Leaving Denver Wednesday morning we almost headed North to Wyoming.
In Wyoming was a GMC 1 ton cab and chassis without title but running and driving. The truck was cheap, perhaps too cheap, looked OK in the pictures, and may or may not have been rusty as I couldn't get a lot of detail over the phone. Upon further thought we decided not to go look, it was somewhat inconvenient to get to and I was sure it'd be more project that I really wanted. The cheap price probably couldn't offset the amount of work it would surly need to equal the completeness and quality of the truck I was really searching for.
Instead of going North we turned West on I-70 as Adam hadn't yet seen the big mountains out there and it'd make for a nice drive, we even found some snow. In Rifle Colorado we got off the highway and headed more or less straight for Salt Lake city on some nice smaller roads. For this stretch of the trip from Denver to ID, about 1,200 miles, without a load we had removed the two front tires on the trailer and chained the axle up. This helped the trailer ride better, less wear on tires, and got the fuel mileage up to just over 15 MPG.
Thursday morning we found ourselves in Horseshoe Bend north of Boise, ID at an excellent breakfast spot called the Long Branch Saloon. I'd never been to a saloon for breakfast... before the sun even came up they were open and we were hungry, right place right time.
Driving North through Idaho provides great scenery and in an hour or two it's completely different, and different yet an hour or so after that; all great and interesting. I'd like to make that drive again some day; in my estimation it was the most enjoyable stretch of our entire trip.
Around lunch time we stopped to look at one of the more promising trucks I had found. It was not cheap, apparently had some wiggle room on the price, looked clean and straight in the pictures, and the seller was a good and pleasant guy. An original Chevy 9' pickup with a 12-15 year old restoration, current owner hadn't had it long and needed to sell it.
Here are some pictures of it:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/B9RQK2IjcpjoLRJHR0UKe9MTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlinkhttps://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/AZdT_1b4DnxoszmDPytYVdMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlinkhttps://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/bWI3PJEwnav3BEh3x4c6gNMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlinkhttps://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/1hh-W3hlS-nivpaU9lmHVdMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlinkhttps://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/q9wYGhog5QvX_2d2sDozodMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlinkIt was very apparent before even looking close that this truck was not the one. It was much easier to find problems and troubles with, caused by, or overlooked in the "restoration" than it was to find anything exceptionally nice about it. May have been a nice looking useful truck back a few years ago but was quickly becoming a candidate for a full and proper restoration to prevent further deterioration. More project than I needed even before talking about the price; skipped that discussion altogether and bid our farewells.
Next post about the next truck,
Grigg
