Gone, but not forgotten.

My back yard is empty again.  The big old 43 GMC "Deuce & a half" my brother was storing there was hauled away today.  It only took us 3 1/2 hours to get it out, which is a lot longer than it took to get in, but at least we didn't hit any houses on the way out.*  We did break several chains and ticked off a few drivers, but other than that it went pretty smooth.  My neighbor, whose house we hit on the way in (see below), was there the whole time, and instead of making it a more stressful situation, he had a lot of good ideas, and tools, that helped it go smoothly. 

The back yard, with the truck sitting in it.

The nice, thin driveway we had to get it down.

Oops, hitch mistake #1 of several.

Finally, it's out of the back yard.  Now we just have to get it out without hitting anyone's house.

We had some trouble getting it to move at first, it had sunk a ways into the dirt.

Fixing hitch screw-up #2.

Hmmm, not too bad on this side.

Uhhh, now we're talking close.

Finally, past the houses.  As you can see if you look in front of the truck pulling, there's a car squeezing past as he tries to get out onto the street.  Even better was the lady in the maroon minivan coming the other way.  The truck was about a third of the way into the lane, still moving and she pulls almost into the gutter to squeeze by.  I don't think she got the sarcasm when I yelled "Thanks for being so patient" as she went by.

On the other side of the street.  One of the chains broke, so we had to fix hitch screwup #3, which wasn't so bad since they wanted to pull from the front anyway.

Pulling into traffic.  At least the red Dakota was kind enough to stop for us.

And awaaaaay we go....

The back yard, without a truck.  Now I have no excuse for letting it go to weed rather than doing something with it.

And the best news is that there is a very, very, very good chance that a friend of the guy who took it will buy it and restore it instead of it being torn apart for scrap.  (I did hear "friend", "restores old trucks" and "sell it to him".  I might have made up the "very, very, very good chance" part.)

*When we brought it in we scraped the side of the neighbor's house.  I hadn't warned him about bringing a huge truck up the driveway he shares with my next-door neighbors, so he was kind of shook up (and angry) when we rattled his whole house.  He got over it, sort of, so I've been a little stressed at the prospect of it happening again as we brought it out.