Goodbye to the BAT

It has come time to thank the Big Ass Truck for it’s 10 years of service to us and the BAB and say goodbye. In the last couple of years, the rust spots were growing and body parts were starting to rattle and, in one case, fall off. The AC stopped working, which made it uncomfortable to drive in the heat of the summer. The ‘God Bless John Wayne’ bumper sticker is barely still attached. It was appraised at $500, so not a good idea to invest in any more repairs.

And there was the incident at the Library. I went to return my books to the garage book drop and had a run in with a concrete column. And, I decided that my car could no longer be the dog charriot. Maisy gets very excited to be in the car and drools all over it.

Tom has been browsing on-line for a while to see what is available and took Friday off to car shop, driving the AC-less BAT from Wentzville, to Fenton, to Cahokia and ending in Springfield, Illinois. The BAT has an extended cab with a full size (8′) bed. There aren’t many similar replacements available, but we decided to stick with the extended cab for the dogs and compromise with a slightly shorter bed. The final stop at a used car lot in Springfield proved successful.

Here’s the new (to us) Big Ass Truck.

It is another Ford F-150, a 2006 instead of our 1995 version. It is in terrific shape, with surprisingly low mileage, about 116,000 miles, compared to 231,000 miles on the old one, which already had 225,000 miles when we bought it. We only used it occasionally, but a useful truck for our projects, and a handy back-up vehicle.

Besides being 11 years newer, it is much nicer, and a safer vehicle. The girls even get their own back doors.

Christening the truck with a trip to the dog park!

Maisy is getting quite good at climbing trees- Lucy would be proud!