I put up with it (usually by going a little faster). Having a truck meant that camping was more "in the cards," and Washington was a cool new place to explore. Highlights were the Olympic Peninsula, Mt. Rainier, and the North and Middle Cascades.
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As with pretty much everything I do, I’m over-researching my first car purchase. But it’s not a car, it’s a truck. It’s not any truck, it’s a Tacoma. I’ve wanted one of these ever since I nearly traded my 1982 Honda Accord (that Dad bought) for Patrick Presto’s Toyota Pickup (I have no idea what year it was) that was a rusted out piece of junk. Really. For about 15 minutes I considered a Nissan Frontier or Chevy S10. I know, crazy. It was only 15 minutes though. Now that I’m back on track, it’s all about finding a deal…
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