"Oh man, that sure is a pretty Jeep!" I thought this nearly every time I would walk out to my car. I have never named a car or felt any feeling towards an automobile whatsoever... That is, until the Wags.
The day after we closed on the house and bought our Airstream we sold the Wags. Yes, I totally cried as the new owner drove off with my beloved Jeep. I feel good about the man that bought her, though. He must be pretty dedicated to the Wagoneer life since he came all the way from Kentucky! That same afternoon, right after selling the Jeep, we began truck shopping. Over the next 5 days we drove all over the state of Florida looking for a truck to pull our new house. The task of finding a truck worked well to keep my mind off selling the Wags, but my old Jeep will always be in my heart.
If you remember from my "Riding in cars with boys" post, we started out with 5k. I bought the Wags for $2400 and we went through the remainder of that $5000, and then some, pretty quickly. Our good friend Mark installed a new AC compressor first thing. Then Eric did some bodywork, had it painted, replaced the wood vinyl paneling, installed new carpet, replaced anything rubber and fixed a bunch of other do-dads that inevitably go bad on a 27 year old truck.
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| The tear down is never pretty |
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| It definitely got worse before it got better |
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| The fact that we had never done any kind of auto body work didn't scare us... we jumped right in |
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| Ooooo shiny! |
Eric would save little jobs for me, but for the most part this was Eric’s project. A project he didn't actually sign up for but he did anyway… out of love. (Did I just make you throw up a little? Sorry about that)
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| Just a couple of hipsters... |
About three weeks after we got the Jeep looking brand new, the trans blew up so Eric rebuilt that too.
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| I love him. |
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| It's like eating an elephant... one bite at a time. |
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| I learned a lot about cars while dropping the trans in that old Jeep |
I cannot explain how much I loved this truck. From day one I loved that it smelled old. I loved how ruggedly preppy she was. I loved the sound it made because of that minor exhaust leak. I loved that you didn't actually need the key to get it started. I was the only one who knew how to get her going anyway (pump the gas twice, three times was too much and you'd flood it... its a carburetor thing, you wouldn't understand). It wasn't just me that delighted in that old Wagoneer, it seemed like everyone we passed would smile and wave. I think the best thing about that Jeep was that it served as a constant reminder of how awesome my husband is.
When we decided to pick up and completely change our lives I knew there would be difficulties. I knew being homeless during the transition would be hard. I knew getting the Airstream ready for the road would hard. I thought getting rid of our “stuff” would be hardest part. So far I have had zero regrets during the purge phase of our preparations. It's actually really liberating! (Full disclosure my parents let us store the few items we couldn't keep, but couldn't part with at their warehouse). The Wagoneer is one of the only things I am sad about selling. I was oddly attached to that car. Eric gave this car to me because he loves me. He worked so hard to make this crazy dream of mine come true. As sad as it was to say goodbye to our beautiful Jeep, I can't help but think of that old Semisonic lyric... "Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end" Thats where we are now, ending one adventure so we can begin the next one.
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