I don't think I ever told the story of how I came about getting my Avalanche.
I first heard of the Avalanche shortly after they came out, and was looking into a new Suburban at the time. The dealer didn't have the exact one I wanted on the lot, so I began the custom ordering of the Suburban. The final cost rose above the cost of I better equipped truck on the lot, so I didn't go through with it. The salesman suggested the Avalanche to me, but he didn't have a 2500 on the lot and made no mention of there being a 2500 in the Avalanche lineup. I didn't even look at the Avalanche, because I was hauling a 10,000# camper and needed a 3/4 ton truck. I eventually bought my 2003 GMC Sierra 2500HD Crew cab Long bed in the 2wd version (I didn't need 4wd at the time, but did need the 6.0L and heavy-duty suspension and transmission). I also ended up buying a new camper that came in at close to 1/2 the weight of my old camper, and the GMC handled it very nicely. When I moved to the mountains of Virginia, I quickly learned that the GMC was too big for the area...hard to park, hard to get up my steep, gravel driveway and couldn't turn the camper around once I got to the top of my driveway. So we started looking into smaller trucks and pulling the camper with the van again. The wife and I couldn't agree on a truck, and the dealer wouldn't give me a reasonable offer for my trade, so we didn't buy anything. Then one day I woke up and just had to have an older-style (cladded) Avalanche. I went on line to look for one near by, found one, and traded my GMC for it while the wife was at work. When she came home I told her I wanted to show her something. We went to the garage, I opened it, and she stumbled back a step or two and said "take it back, take it back. We can't afford it!" She didn't even ask about the price or the payments or anything. I told her I couldn't simply "take it back". After I told her that our insurance dropped about $50 a month and we were no worse off (after canceling cable TV), she eventually came around and likes the truck. Of coarse, after spending over $40k modding it, she's not too happy, since it still needs some work to make things right. It has been my money pit, but I love my Avalanche. It's too bad that GM didn't offer one in a high-performance version. Even the so called "SS" models lack in real power. So I have me a hot rod (which I've always wanted), and the wife is slowly letting me continue the build, little by little. I just bought a set of basic painted steel rims from a 3/4 ton work truck to put some snow tires on, as I'm finding out that the high-performance Toyo's don't do so well on the ice/snow (can you say "DUHHHHHHH!!!!!"??). This is another grand that I hadn't planned on spending, and that's a grand further from finishing the project!
to CAFCNA and congrats on the AV bigdaddykane 
At least you are getting the AV now. Better late than never.
