I’ve joked that ever since I bought my Ford F600, I’d daily drive it in a heartbeat. Back then, it was just a novel idea—taking a 55-year-old dump truck to town for milk and bread sounds like a blast, at least in my mind. I actually didn’t set out to do it. About three weeks ago, though, that joke became a reality. And I’ve found it’s about as inconvenient as you’d expect.
See, I had been trying to sell my 2015 F-250 daily driver for the better part of a year. I had an instant case of buyer’s remorse seeing as I decided on a three-quarter-ton diesel truck for my commuter. A handful of people showed interest in it, but most were tire-kickers and lowballers—until one of them wasn’t. I’d all but given up on selling it, and then a family friend gave me a ring saying he was two miles from my house. He looked it over, drove it, and we shook hands after 20 minutes. The next day, it was gone.
I didn’t have anything to replace it, so the dump truck was tapped for daily duty.
For the first week, everything was hunky-dory. I hardly drive anywhere this time of year aside from our family’s campground, which is a little less than nine miles from my humble abode. It’s as simple as jumping in, making a five-point turn to face the highway, and hitting the asphalt. As a bonus, I can jam out to four or five tunes from The Drive‘s Official Trucker Song Playlist™ on the way.
The problems started during week two when I made my second-ever trip to the rock quarry for a load of gravel. I was surprised to find I was the only truck there, so I got loaded up and took a few photos (away from the hustling and bustling machinery, of course). There it was, sitting pretty with a hefty load, in its element.