Ugly Caps

Now that Jake is done ranting, I will try to outdo him with my own rant. I'll also try to outdo his show truck with this one:

Now that's a show truck. The funny thing is, when you do this to an older truck, it's acceptable. Maybe it's because there's about $70k in Sassy Chassis and this guy might bring $10k.  Maybe it's because this truck has been around long enough to prove its worth...

Ugly Caps

On the same day that Jake found Sassy Chassis parked at the far end of a parking lot like anything that someone has wasted that much money on, I was in our nation's capital (not the Capitol, mind you) because that's where all good patriotic young men go to remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on his weekend. As always, I kept my eye open for trucks, and I found something unusual parked on the Mall:

I just put this first picture in here because I find it amusing that the Smart car, which is about a third of the length of the Ram pictured, squeezed in to that spot. I am fully confident that this "smart" driver was the last to park because a) he wanted to show off and b) even a Ram driver is not a big enough asshole to park that close to the car in front of him while leaving that much room behind him.

Now, this is unusual because, from this view, it looks like there's a smaller blue truck with a cap parked on the other side of the Ram. As  it turns out, that cap is on the Ram! The truck is not from Maryland (obviously), but it looks like he might have been going for the Maryland Truck look. Several problems with this:

1. The cap is one size too small and the wrong color (thus creating the optical illusion).
2. The truck is white (looks too much like a fleet vehicle unless you "Sassy" it up)
3. The truck is "only" a crew cab (not Dodge's "Mega Cab")
4. The truck has stock wheels (enough said).
5. The truck has all terrain tires and it's dirty (Maryland Truck owners scoff)
(6. I've never seen a Dodge Maryland Truck)

On second thought, this guy really wasn't going for the Maryland Truck at all. In fact, and I think Jake would agree, this would be a decent looking work truck if it didn't have that ugly cap. For the sake of improving the looks of America's trucks, let's cover some ugly caps.

Sometimes the cap itself is ugly:

Sometimes the truck and cap are both ugly:

Sometimes the cap is the wrong size, as we saw with the Dodge, and sometimes the cap's color does not look good on the truck (as we saw with the Dodge). This doesn't mean that the cap and truck always need to be the same color, but it usually looks best if the cap is not oddly-shaped, fits properly, and is the same color as the truck (one thing Maryland Trucks get right). Here's a rare example of a truck and cap that are different colors but aren't painful to look at:

We're not really sure what the square hole in the side is, but this guy gets credit for his patriotic POW/MIA sticker and side pipes. Nicely done.

"Show Trucks"

Allow me to take a break from stereotyping truck owners and digress on a bit of a rant:

More frustrating than the S.U.T, a lifted Tundra, or a four door F-250 with a cap is a show truck. Now before I begin bashing the show truck, I must say that I realize that not all truck owners truly need a truck. Most of us could do without them. I mean, I love my truck, but if I had to be practical, I could probably do just fine with a Volvo station wagon (shudders). Look at western Europe. You’d be hard-pressed to find even a compact pickup truck driving around Paris, or London, or Brussels (if you're into that sort of thing). The full-size pickup is pretty much relegated to farms over there (workers in the city drive vans). Part of this is because of higher fuel costs, but part of it is just culture. I think that even when gas does get up to $5 a gallon, you’ll still see plenty of full-size trucks driving around the states. Anyways, the point that I’m trying to make is that to varying degrees, most of us do not need trucks.

Our culture has accepted the pickup as a form of transportation. The common compact or full-size pickup is not considered a specialized piece of heavy equipment. But despite this, some trucks still do not fall into this category. A truck with duallies, a flatbed, a big truck for muddin’—all of these trucks have a specific primary purpose that does not include transporting people. When a person owns one of these specialized trucks and does not use it for its purpose, it becomes a fashion statement—no different than a torn pair of $300 jeans or a $700 pair of cowboy boots. And while you’re not likely to see a flatbed being driven around Baltimore as a fashion statement, it’s not rare to see a truck with duallies or a sparkling clean chromed out truck with a 18 inch lift driving around Tuscon. These trucks are “show trucks.”

This is the truck that inspired this rant:

(Editor's Note: The windshield says "Sassy Chassis")

While that is some sweet barbed wire, this truck is hideous. While I can't claim to know for sure what this truck is or is not used for, it seems pretty evident that this guy is not pulling a 10,000 lb horse trailer on his fifth wheel. This guy wants to look tough. He accessorized this thing like no truck I've seen before. If there was a place to attach white shit to this truck, this owner did it. From running boards to custom mirrors, to a windshield decal to window guards, this guy has it all. And man does it look bad.

Though trucks with duallies are the worst violators, any truck is being used as a fashion statement instead of its designed purpose is a show truck. Look at this Ram:

The amount of chrome on this thing is ridiculous. He's got a tailgate cover, exhaust tip, wheels, running boards, mirrors, door handles, and gas tank cover. He's even chromed out his taillights. Really? The tailgate light strip is also a crime. They don't belong on any truck. But this is a 4X4 heavy-duty.

The truck below is well on its way to being a show truck. The taillight covers show where this owner is headed. I'd like to see this thing in a year. I guarantee you'd be blinded by the chrome.

It's not that trucks shouldn't look good. A small amount of chrome can look nice, even tasteful. But we must keep in mind the purpose of the truck: work. When you take a heavy-duty truck and turn it into a $375 pair of Red Wing work boots, you're a just being obnoxious. We get it. You drive a large truck and have a small penis, no need to share.

If you're looking for show trucks on your own, just follow the chrome. Most of the time, this rule won't lead you astray.

The Sport Utility Truck

Although Jake and I seek to be known for our vague and condescending generalizations, I must jump on this opportunity to present to you a much more specific and accurate generalization - no, a fact: sport utility trucks are not pickup trucks. In America, this refers to (first and foremost) the Chevy Avalanche (along with its Cadillac and Hummer compadres), the Honda Ridgeline, and the Ford Explorer SportTrac (thank you Dodge for not jumping on this bandwagon!). As I said, these "trucks" are not pickups, and I would most certainly accept the El Camino into the pickup family tree before the "SUT" because it at least has the pickup spirit. For guidance on the pickup spirit as well as prominent examples of real pickup trucks, ask Joe Diffie.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let me talk about the driver of the typical Avalanche (patriotic version) or Ridgeline (unpatriotic version). I won't speak about the other SUT drivers for lack of experience. This man seeks what any man seeks in a truck - masculinity. The problem is that his wife (contact us immediately if you know of an unmarried man driving around in one of these) wants the unquestionable utility offered by a vehicle with a "U" in the acronym. This is a man who would just buy a truck and put a cap on it, but that's not good enough for her (unless they live in Maryland). It's either a Tahoe or an Avalanche, either a Pilot or a Ridgeline, so what's it gonna be? It's okay bud, we know what a man will do for love.

On a separate note, Ridgalanche drivers have no shortage of money to pay for these things. These vehicles are not cheap, and people who drive them really do tend to like them, even if they can't see anything out the rear window (you know what I'm talking about, Mr. Ridgalanche). These are some of the cleanest trucks on the road, and also some of the most likely to sport chrome wheels, but we'll save the discussion on 24's for a rainy day. This is also the type of person who does triathlons and wants you to know about it:

You probably can't read all three of the window stickers, but they are all triathlon related. Coincidentally, this is also the kind of guy who tends to put his initials on the license plate...if his wife will let him.

Just for fun, here's an SUT from the days of old, when you had to make your own:

Yes, it's a crappy phone camera picture, and yes, it's a Jeep Cherokee with what appears to be a three foot bed. Long live the SUT.

Tundra Owners

Zack and I decided it would be fun to describe the typical owners of different trucks. This way, our new audience can see where we’re coming from when we describe Chevy owner as a redneck, a Ridgeline owner as confused, and a Ram owner as a dick. But instead of starting with the obvious Detroit three, I think I’ll start with the Toyota Tundra owner.

Generation 1 (2000-2006)

You see, the Tundra owner has evolved over the years with the design of the truck. The Tundra came out in 2000. This first gen of Tundras looks fine—fairly uninspired, yet not offensive. I’m not quite certain about the people that bought these Tundras. The American trucks at the time looked great, and they’d been in the full-size truck market for decades.

There are a couple exceptions to the boring Tundra rule. For example, I bet you didn’t know that they made a step-side Tundra. Yup, they did, and surprise, it's ugly. But most other Gen-1 Tundras were not so ugly.

I suppose the people that bought these Tundras were boring just like the design of the truck. They bought Tundras because they carried the Toyota badge, which implied reliability. You’ll almost never see any of these trucks lifted or with any offroad hardware attached to them. They’re all boring just like their owners. If the owner has done anything to these trucks, he's probably emasculated it by putting a cap on it. It's practical.

Rarely will these trucks venture outside of an urban area. They seem to popular in the Northeast and the West. Liberals buy them, because liberals hate America (Editor's note: liberals don't hate America, they just wish it wasn't so damn...American).

Also, they're great for taking home purchases from Ikea, like this awesome modular sofa set, the TYLÖSAND. I mean, how could he get an awesome purchase like that home without a truck?

Generation 2 2007-Present

These are the fun Tundras. After 6 years, it seems that Toyota got tired of making plain trucks. Taking a cue from Dodge, Toyota decided to make their Tundra bigger. They inflated the grill and brought the midline way up. No longer was the Tundra unassuming. It was now a big boy truck. And so the typical Tundra owner changed too.

Zack and I are in agreement that the new Tundra is by far the ugliest full-size truck out there today. The fact that Toyota thinks that the American market is after a truck like the new Tundra is frankly offensive. Anyhow, the new owners are oddballs. They want to look tough in their trucks, but they are also practical. Why else would you buy a full-size Toyota truck? Reliability seems to be the only draw from a performance standpoint.

So typically, you will see a 35-year-old businessman driving a Tundra. He’s got a wife and kids (that’s why he’s got the double cab, of course). He’ll tell you the reason he has a full-size truck is that he’s got a small ski-boat (or perhaps a pair of jet-skis) that he needs to pull to the lake a few weekends a year. In the fall and winter, he uses it to tailgate at the Ravens game. Instead of putting a hitch ball on the trailer hitch he has one of these awesome hitch mounted grills!

He’ll tell you about the one time when he was visiting his brother-in-law out in the boonies, he took it out on a dirt road. It ran like a dream! And when he got back to the city, he didn't wash it off for a week. Man did that dirt look good on it!

When it snows (a couple times a year) he likes to turn on the four-wheel drive and go to the grocery store to pick up Silk soymilk for his wife and a six-pack of craft brew for himself. Why? Because he can. Plus, he can then go to work the next day and tell everyone about how glad he is he owns a performance off-road machine. While all the civic owners were snowed in he went out to the grocery store.

Tool Boxes

With regards to Jake's latest post, I think that we can agree on a couple things. First and foremost, caps generally look all right on compact and midsize trucks, and they generally don't look good on full size trucks. Then there's the point of practicality.  For a smaller truck that's lower to the ground, a cap is great. You can easily crawl in, full it with more stuff than many larger vehicles can hold, and even sleep in it if you need to.

But for full size trucks, there's a better way than turning your F-250 into an Excursion: the tool box! Go for shiny chrome or flat black, diamond-plate steel (that's actually aluminum) or cheap-looking plastic, over-the-side or rectangular. And unless you're a real packrat, I bet all the stuff that sits in your capped bed (where everyone can see it) could fit in a good-sized tool box. Mine's big enough that I could probably be stuffed in it by a truck thief, although I'm not sure that's a good selling point.

Indeed, tool boxes are the caps of the South. And as with anything, there's a right way to do it:

(nice enough)

...and there are wrong ways to do it:

This S-10's tool box is just a little too big for the truck, so it almost looks like it has wings (this one took our Most Likely to Leave the Ground Award). Maybe he appreciates the extra storage space. Not as much as this guy, though:

I can't honestly say what's going on here. I can't imagine anyone would actually sell a truck box that blocks the entire rear window, but this one does! Then it keeps going down the sides. I think Jake would agree with me here - this guy should have just gone ahead and bought a cap.

Just for kicks, here's how they do it in Hawaii:

Just put the cargo in the cab and make the girlfriend ride in the back! No caps, no boxes, no problems.

Thoughts on the Cap

Between Zack and me, the cap is a hotly contested subject. You see, on my Toyota, I have a cap and I love it. I can’t imagine living without it. Zack, being from the South and thus being concerned with maintaining his farm boy image does not have a cap on his Chevy. I would never argue that a cap looks better than a bare bed. At best, a good cap can be acceptable. At worst, it can make a nice lookin' truck ugly and an ugly truck hideous. For an example of the latter take this step-side Ford Ranger:

Now I realize, of course, that the designers of this cap had quite the challenge before them: designing a cap for an already hideous truck with just weird lines. And perhaps they did their best to incorporate the flare of the step-side into the cap. Despite all of this though, their cap is still unforgivably ugly.

But let us ponder, for a moment the very idea of putting a cap on a step-side truck. The point of a step-side is to allow easy access to stuff at the front of the bed. You can stand on the step and get to your toolbox or whatever. You see the conflict I’m getting at? I suppose that Ford does refer to their step-side trucks as “style-side”, so perhaps this owner bought the truck thinking that it looked good. It doesn’t.

It’s hardly difficult to find examples of nice looking trucks that have been ruined by hideous caps. Here’s a typical example:

In my last post, I condemned the “Maryland truck” for having a cap. That’s because, even I, a true believer in the cap, believe that caps just do not belong on some trucks. Any four door, for example, becomes an SUV when you throw a cap on it. Who hasn’t caught a glimpse of a four dour F-250 with a cap and not for a few seconds thought he was looking at an Excursion? In a lot of ways a cap can strip a truck of its “truckiness” for lack of a better word.

But who can argue against the utility of a cap on a compact or midsize truck? I’m talking, of course about your Tacomas, Frontiers, and Rangers. These are trucks that already have been stripped of their “truckiness”. I think a nice cap on a 4X4 fits well. It says “no I’m not using this truck on the farm, but I’m still using the hell out of it”. A cap adds a certain practicality to the casual truck owner.

I know I made fun of the “Maryland truck” for being practical, but that was because of the sheer irony of turning a heavy duty work truck into a suburbanite's mall runner. Putting a cap on a compact adds practicality to a compact truck that is appropriate for its size. No one that owns a foreign made compact truck is trying to prove anything. He owns it because he needs a truck, and wants to be practical at the same time. A cap just fits.

Perhaps Zack will counter this or at least lend some thought to this debate…

Work Trucks

Let's take some time to remember the original need for the pickup truck -
doing work. We like to think that most trucks get to enjoy doing at least a
little work during their lives. These next few trucks leave no questions
regarding their work ethic.

Best Carpet Hauler

Although we will delve into cab to bed ratios later, we must now recognize a
truck style that will forever be known to us as "carpet hauler." A carpet
hauler is a truck with a regular cab and a long (8') bed. Usually they are
white and made by one of three well-managed companies. Not always:

This is a Toyota Tundra carpet hauler with a rack. Unless I have been
failing to notice them in the midst of their carpet hauling duties, these
are quite rare. I don't know if Toyota still makes such a Tundra with the
new bloated body style, but I don't believe other Japanese truck producers
do either. So here is the Tundra carpet hauler in all its glory. It doesn't
even have hubcaps! Today we salute Toyota for its American-made, high work ethic
carpet-hauling Tundra.


Best (Truck) Rack

Racks are common on many vehicles today for their ability to haul bikes,
canoes, kayaks, boards, funny-looking cargo boxes, and more. Sometimes they
even get used. This carpet-hauling white work truck no doubt uses its rack,
and it has the biggest rack I've ever seen on a pickup:

We salute you, gigantic glass-rack-toting carpet-hauling white Chevy work
truck, for doing work.


Most Interesting Damage

To be honest, I don't know what kind of work this Ford Ranger does. If I had
to guess, I would say it probably hauls a lot of live jungle cats:

The scratches on this thing are many and deep! It also appears to have some
rear window damage, and hopefully the contraption in the back doesn't serve
as a car seat ("Well Junior, if we can't put the baby up front..."). We won't ask
any more questions of this man, but we assume he has been doing work, so we
thank him.

"Maryland Trucks"

Maryland is a very confused state. South of the Mason-Dixon Line, yet still a Union state, Maryland seems still to struggle with its identity today. Perhaps Maryland's struggle with its identity has led Maryland's citizens to struggle with their own identities. Ask any Maryland native if he is from the South, and he will assure that he is. To prove this point, many Marylanders drive what Zack and I have dubbed “Maryland Trucks”.

You see, Marylanders are frustrated that many consider them part of the North, which we associate with the educated intellectual class. Marylanders like to think of themselves as rugged, country southerners, and indeed there are some Marylanders that are as country as anyone. However, the majority of Marylanders live in the DC area and are not country at all. It is the the urban ones, though, that are the most likely to drive the "Maryland Truck" to compensate for their apparent lack of “ruggedness”. I present to you the “Maryland Truck”:

And again:

Always a four-dour heavy duty, sometimes a dually, and always with a cap. You see, in suburbia, a cap just makes sense. It's practical. That’s why so many suburbanites drive station wagons and minivans. But none of these men would be caught dead in a station wagon or minivan, so instead, they buy the biggest truck they can and put a cap on it. Practical. Just like four dour super-cabs. Everyone knows that a proper truck has two doors—maybe four if they’re suicide doors. But these trucks, again in the interest of practicality, have four real doors. It's very useful for driving the kids to soccer practice. Practical.

You see, Maryland doesn’t want to give up its Southern heritage. Despite the fact that they never seceded from the Union and that most people in Maryland live near one of the largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. they still drive very very big trucks.

Our personal favorite in this category is this one:

Now this truck could easily have won the “Most Compensating” category that Zack just posted about, but instead it finds its place here. A dually with a cap? Really? And just what are you pulling on that itty-bitty hitch ball that requires a dually? Your jet ski? But the spikes on the rims really set this one apart. “Don’t mess with this guy,” they say. And of course it has a cap. Practical.

More Winners

Most Compensating

To put it kindly, many men drive large trucks to compensate for their...shortcomings. One could argue that this may even be the modern role of the pickup truck. The men driving these two leave no room for argument:

Well, obviously they would argue with each other about whose is bigger...

What we see in the top picture is a lifted Harley Davidson Edition Ford with mud flaps and a lot of likely necessary stuff going on underneath. We can give the man credit for keeping his truck clean, but he loses it due to the poor parking job.

The second picture contains what would be a modest Chevy Silverado 3500 Dually. Everything is stock except one small detail - the license plate. After pondering its meaning for quite some time (Maxim is...? or Max I. Mis?), we have concluded that it actually refers to the word "maximus," which is Latin for "greatest" or "largest." Now, I can't be sure, but I would guess that the tag that says MAXIMUS went to another guy who was either faster or better at spelling. And he is undoubtedly bigger.


Best Rolling Artwork

Although I can't say I know what's in this tailgate mural, it looks well done and no doubt pleases tailgaters on the highway. We are thankful that this guy opted for the tonneau cover instead of a cap because the lowered, tinted, chromed truck would then have looked like a station wagon. Kudos.


Most Axles

I can't be sure because this truck is older than me, but I don't think this is stock.

If it is stock, there aren't too many left on the road. I must apologize for the quality of the picture, but I don't think it takes away from the meaning...

Fastest Truck

In the fastest truck category, competition was fierce. The winner should obviously be the Dodge Ram SRT-10 Night Runner, with its 8.3 Liter Viper V10 and 510 BHP. But at first glance, this Night Runner seems somewhat tame compared another “sport truck” we saw.

I mean, yes its got a spoiler, and some sweet gunmetal rims, and it does have a V10 to back it up.

Take a look at this Ford F-150 though, and you may be deceived into thinking it's faster:

I mean, just look at it. It’s a lime green F-150 with a body kit and chrome wheels and door handles. Fast. However, upon close inspection, we can see that the owner of this sports truck made one crucial mistake. While he put on a spoiler—very important for keeping those rear wheels firmly on the ground when cornering at high speeds—he failed to put a “tonneau” cover over his bed like the owner of our Night Runner. Every sport truck owner knows that a tonneau cover is essential for creating laminar air flow over the bed in order to get all the down force possible on the rear spoiler. Because of this mistake, we can only assume that this F-150 would be crushed by the Night Runner in a high-speed cornering test.

While we found a few lowered S-10s on our respective trips, we were never able to find that illusive S-10 X-treme which would have undoubtedly won this competition. Oh well, I guess the fastest truck award goes to the Night Runner.

Contest Winners

As Jake said, we are two men raised in two very different parts of the country, and despite all our differences we have one thing in common - pickup trucks. Between the two of us, our trucks represent the Midwest and the Deep South, foreign and domestic, small and large, capped and uncapped, and we are open to many interpretations of the American art that is the pickup truck (we're not open to all of them...). To start our blog, here are some of our favorite pieces from around the country. We hope you enjoy.

Least Likely to Run


In our first category, we faced a two-way tie between these two American beauties:

In the first photo, we see what is believed to have been a Chevy S-10 with multiple flat tires, no bed or rear window, and some noticeable damage to the front end.

The second picture shows an ancient Chevy with a paintjob consisting of rust and primer, no windows, some flat tires, and a beautifully painted number 3 for all the Earnhardt fans driving by. It's a pretty safe bet that you won't see either of these trucks on the road any time soon, but they make beautiful yard ornaments.


Most Closely Resembling a Station Wagon

Although we could comment positively on this man's patriotism as displayed in his taillight covers and prominently displayed yellow ribbon or negatively on his remarkably unpatriotic parking job, this one actually takes the cake for looking like a station wagon. This is an unfortunate happening that often occurs when the truck is lowered and has a cap on the bed. The situation is not helped by blacked-out windows and an extra dose of chrome.


Work in Progress

There are certain parts of the country where custom trucks in-the-making are their own type of custom truck. Sure signs of this include lots of primer and multiple sets of taillights.

I must apologize for the quality of this image; it's not my style to roll into someone's driveway, snap a picture of a truck that they're hopefully not proud of, and poke fun at it on the internet. Those last two are my style, though, so here you go. It looks like this Chevy or GMC has freshly-installed Corvette style taillights in the bumper as well as the original taillights above. I can't tell if that's a custom mural on the left side of the tailgate, but the right side looks like they thought about painting it black when red, silver, blue, and yellow wasn't doing it for them. This truck is a work in progress.


Most Likely to be Mistaken for a Dumpster

How, you might ask, could a pickup truck resemble a dumpster? We hadn't thought of it ourselves, to be honest, but these two opened our eyes:

First, we see what looks like an old Toyota Tacoma of at least four different colors covered in garbage. Perhaps, with its mud tires and roll bar, it previously served as an inexpensive offroad vehicle or "drugrunner," but it now appears to serve quite well as an offroad trashcan.

The second vehicle here was a runner up for the next category, but it inevitably fell to this one. Although these images are not of the highest quality, your eyes do not deceive you if you think you see most of a bread truck with a pickup bed on the back. One would imagine this truck at some point had a (very) special job, but it's hard to say with words what it was. Now, with its flat tire and presumed retirement, it sits on the side of the road collecting something that you might see in a dumpster.


Most Unique

I was once corrected by an English teacher (English being the subject, not the teacher's nationality) for writing "very unique" since an object either is or is not unique. But when you've seen what I've seen, unique is not an on-off switch - it's a spectrum. This truck is all the way at the end of the spectrum (yes, the bad end).

I can't really do much justice here. A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words (particularly if the picture contains the words "fresh scalps - better plunder - more ponies" along with blood, guts, and evil-looking babies). Let's just say we didn't hang around to interview the guy.

This December, two friends finished their last college finals and headed home. Zack drove his Chevy truck south to his home in Georgia. I drove my Toyota pickup north to Chicago. Along the way both of us took pictures of pickup trucks. From the novel to the impractical to the absolutely ridiculous, we did our best to photograph America’s more colorful pickup trucks.

And while we found some interesting trucks in the Midwest, Midsouth, and Deep South, nothing could beat the trucks we saw in Tucson, Arizona. When Zack and I met up in Tucson for some unrelated R&R, all the photos we had taken at our respective homes somehow seemed pretty normal.

Take this Tundra:

This truck would have been an outlandish truck by Midwest standards, but in Tucson, it's no more unusual than an F-150 extended cab in Ohio.

Or this Isuzu:

That’s right, it's an Isuzu pickup. Now those of you in Arizona may be wondering why I think an Isuzu truck is noteworthy, but those of us from out east(ish) never see these things. This is the first one that Zack and I had ever seen, and we’ve both been eyeing (and judging) trucks for years.

Here’s another example. I saw more Mitsubishi Raiders (for those of you that don’t know that’s the now discontinued rebadged Dodge Dakota that Mitsubishi sold for a couple of years) in my first afternoon in Tucson than I had seen ever before. To be fair, I had only seen one before.

Anyhow, Tucson’s remarkable collection of trucks aside, Zack and I compiled quite a few photos from our travels alone, and together. We decide to award some winners. Here they are: