| $900 doesn't buy you much these days, but in Jersey it'll get you a 92 Dodge Ram 150 Cargo van with a spare tire that's too big and almost enough lug-nuts to keep your wheels on until you run out of gas. "Why do you need a speedometer when it'll never make it over 50 mph?" the gentleman asked me as he sipped his beer and haggled with me over the price. Dumb ideas are sometimes the most fun.
So this, as I call it, was the $900 bet. I basically spent that money on a vehicle in the hopes that it would hold everything that I possess on this earth and transport me and my belongings almost 2,000 miles to my new apartment in Austin, Texas without breaking down or exploding. You want to know something, I won. But it wasn't an outright victory. I took my lumps along the way and I learned a few things. I learned that while being able to fit everything you own into a small multi-passenger vehicle is definitely and admirable feat, it can also be very depressing.
I found out that police officers are strangely drawn to non-descript white cargo vans, and get really testy when you explain that while yes, you do really own the van there isn't exactly a registration for it in the traditional sense of the term.
I have found that longs sleeve shirts are the best defense against trucker tan and no matter what, you definitely cannot pay for a hotel room with tales of adventure. I learned that barbecue, in some states, is the only universal currency and in case I'd forgotten, no one under any circumstance, is to mess with Texas.
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