Mercedes/Camera Trade

I've been intending to blog about our new Mercedes for weeks--finally getting to it! So here's the story. For the last few months, we've been talking about getting a second vehicle for this last push to the Trials. It was fine to have one vehicle, but it was definitely a lot of extra coordination...and was especially tricky when something had to be fixed on the truck. Joe had to plan ahead and really depend on me to get anywhere...and I could sense that it was an extra stress that he didn't need. So we decided to look for a car for less than $2,000...with the plan to sell it at the end of this journey, in the hopes that we could still sell if for over $1,500...and essentially have the convenience of a car over the next several months for a few hundred bucks.

Joe started his massive research effort and not surprisingly, he paid attention to diesels and anything already converted to run on veggie oil. It's not that hard to find veggie oil cars here in the Bay Area, but they're usually a lot more expensive. Joe came across an ad on Craigslist from a really cool guy from Santa Cruz who buys, converts, and sells diesel Mercedes as a hobby. He mentioned in his ad that he would be interested in trading something (like a camera) for a car.

It's a 1981 Mercedes, over 200,000 miles on it, converted to run off of veggie oil already, and when we sent him the details of our camera (a Nikon D200 which we have had since Christmas of '06)...he wanted to do the trade! We knew it would be a good deal for us because we could replace my whole camera set-up for around $2,000. There is no way we could have found a veggie oil mobile (at least one that didn't require all kinds of work) for under $2,000.

We drove to Santa Cruz, gave him my camera (and lens, bag, batteries, memory card!), and left with a new car! Within the next week, we bought a new camera...and because Nikon had just issued a $300 rebate on their D300, we were even able to upgrade! So we got a cool new car, AND I got a sweet new camera! Digital technology keeps getting better and better...and even a year and a half makes a huge difference. We are both loving the quality of the new camera. Kind of strange to think that the car is worth the same as a camera!

Getting a new car came at an especially good time because of all the hassle with the truck. The truck is still in the shop and we're trying to figure out what to do with it right now. We'll keep you posted.

Joe is planning to compete in a decathlon at Claremont College outside of LA on Friday and Saturday. The hamstring seems to be doing well--but pray for continued healing and strength for this weekend.