Sad and so bummed...

Our pick up is dead. What a bummer... here is how the story goes: We had 5 days off together with Brendan, and headed over to Southern Utah (Ibex) to go bouldering. We got snowed out, even the cows looked cold under the snow! After a few brave attempts by Brendan to climb (I climbed too, but didn't take my mittens off!) we decided to change our destination if we wanted to go climbing. It seemed to be a gnarly strip of 3-4 days just about everywhere, so we decided to go home, and head the other way, towards Boulder. I was driving, hit some black ice on the road in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Utah, car to the left, car to the right, so far I am pretty much ok, and so is Brendan (who... haha, had just closed his eyes) and before I know it, I am looking through the windshield at where I come from... ok, this isn't going so well anymore... indeed, I finished planted in the center divide, and... the worst part is the center divide had little poles every 2ft or so, and it grabbed, and ripped, the front wheel. Voila, the pick up is done. We got towed out, slept in the flip pack on 3 wheels in the tow yard, and the insurance lady came out the next day in the middle of nowhere to evaluate our pick up, which is fairly old, and has a fair amount of miles on it, and... after a few hours of plugging in numbers and pictures in her laptop said it was to be totaled. Soooo bummed. I was absolutely heartbroken, and so was Brendan, to total our little pick up. Not only Brendan had worked his butt off to get it, but it is basically more our home than anywhere else, and it represents so much to us. This is what we do: go climb with the flip pac... so yeah, I felt pretty miserable, and Brendan was oh so the best with me, but pretty bummed too. We were really torn as far as attempting to fix it anyways, or leaving it with the insurance people to be salvaged. Since none of us knows anything about mechanics, we opted for the safest option, which was to take the bigger check, and leave the car. I was so mad at myself, and so sad to leave it. Yeah yeah, it is just a car, and all that, but we were still super sad. It took us a while to make a decision, but once it was done, we just wanted to go home, with the campershell. So we rented a moving truck... The insurance people gave us a ride with them to the nearest UHaul, and Uhaul it was... Stripped down the pick up of its flip pac, loaded the moving truck with all our crap, and hauled home! Like always, it could have been worse: no semi to run into, a center divide to stop the car instead of another car coming the other way, a decent check from the insurance, nobody hurt, all that good stuff, but we are still bitter about the whole deal. But here we are... truck shopping, because we won't be flip-pac-less very long ;) This whole thing sucked, but we'll redo our awesome set up, and it'll be good again, no doubt, it is just a hassle to deal with. Brendan said he would improve on the flip-pac bench properties when he builds the one in the new pick-up, andwill incorporate a hole in the bench to hold a bottle of wine!! No no, we're not completely depressed :P just really bummed. I'll put a few pics, and will keep you posted on our coming adventures... Cheers! -Chloe, the pick-up killer.