I was really enjoying my new/old toy. My brother-in-law, Kenny, from Prince George, was a logging truck owner operator who was just as into trucks as I was and we got along great. And the fact that we both like beer a lot too was a bonus. We would drive my sister crazy by taking off and pub hopping, always a step or two ahead of her and only staying for one beer and leaving before she could catch us. Sometimes we would be heading out the back door of a bar as she was coming through the front.
I’d built a shop for my dad and I at the new property he and my mom bought in Langley, and Kenny and I would tinker and work on our trucks there. One time we decided that the Jakes on the old Cummins needed to be tuned up, so, beer in hand, we got the tools out and got to work. Feeler gauges, allen keys, and more beer, and we made that old truck bark. Man, we had fun.
A funny thing about having an old truck, suddenly I started to find cool old iron all over the place. So, I started to collect them. The nice thing about my parents new spread was that there was room to park all of my new treasures. And a few other truck nuts paid my parents to store some of their trucks too, so they didn’t mind.
I went to a lot of shows with my old ride, truck shows, car shows, farm shows. And I bought a travel trailer to tow behind it so I’d have a nice place to sleep after a night of partying. Only one problem, it would get beat to death being towed behind my truck, and it would look like a hurricane went through it whenever I got to where I was going.
I was at a farmers show in Lynden Washington one weekend, and parked next to me were two old trucks from Yakima. An old Kenworth Bullnose cabover, and a Mack LTL conventional, both immaculately restored. But there was something even better about them. These guys had taken old travel trailers and mounted them to the back of their trucks, with cutouts between the cabs and the RV’s. They were the coolest setups I’d ever seen, and I knew that was what I was going to do too. Someday.
