Vegas Day

I guess yesterday was too laid back because today we headed over the hump to Vegas and went car shopping. How's that for awful?

Our current truck is a 2000 GMC - the smallest of the full size pickups. It has served us well but it is getting older and things are getting a little cranky. Everything works and all; sometimes we just get a strange noise or something. It has 125,000 miles (201,000 km) of which about a third was traveled towing our trailer. I can't complain that it hasn't earned it's keep but it's time to start thinking replacement.

We did have a couple of things we needed to return to stores over there but we still made it to the Ford dealer by probably 13:00. This really fat kid salesman took us around showing us all the stuff. They had one 2008 pickup that was kind of interesting and a fair number of 09's; nothing that fit our exact desires but were close. We would like a long bed pickup this time around both for the longer wheelbase and for the additional room but it's hard to find. The buyers for the dealerships figure no one really carries much in their trucks so they only order the short beds. The difference is only something like 18 inches (45 cm) but I think it would make quite a difference. The 08 has a diesel engine which is a $7200 option that we don't care about but if their incentive is good enough we might go for it anyway. Since we keep our vehicles for so long I don't care about the thing being two years old. The 09 has a gas V-10 engine that I've heard is a gas hog. We left about 15:45 hoping we were ahead of the traffic and we mostly made it.

Anyway, the guy is supposed to email us some numbers on both the 08 and an 09 that they have. I find car buying exhausting work so I'm on my second scotch already. The salesman was standing around joking with other employees when we left so maybe he's not the guy we want to buy from. We'll see.

My wife took advantage of the time driving over there to call a friend who is dying of cancer. Not her sister who has just been diagnosed but a guy who had a really fast growing cancer and who has been undergoing chemotherapy. Apparently it didn't do a lot so yesterday we got an email from his wife saying "pray for a rapid end to his suffering". Jeez! Apparently he has good days and bad days so whether we should make a trip over to see him (Southern California) or not is kind of up in the air. She is supposed to give us a call and tell us what he would like. NOT a fun idea but sometimes that's life.

Dull, depressing post today. Sorry about that but I'm tired. Take care, it's dangerous out there!