When I built my house, now 42 years ago, I bought a beater pickup truck with a snow plow on it to keep the road open. Both were well-used if not abused, but fully functional. 

A few days after getting it home, I bumped into a neighbor who complimented my “fancy new outfit.” I was confused. My outfit has been a T-shirt and jeans for my whole life. I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. Her husband somehow clarified the situation by making it clear she was talking about the plow truck. That was the “outfit.”

The truck by itself, despite its age, was somewhat tricked out with extra lights for plowing and cartoonishly oversized tires installed by the prior owner. That was enough to elevate it from a truck to a “rig.” When the snowplow was attached, with yet more extra lights, the combination promoted it into an “outfit.” 

I’ve sort of studied that distinction ever since. The line between a rig and an outfit is not easily defined, but you know it when you see it.  Forty years ago, trucks were basic and utilitarian, built for work. Now they are so larded up with luxury fittings and shrinking cargo capacity as to be useless for work. 

The demarcation separating the rigs and the outfits had also moved upscale. And, of course, an antique pickup that wasn’t even a rig when new can achieve outfit status through patina alone. 

Only trucks and ATVs fit on this scale. Your Porsche is not an outfit no matter how much you spent.

Anyway, over the holiday weekend, the traffic past my place was constant. I watched it for a bit, and there were lots of fancy outfits rolling by. Half-million-dollar motor homes towing a hundred thousand in ATVs, half-million-dollar sports cars, followed up by hundred-thousand-dollar pickups laden with a ton of chrome and all manner of additional toys. 

There was a wide variety of vehicles and accessories, but I would guess the average price was about $150,000 each. That’s allowing for some old Toyota Tacomas with Walmart kayaks tied in the bed. 

So 10 of them would be $1.5 million. A hundred vehicles strung out, making the left turn out of my lane impossible, would ring up $15 million. Over the course of the day, there were probably 500 high-end outfits rolling by, or maybe $75 million in toys. Every day, for three days. And that doesn’t attempt to put a price tag on the horses in the deluxe horse trailers in the mix. There is really no upper limit on the price of a horse.

All of that gets stored someplace when not in use, which explains the proliferation of storage places around the county. Those can run from covered parking to $2 million condo garages with a living room and kitchen so you can watch football with your motor home or Ferrari, with a studio apartment upstairs for the mechanic or mistress to live in. 

The amount of cash splashing around is stunning. Condos that are only conceptual cubes of air high above the ground are selling “reservations” pending the actual construction. There is apparently a brisk resale market on this real estate that is, at least for now, not real. 

So much for generational holdings. They are in it for the flip — $1,800 a square foot with a freeway view is advertised as a screaming hot deal. There must be a limit to the number of people who can shell out millions for a vacation home they use twice a year. We haven’t found the end yet, though I suspect one day we will with unpleasant results for some.

I always look through the real estate porn magazine that comes with the paper once a month. It’s interesting to see what the upper end of the market looks like, knowing that the advertisement is as close as I’ll ever get to these places, not that I would want any of them. 

Something strange has happened. For months, if not years, every listing described the property as being in a “coveted” neighborhood, and sometimes in a “highly coveted enclave,” which I suppose is even better. It didn’t much matter where it was.  Everything was coveted, from the top of the Colony or lots next to the sewer plant. 

In the most recent edition of the real estate ads, I couldn’t find anything in a coveted neighborhood. Lots of exclusive neighborhoods, and the ridiculous situation of a gated community within another gated community is still a draw among the wealthier students of the French Revolution. 

The neighborhoods are exactly the same as three months ago, yet no longer coveted.   There may have been an uptick in Bible study among realtors, discovering that the 10th Commandment is pretty clear: “Thou shalt not covet they neighbor’s house.”  I always thought this development binge was sinful. 

Does that mean the bloom is off the rose, and what used to be coveted is now so over-developed with cookie-cutter mansions that look like Audi dealerships that they are no longer coveted? It’s like admitting your “outfit” has depreciated to mere “rig” status.  How embarrassing.

It’s probably optimistic to believe that the market fever is breaking, but life around here is lot more pleasant during the downturns. 

Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986.