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End of an ERA: I donated my 2000 Chevy Silverado to Tunnel To Towers. Definitely a good cause, but sad to see it go. :/ | |
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I bought "my girl" in July 2005. Living in Utah, I was dealing with a divorce and let my ex have the one reliable vehicle we had. The car I still had was already 15ish years old…to make it safe and drivable again was going to take mucho $$$$, so that wasn’t a great option. It was one of the older body styles that I could pull the chair inside after I got out of it. The newer body styles were too small to get my chair in, so I had to come up with a new plan. It had high miles and I had to make a decision. PS: I have been needing to use a wheelchair since my last day of High School - June 8, 1984 because of a spinal cord injury. I dove into a friend’s backyard pool that looked deeper than it was. I hit the bottom, I broke my neck and from then on, everything was different. I always wanted a Chevy truck since I was young, but all along - crips like me really didn't have many options. Either a car where someone with upper body strength could pull the pulled apart wheelchair into the back seat and do the reverse to get out, or get a big clunky van with a lift and you roll on and off with lots of mechanical stuff to go wrong. I didn’t want a van. At the time - the expense was beyond my abilities. I didn’t even have a job. I was still fresh out of high school and going into the Air Force or Navy was never happening. What was I even going to do for work? By 2005 some smart folks figured out how to let someone in a wheelchair get into a truck. I found out what kind of truck I needed and started searching. When I found one I liked in Auto Trader - went down to Salt Lake City in my crusty cruiser and bought it from the dealer. They got it over to the conversion company nearby and in about a week it was completed. .jpg)
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The way it worked was - the front seat turned and then lowered to ground level near the wheelchair. I transferred onto the truck seat and then clipped my wheelchair to the lift and using the controllers - put the chair in the bed of the truck and my seat moved back up into the driving position. It sounds more complicated than it was, but once I got a rhythm, it only took a few minutes to complete the process. With the 4x4, I could now drive to a lot of places I couldn't before. This was especially true in Utah, there are so many places you're allowed to drive off the beaten path... being a photographer, I was in heaven. Thankfully, I never got stuck somewhere or ended up in trouble, but if you look at this YouTube channel - Matt's Off Road Recovery gives an idea what Utah was like. It's kinda crazy to see some of the places people will try to drive. I miss the beauty and freedom of that place, so much. I'm glad I got to live there for 8 years I did. https://www.youtube.com/@MattsOffRoadRecovery/videos Without going into detail about my adventures - there's too many to list and nobody wants to hear that - I racked up well over 200,000 miles on that truck alone. Before that all my vehicles combined, I have hit the 500,000+ miles, which is about 20 times circling the equator. With the Artemis crew taking the trip they did, I have driven more miles than a trip to the moon and back. I didn’t start taking count til recently, but I have been so lucky to see the things I have. I have had wanderlust for some time and that truck helped so much with that. Working for Uncle Sam as a programmer and systems administrator, I was able to go on trips for work - mostly training and team conferences. Also I fit in some personal travel as well. My former boss Bob got me hooked on National Parks and so that became my new passion to visit as many of them as I can. Once I was on my own again and sold my house in Utah, I transferred to Myrtle Beach POD, which became my new home since Dec 2008. Moving here meant I was a few days drive closer to family (3 days-ish from Utah) and only a mile or so from a friend group who I used to work with up in NY. We were like family and because of that many of us landed in this jewel not a lot of people know about. We spent a lot of time together. Birthdays, Holidays and random gatherings - it was nice being around people who enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed theirs. They went well out of their way to include me in everything going on and I definitely made the right choice coming here. I am forever grateful for that. Being here in Myrtle has been great. I'm about 5 minutes from the beach. It can get hot in the summers and cold in the winters, but never anything like where I grew up on Long Island (pronounced Lawnguylund). All of my family lives there still and I would travel north to visit as often as I could in my truck. Usually multiple times a year since Dec 2008. Myrtle Beach can be 70 deg in December or even January. Just last winter I wore shorts and short sleeves for most of it. I still love it for the pluses it has. As for the truck, I don't have the exact mileage yet... maybe I never will, we tried to hook up the battery before having it picked up, but it wouldn’t work. I know it had well over 200,000 miles. My Dad passed in Jan 2020 and that was my last trip to NY in my truck... .png) My older brother came to visit numerous times, but hadn’t seen my other family for years. By 2024 I had to figure out a whole new way to get around. It just wasn't safe to use my truck, but I missed it. I loved driving an elevated 4x4. In order to address some of the medical issues I started having, I had to get to Drs and medical facilities… some 2-3 hours away to the south. I was also about 800 miles from my immediate family. Thankfully, with my retirement fund, I was able to arrange for a hardship withdrawal. It was not cheap and pain free, but I paid cash for a new van - a Honda Odyssey. It's a minivan that I can drive in the wheelchair I now use - a power chair. .png)
Once I got it in May 2024, one of the first things I did was head up north to visit the family I hadn’t seen in 4+ years. It was definitely different than driving my truck, but very doable. The thing I liked about my truck was I was able to use the stock seat and I could drive hundreds or thousands of miles and not have issues. I felt like part of the truck. Now with the van, I drive in the wheelchair and it’s still no issue, but it’s a little achy for long distances. I can take breaks and just regroup then get back on the road. It takes longer, but I get where I want. The driver assist features are pretty cool, but I turn off the lane departure assist because I end up fighting it to keep control. Right now I’m dealing with some system failures with a brand new van, where all those assist features shut down and become unusable, but the dealer I bought it from have washed their hands, so I’m going to go elsewhere. I have been back to physical therapy and I’m regaining some power in my legs. That could have worked for my truck to reuse it again, but the point was made that was a 25 yr old vehicle. It was and would be in need of repairs to keep it safe to drive. I really did want to see if I could return to using my truck. Sometimes it’s time to move on. I would like to have a vehicle I can go off-road with again. Driving on the beach in North Carolina & the outer banks was fun. So was Utah. The van I have is so low, I can barely go over speed bumps without bottoming out. The last straw for the truck was when someone slashed all 4 of my tires on it. Yes… this isn’t a bad neighborhood even, but the exodus of northerners down to this area has caused the not so great crime rate to go even higher. Those tires were pretty expensive - Kevlar belted Goodyear wranglers and nice rims. I could go off-road or travel and not worry about getting flats in the middle of BFE nowhere. Now that the dirtbags where I live figured out how to destroy the tires, I figured I better get the donation process going. Maybe the next thing - I’d come out to find my truck engulfed in flames? I knew about tunnel to towers - the ads are all over TV. I found they accept vehicle donations and they will come pick it up. The donation is auctioned and those funds benefit our military veterans. https://t2t.org/donate-your-car/ Tunnel to towers is a trusted charity that emerged from the 911 tragedy. Stephen Siller was an FDNY firefighter who was on his way home after his shift. Upon learning the towers were hit, he grabbed all his gear and ran through the battery tunnel to come out right near the twin towers. He was one of the 343 FDNY first responders who would never see their loved ones again. Here it is in charity navigator: https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/020554654 Sadly, the tires slashed, that would detract from the final auction value. Regardless, I scheduled a pickup and they came to get it. I recorded it and I watched them take my girl. Here is the video of that. I couldn’t let it go without writing down some thoughts. End of an era for me. .jpg) |
End of an era - I donated my truck to Tunnel to Towers vehicle donation. |
