So when I moved out here, my friend Courtney from Boston told me I could use her Subaru Legacy wagon becase she kept it in Albuquerque and wouldn't need it. Earlier this year, she told me she wanted to sell it so if I wasn't going to buy it, she was going to have to take it and sell it. So I went ahead and bought it because she gave me a good deal on it. It's sort of a junker and I hate it, but it runs and was cheap. I'm actually only about 50% done with the payment process.

Now, yesterday, out of the blue, a friend who works at the bank drops the following on me:

Some guy who lives up in the Jemez Mountains killed himself and left the bank as the executor of his will. They're selling off all his stuff, including his vehicles. One of them is a 1994 Ford Ranger pickup with a camper shell. It's not a Tacoma, which is what I really want, but it is a 4WD pickup with a camper shell that I could actually bring down to the Guadalupe Mountains and take caving. They're asking for a relatively cheap price for it. I'm going to go look at it.

Of course, I don't have money to buy another car, but my dad is being awesome and told me he'd lend me the money for the truck on the condition that I immediately sell the Subaru to pay him back. I'll see if it's worth it this afternoon when I go check it out.

UPDATE: So I went into town for lunch with Mark, and we took the truck out for a test drive and kicked the tires. For having 107k miles, it feels really nice. The suspension feels brand new, the belts and hoses look new. Everything about the feel of the car is total quality, even though the 3.0l V6 is a pretty anemic engine so it accelerates like a bus and rev's really high. The clutch is also a bit soft, but nothing seems to be in bad shape. I'm going to have a mechanic look at it on Monday and make sure it's not about to secretly fall apart on me. We went out on a dirt road and tested out the 4WD. It crawls pretty well.

I actually fit in the back, so it'll work great as a camper. The weirdest part about the truck is that a bunch of the suicidal guy's stuff is still in it. Like his sleeping bag, blanket, some of his clothes, books, tapes, etc. I think it gives it some character. The truck comes with its own ghost story!