New Truck!

On July 25th 2013 Philip and I bought our first vehicle together. It's a 2012 Dodge Ram 1500 Crew Cab and other yada yadas, and her name is Claire. We have kind of a rule that vehicles have to be named, and they have to be the opposite gender of it's primary driver. We came to the abrupt decision that we needed a new truck because we realized that it was silly to be making payments on Phil's older truck, Amber, which was a 2004 GMC Sierra and needed a bit of mechanical work done on it. It was painful to buy a truck, I'd never done it before and I'm not really looking forward to the time when I have to pick out my replacement for Steve (the faithful little 04 Toyota Matrix I drive). We spent 3 consecutive evenings at the dealership in town negotiating prices and trade-in stuff, but our salesman was extremely helpful and nice and informative. 

Now that it's all over I'm glad it happened; I had NO IDEA what the vehicle purchasing process was like, but now I know what to expect when the time comes. 

I'm pretty jealous that Philip gets to drive her all the time (except on Fridays which is gas-filling day, and since the gas stations around my office are about $0.20 cheaper, it's always my job to do it) but then again, I spend about 5 minutes trying to park, which can sometimes be embarrassing if there's people watching. So far we've taken her out to two bonfires at the beach and plan to take trips to the RGV (Rio Grande Valley) to see my parents (and empty out my bedroom) and to San Antonio. She's a super comfy ride, so I'm excited for these trips to happen. I'm also very glad that I don't have to take a running jump to get into this truck... see that steppy-thingy on the side? It's one of my favorite things :) My second favorite thing is that it has a power outlet just like my car, so that I can charge my phone without needing a car charger. 

And so this is our Claire. We look forward to driving her until the end of her days... we agreed that we wouldn't trade her in for another vehicle until she could go no more, and since she only has 19,000 miles on her, she should be with us for quite some time with a little tlc.