Out With the Old...

Another before and after to keep up the posting...

For roughly the past decade this has been my daily ride:

You can see its story here, but will have to live without pictures due to some hosting issues that are a project for another day.  The Dodge didn't even have 50,000 miles on it, but it was beginning to show its age in any case.  A little rust here, a ding here, and the last inspection came with a fairly steep repair bill.  It was time.  It definitely was a good truck for me and I would recommend the Dodge Dakota to anyone shopping for a pickup.

Mrs. TANBI was kinda over the idea of a truck and many people pointed out to me that I rarely if ever used the truck as a truck - although it should be noted that not 4 days after trading it in a friend at work asked if they could borrow me and my truck for some moving.  Probably the final straw in the pickup thing was that there really wasn't a great place to put a stroller - I mean, plenty of room in the bed and all, but that seemed wrong.

We've liked the Nissan we got for Mrs. TANBI and we liked the dealer and the dealership so that seemed like a reasonable enough place to start.  So: truckish SUV & Nissan - that's an xterra.

We drove a few versions and settled on a pre-owned 2009.  Even though it isn't brand spankin new its had the dealer rehab, is newer and lower miles than the Dakota, and has many of the "grown up" car options that my old truck lacked.  A little bit I wanted an xterra before I bought the Dodge so this works out well.  The only thing I need to know now is if I can reasonably strap a sheet of plywood to that roof rack.