Video of a Champaign dad’s surprise reunion with a beloved old “friend” has been viewed on Facebook more than 100,000 times, and counting, since it was posted late Saturday night.
The story of Stephanie Baker stumbling upon her husband Kevin’s old truck online — and her video orchestrating their emotional surprise reunion in the Harvest Market parking lot — has captured the hearts of people all over the world, many of whom share the same passion for vehicles.
“He locked eyes on his truck and got upset thinking someone else in town bought it,” Stephanie Baker said, describing the moment captured on the 4-minute video (warning, there’s a little bit of salty language). “It took him a few seconds to realize what was happening.”
What happens next: a lot of tears and hugs, as the story unravels of how Stephanie Baker found the truck and brought it back to Champaign.
Kevin Baker had shared 12 years of shared history with the truck, a bond many wouldn’t understand.
“Blood, sweat, time, and tears went into building this truck beginning in 1994,” Stephanie wrote in a Facebook post. “We honestly never thought we would see it again and to have it home is just awesome.”
Kevin Baker had sold the truck almost 11 years ago to the day, to buy a family vehicle after their daughter was born.
“We had said for many years if we could find it we would buy it back,” Stephanie wrote.
Stephanie Baker plotted the truck’s return with a great deal of serendipitous luck and good bit of perseverance. Over the weekend, she discovered thanks to a Facebook post that her husband’s Chevy S10 truck — the one he had painstakingly custom built and showed — was available for sale in Indianapolis.
“This guy from Indy went to look at it to buy for his son and he posted a pic of it on his Facebook Friday night asking if anyone knew about it. We happened to have a mutual friend who tagged me in the post. I commented back asking if it was a recent picture and where it was and how I would love to buy it back,” Stephanie Baker told chambanamoms.com.
She immediately contacted the person who posted the photo of the truck, and found out where to locate it. She also texted her husband’s best friend, Michael Healea, and recruited him to help her get to Indianapolis and bring the truck home.
She concocted a story for her husband about going shopping with a friend, and set off with Healea early Saturday morning. The truck has mostly sat in a garage for the past 10 years, she learned. After several twists and turns they all returned to Champaign late Saturday, truck in tow on a trailer provided by Baker’s dad.
To get him to the truck, Stephanie told Kevin she was hungry and wanted some food. That’s when they ended up in the parking lot, and the rest you can see on Facebook.
As for what’s next for the Baker family and its truck, that’s a bit up in the air. In less than 24 hours since they got it back, it has had a lot of visitors.
“We definitely need more garage space,” Baker told us, with a laugh. “(Kevin) needs to do some regular maintenance, fix a few things, and eventually have the rough spots on the body fixed. I’m sure he will customize it more in time but for now, it just needs some serious TLC and cleaning.”