Labor Day off

When Casey said he had Labor Day off, we decided that we should do something fun! What we did was wake up at 5 a.m. drive all the way to the top of four peaks and see if we could beat the sunrise. Well, We woke up at 5, drove up about half way and decided to turn around. It was windy, bumpy and "too" much fun (honestly I feared for my life). His truck, however could hande it. There came a resting point where a large section of flat rock called Casey's name where he wanted to park his truck and take pictures of it. The whole time in our head, we kept saying, good thing we have this truck or else we wouldn't have been able to come up here. He would re-park the truck and try to get a good angle for a picture so he could send it to his brother in Idaho as jealousy trip. see here:

On Our way home from Four Peaks, we stopped off at the Denny's off of Scottsdale Rd. and Mckellips. And let me tell you this, we will never stop there again. Nuff said.
Moving on, just before hitting our exit to go home, we pass the Nissan Dealarship for the eleven-de-billionth time and decided, since today was his day off, and since he got an e-mail suggesting we come to Nissan and test drive some vehicles, we should go! (Mind you Casey loves loves loves cars, trucks and anything that can drive fast and that looks nice). So we went.
At first, Casey was a little interested to see what they would offer in return for his truck since it was in high demand. Our salesman (picture a large man wearing cowboy boots and hat, from Texas and probably talked more about his wife than the truck) suggested we look at and/or test drive this particular vehicle. That was a bad idea and let me tell you. Just before this adventure, We were paying about $280.00 a month on gas for Casey's truck, not to mention his monthly payment on top of that. I can't tell you how many times Casey's has mentioned how much he wants to save on gas and how his truck is sucking the life out of him and all other sorts of problems it has due to the 98,000 miles its got.
So we test drove, fell in love and found out with payments and gas, this vehicle would currently, and in the future end up saving us more money than if we would keep the truck. You see, in just a few thousand miles on Casey's truck, it would have no trade in value, and something horribly wrong would happen to the engine or something.
Pitch after pitch, this poor texan man tried to sell us on this new vehicle. Casey refused the offers and we hopped back in his truck and drove the 2 minutes back home. Did we get out of the truck once we got home? no... instead, I saw the wheels turning in Casey's head, he looked at me and I saw a sadness in a man that I have never before seen. We discused that we both felt we should go back. And when we went back, we drove home in this:

(Disclamer: This picture was taken from a camera, but the color is a pearly white)

It is a brand sapanking new 2010 Nissan Altima. Although the monthly payments went up "slightly" (caugh ,caugh) with gas and everything it still ends up to be cheaper.
Now I know most of you think that I talked him into trading his truck in for a brand new car that I can drive, but the reality is, I didn't, in fact I was shocked how mutual and sometimes how more interested Casey was at times.
In the end, it was extremely sad to see the truck go. I loved the truck and will miss it, but no one will miss it more than its rightful owner, Casey FLoyd McDowell. Ironically, we got one good last ride at four peaks, and snapped some sweet pictures!