Lemons Into Lemonade

Sometimes life hands you lemons and you take them and make something even better, lemonade!

We applied this lesson when Michael called me up two Sunday’s ago (I was at home with the kids recovering from pink eye in both eyes) to tell me he was ok but had just been rear-ended very badly.

He drives our RV tow vehicle as his daily driver. Thankfully no one was hurt badly and while on the outside his vehicle didn’t look too bad off, a quick look underneath told a whole different story. The frame was bent along with the bumper being badly damaged. Also for whatever reason, when the impact occurred the whole dash came loose in the cab. The vehicle has seen better days as far as the interior is concerned anyways but the engine was in great shape and it had low miles considering the age of the truck. It pulled our 10,000 pound fifth wheel camper like it was nothing.

So after some time spent waiting on accident reports/insurance we knew it would be totaled out. So we started shopping. At the time of the accident we were just 3 weeks out from our biggest camping trip of the year. So we were a tiny bit stressed to find a replacement (that was diesel with low miles) tow vehicle and get a hitch installed should it need one. Time was of the essence!

After initial searches didn’t turn up much in the way of quality used vehicles with fairly low mileage, we were thinking we would have to trek across the country possibly to Arkansas or Texas to find what we wanted. We don’t buy new vehicles so that wasn’t even an option. We don’t like taking that hit in depreciation when you drive it off the dealer lot. Michael originally was set on replacing it with another Dodge with the Cummins engine but quickly found out that the inventory in our area was slim on those and the crew cab just wasn’t very big. So then we opened our options to include the Ford-250s with crew cabs because we had seen how much bigger they were in the backseat. We were determined to move from extended cab to crew cab for our 2 youngins to be more comfortable on longer trips.

Finally in a stroke of luck as we headed out of town to look at one we found in Nashville, we passed a small, local dealership and there it sat! Exactly what we had been looking for but no price tag on it and no one working (it was the Friday before Memorial Day weekend). It was so clean just by looking at the outside and peaking at the inside that we just knew it had to be. So we waited somewhat patiently until the place opened on Tuesday morning and Michael drove it and the deal was done.

Now we are the proud owners of a 2000 Ford F-250 crew cab, 4×4 and we couldn’t be happier. We are 1 week out from leaving on our trip to Mammoth Cave, KY to the Jellystone campground and we will be riding in comfort and style!

So even though it took a wreck to get us into this new ride we are just grateful that everyone was ok and we can still go on vacation as planned. We are so ready!