Wheels (the hunt for a new truck)

In general one of the many blessings that I count is the fact that my family (and fiance) are able to not only live in the same city without killing each other, but three of the four family members (plus the fiance) manage to drive to the same office 5 days a week, conduct ourselves (mostly) in a professional manner and still be able to sit back, relax and crack a beer at the end of the week (ok, the boy and the dad prefer margs, but whatever).

One of the other blessings that that by some grace of god, both my dad and The Boy think that horses (and specifically Pia) are totally reasonable things to spend money on.  Growing up I never had the fanciest, or the newest anything (uhhh 1970 King rust box horse trailer, and a $129 cardboard "leather" first saddle).  BUT, at least dad saw value in the lessons I was learning and seemed to be able to justify the routine shots, riding lessons and entry fees.  Anything beyond the basics was my responsibility, but he never hung me out to dry.

Thankfully, The Boy seems to have a similar attitude (though he's a bit more lenient on the fancy part..both my trailer and current saddle are a far cry from the starter version).  I appreciate the fact that P's cost of living will be coming out of our "communal" checking account (as opposed to my "fun money") which is something I thank him profusely for.

Of course both of them are constantly worried about my safety... Which is usually a charming thing...

Sometimes it's an irritating thing (air vest anyone?)..

But right now its a GLORIOUS thing.

Why? because I'm pretty sure it means that we get a brand new, fancy pants, totally lovely TRUCK.

In keeping in true fatherly fashion, the only "downside" to my betrothment is that The Boy comes with a car that dad considers to be a total death trap.  In reality, it's not.  It has a nice safety rating, but it's near impossible for him to consider the thing anything but a glorified golf cart, which I suppose I can't blame him for.

The current wheels mid road trip up the coast in '09

Dad's main complaint is that he's pretty sure we should have to wear helmets, which he promptly purchased for us, though so far we've avoided actually wearing...

Given the fact that The Boy runs one of our service departments from 8-5, he drives a significantly different vehicle - namely a pretty fantastic Dodge 5500.

The 5500 was bought to tow things significantly more substantial than my little aluminum bumper pull, but it does the job just fine.  The only downside is that the chassis cab on the truck is outfitted with a HUGE 12 ft bed, boxes and a crane (??).  All helpful on job sites I suppose, but a little unwieldy for everyday driving and unnecessarily long when trying to parallel park the rig (or even pull into a parking spot in order to stop for lunch).

Dad (the clever man he is), realized that the quickest way to extract The Boy from his dinky little personal vehicle was to
a) offer him a company truck and
b) make sure that the company truck was one I'd be drooling over and could replace the 5500 as my weekend hauling vehicle.

The brilliance of this plan is undeniable.  Since the mention of the option, I've managed to get the funds approved, adjust P&L's, figure out what size truck (3500) makes sense for being small enough to daily use but large enough to still be useful at work.. and BLAMO.   New Wheels.

It's not here quite yet and there's a chance that we might flip to a F-350.  But I'm happy either way.  Crew cab, 8ft box, and a tow capacity that would allow me to adopt a string of matched Andalusian stallions and caravan them around the country if we so desire...

Oh, and the sun's out.  So that makes for a pretty decent Friday.

Any die hard Dodge or Ford fans out there?  I've always had Dodge trucks, but I'm not opposed to the F-350... pros cons?