In Search of Pickup Life

Lately I have been pondering the potential life span of a blog written entirely about pickup trucks. In fact, you, the reader, may have wondered if indeed our documentation of this great Pickup Nation was complete. I am pleased to tell you (after quite a while of telling you nothing) that as long as people drive pickup trucks, we will write about them. "We" is currently me, as Jake's in Canada hunting polar bears or something.

Regardless, I came to this conclusion while taking a short road trip from Atlanta to Nashville (not as short as you might think). This region is known not just for country music and whiskey but for its pickup trucks.  All my doubts about the nation were erased when I rolled into Nashville:

As bad as the picture is, you can clearly see a Ford jacked to the sky with huge exhaust pipes exhaling into the heavens above. As long as this truck is on the road, Pickup Nation will remain free. This picture will forever remind me of the day when I rediscovered our great nation.

On the whole, my trip opened my eyes to the pickups that are all around me, like this fuchsia colored S-10:

...and this beautiful step-side Chevy with a fade paint job:

This Ranger wasn't built for show:

...and neither was its big brother:

Perhaps my favorite truck, though, was this old flatbed with a style all its own:

What keeps all these pickup drivers going? I don't know, but I can tell you what doesn't: ethanol! In the deepest reaches of Pickup Nation, ethanol belongs only in a mason jar and is consumed only by the men. Companies that try to sneak it into gasoline (thereby hurting fuel economy AND wasting good moonshine) are NOT welcome in these parts. In the words of a country song, "we don't buy that here:"

My favorite gas station sign from the trip has nothing to do with pickup trucks, but a PSA from Mr. Toilet Paper is almost as important:

...and yes, the restroom was clean. Damn clean.