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First of all, I just want to thank everyone for their kind words on my last post. You're all pretty fabulous people.
So anyway, my crazy brother-in-law has this hobby which involves buying old surplus duce and a half army trucks from the government and fixing them up. He's recently discovered that other people are interested in buying them as well, and so he's set up a business where he buys the trucks from the government, fixes them up a bit and resells them to interested buyers. Last Friday, he needed people to help him drive these trucks about a hundred and fifty miles to the place where he's storing them. And since I couldn't pass up the opportunity to drive an Army truck (because seriously, when do civilians ever get a chance to do this?) I volunteered to drive.
So this is generally what they look like. They're really goddamn big.
I have to admit that I almost chickened out. I've never driven anything that large before. But eventually I realized that I was just as qualified, if not more so than a lot of other people he's roped into driving. For one thing, my first three cars were stick shifts so it was pretty easy to get back into driving a manual transmission even though I hadn't done it for years. Second, my dad was a used car dealer and mechanic - so I actually have a ton of experience driving completely unsafe and fucked up vehicles back from salvage auctions. Compared to cars with no brakes, no headlights, doors that won't open because they're all crunched up from a wreck or cars that you can't slow down in because the engine will overheat, driving these trucks wasn't actually that bad.
My biggest concern was whether or not my bad ass five foot two self would be able to reach the peddles. This turned out to be a non issue, as these trucks are apparently designed for shorties like me.
I actually wonder how the hell our troops drive these things. My husband and brother-in-law both clear six feet. They told me they had to hunch over and crunch their legs up for the five hour drive back.
Then again, it's not like driving them is a comfortable experience anyway. They're so loud that you have to wear ear protection, they lurch and bounce you around, the shift pattern is backwards, sloppy and completely moronic, and they go so slow that you're in fifth gear at a whopping 25 mph. Their top speed is about 50 mph. When you compound all of that with the fact that you're driving something on the highway that could easily crush another car - it all adds up to one entertaining, but seriously stressful experience.
This one was my favorite out of the five that we drove back:
Tom in front of his smiley faced truck.
My dad, who we talked into coming with us.
Me, waiting for my truck to be fueled up. As you can see, I'm wearing a sweater. It's been so goddamn crazy cold here lately. I mean, I know we live decently far north, but damn, it's freaking JULY.
Someone had fun with the cammo paint:
This was on the back of one of the trucks. Kind of makes you wonder what they carried in there, no?
A shot from driving down Interstate 75.
The brother-in-law, the brother-in-law's random friend, and the father, all working on my army truck (which I like to call Eagle Killer) at a rest stop.
So the craziest thing that happened that day was that about halfway through the drive we saw this bald eagle come down and land near the side of the road to scrounge on a carcass. Apparently it got spooked because it started to take off, freaked out and flew into the side of my brother-in-law's army truck. My husband in the next truck managed to swerve around it as it lay dazed in the road, but I didn't have enough time to check and make sure there wasn't another car in the next lane, so I ran over it. ><
Yes folks, I am an eagle killer.
On the one hand, I was horrified. I've never run over an animal with my car before. I've never seen a bald eagle in the wild before either, and the first time I do, I hit it with an army truck. On the other hand, it was darkly funny. I mean, at least it died in style.
And actually, it's probably good that it happened to us. Bald eagles are surprisingly large animals. If it had hit the side of a small car going 70 miles an hour, it might have gone through a window or windshield and killed someone or totaled a car out instead of bouncing off the side of an army truck.
All of the eagle killing machienes lined up at a rest stop.
Most of my brother-in-law's army trucks. There are five more that were still up north at the time of this photo.
At any rate, it was an adventure to say the least. I'm not sure if I'll ever want to do it again, but it was worth doing once.
Anyone in the great lakes region want to buy an army truck? :P
So anyway, my crazy brother-in-law has this hobby which involves buying old surplus duce and a half army trucks from the government and fixing them up. He's recently discovered that other people are interested in buying them as well, and so he's set up a business where he buys the trucks from the government, fixes them up a bit and resells them to interested buyers. Last Friday, he needed people to help him drive these trucks about a hundred and fifty miles to the place where he's storing them. And since I couldn't pass up the opportunity to drive an Army truck (because seriously, when do civilians ever get a chance to do this?) I volunteered to drive.
So this is generally what they look like. They're really goddamn big.
I have to admit that I almost chickened out. I've never driven anything that large before. But eventually I realized that I was just as qualified, if not more so than a lot of other people he's roped into driving. For one thing, my first three cars were stick shifts so it was pretty easy to get back into driving a manual transmission even though I hadn't done it for years. Second, my dad was a used car dealer and mechanic - so I actually have a ton of experience driving completely unsafe and fucked up vehicles back from salvage auctions. Compared to cars with no brakes, no headlights, doors that won't open because they're all crunched up from a wreck or cars that you can't slow down in because the engine will overheat, driving these trucks wasn't actually that bad.
My biggest concern was whether or not my bad ass five foot two self would be able to reach the peddles. This turned out to be a non issue, as these trucks are apparently designed for shorties like me.
I actually wonder how the hell our troops drive these things. My husband and brother-in-law both clear six feet. They told me they had to hunch over and crunch their legs up for the five hour drive back.
Then again, it's not like driving them is a comfortable experience anyway. They're so loud that you have to wear ear protection, they lurch and bounce you around, the shift pattern is backwards, sloppy and completely moronic, and they go so slow that you're in fifth gear at a whopping 25 mph. Their top speed is about 50 mph. When you compound all of that with the fact that you're driving something on the highway that could easily crush another car - it all adds up to one entertaining, but seriously stressful experience.
This one was my favorite out of the five that we drove back:
Tom in front of his smiley faced truck.
My dad, who we talked into coming with us.
Me, waiting for my truck to be fueled up. As you can see, I'm wearing a sweater. It's been so goddamn crazy cold here lately. I mean, I know we live decently far north, but damn, it's freaking JULY.
Someone had fun with the cammo paint:
This was on the back of one of the trucks. Kind of makes you wonder what they carried in there, no?
A shot from driving down Interstate 75.
The brother-in-law, the brother-in-law's random friend, and the father, all working on my army truck (which I like to call Eagle Killer) at a rest stop.
So the craziest thing that happened that day was that about halfway through the drive we saw this bald eagle come down and land near the side of the road to scrounge on a carcass. Apparently it got spooked because it started to take off, freaked out and flew into the side of my brother-in-law's army truck. My husband in the next truck managed to swerve around it as it lay dazed in the road, but I didn't have enough time to check and make sure there wasn't another car in the next lane, so I ran over it. ><
Yes folks, I am an eagle killer.
On the one hand, I was horrified. I've never run over an animal with my car before. I've never seen a bald eagle in the wild before either, and the first time I do, I hit it with an army truck. On the other hand, it was darkly funny. I mean, at least it died in style.
And actually, it's probably good that it happened to us. Bald eagles are surprisingly large animals. If it had hit the side of a small car going 70 miles an hour, it might have gone through a window or windshield and killed someone or totaled a car out instead of bouncing off the side of an army truck.
All of the eagle killing machienes lined up at a rest stop.
Most of my brother-in-law's army trucks. There are five more that were still up north at the time of this photo.
At any rate, it was an adventure to say the least. I'm not sure if I'll ever want to do it again, but it was worth doing once.
Anyone in the great lakes region want to buy an army truck? :P
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