Travel

Eventually, we’re going to get the blown-in liner recommended by friends and the dealer, but, in the interim, we needed something to line the bed for our upcoming trip to K-stan. I bought this relatively inexpensive custom liner through Amazon; they have a feature that evaluates whether products they sell will fit my particular vehicle. Thus far, everything we bought using Amazon’s fit utility fits as advertized.

The reason we haven’t put in the blown-in liner is one of logistics. The folks that do that are down in the west valley and the job takes 2 to 2½ hours. We can’t just drop off the truck and do something else unless we BOTH drive the 43 mile round trip. We’re trying to be creative and figure a way to do it without sitting around for the duration of the installation.

In the meantime, the bed liner will spare the wear and tear to the bed of the truck when we load up the stuff to make the trip. Click on the image to enlarge.

When I traded the old truck in for the new one, I removed my personalized license plates and set them aside until the MVD sent me the new tag to affix to the rear plate. Well, when I checked the PO Box today, the registration and tag were in the mail.

When I got home, I removed the temporary tags and installed my personalized plate with a new chrome frame. No front plate this time, since it would block the intake of the new truck. Arizona is one of those states where a front license plate is optional. Click on the image to enlarge.

I did a little internet shopping for a couple of things we needed to add to the truck. First, we discovered that a dashboard cover is almost essential here in the desert. Even though the cars are garaged, the short time they are in a parking lot when shopping during the summer, the dash (and seats, etc.) gets mighty hot. You can see the dash cover in the top panel of the image above.

Next, we saw a TV commercial about WeatherTech floor covers. I ordered those this week and installed them today. The covers go a bit beyond the aftermarket floor mats in the auto supply stores in that they are custom fitted for the exact vehicle and cover not only the carpet, but the trim areas all around. You can see the driver side cover in the lower left panel and the crew cab cover on the right (the seats are in the up position).

The salesman who sold the truck to us recommended a couple of places down in the northwest Phoenix Metro area that can install the bed liner and tonneau cover. We will probably get those things done soon.

Click on the image to enlarge.

We received a couple of items I ordered on line for the truck. A cover for the hitch receptacle and extension mirrors for towing the trailer are here. I installed the hitch cover and a hitch lock yesterday. I tried out the extension mirrors today. The mirrors were quite a bit easier to install and remove as compared to the mirror set we had for the GMC.

We still have to order a bed liner and a tonneau cover for the truck. We transported stuff to California and back using just a tarp and bungees to hold stuff in the bed. The tonneau will cover the stuff but we still have ratchet straps and bungees to hold cargo in place.

We didn’t plan to drive a new truck home today, but that’s what happened. We had been toying with the prospect of upgrading to a new vehicle for a while now and contacted a friend who is a salesman at the local dealer. We gave him some specifications about what we wanted and he came up with a list of possible matches a few days later. At first, we had trouble getting on the same wavelength with our “druthers,” but we met with him today at the dealership and found a truck that we could flex our initial wishlist to come to an agreement. Both Damsel and I test drove the truck and we liked it a lot.

Our buddy made us a really good offer for a trade in of our SUV, so we decided to go forward with the deal. We still have the SUV for tonight, but tomorrow morning we will be cleaning it out and taking it to the dealer.

A couple of years ago, this dealer posted a billboard that convinced us that we would come here for a new truck deal. It was the famous (to us) “Thanks, Ford, for NOT taking the bail out from the government.” Click on the image to enlarge.