My old truck has travelled with me now for 78,679 miles, it's now at a total of 278,798 with another fellow or two owning it before me. It's an 04 but it feels like it's gone through a lifetime, the character it has and everything I've gone through with it and everything it's gotten me through isn't a light thing.
When I think about this thing that is my old truck, the friends, family, old dogs and other people I've loved have all taken a ride in this sweet ole' girl of mine... I most recently traveled from the central coast of California up to Washington taking the PCH the whole way. Several tanks for gas, several dirty motel stops, too much food and not enough food. The rain didn't stop for days and I definitely started to get homesick. But man, the old truck held it down more so than I could know at the time.
The windshield wipers squeaking back and forth, headlights cutting through the fog, the sound of tires rolling on wet pavement for miles. I stop along the coast often just to stretch my legs and look at the water. Cold wind, grey and sunny skies, big empty and crowded beaches. Then I’d climb back in, turn the key, and she’d fire up like she always does. There’s a strange comfort in a machine that just keeps going.
Somewhere along that drive to Washington, I started thinking about how many lives this truck has probably lived before me. Who owned it first. Where they drove it. Maybe some little boy learned how to drive in it in a dusty parking lot somewhere. Maybe someone packed up their whole life in the back and moved across the country. Maybe somebody cried in the driver’s seat after a long day.
And now it’s here with me.
Carrying surfboards down dirt roads, taking friends to the beach before sunrise, hauling paintings, old cameras, and too many half-finished ideas. It’s been there on days that felt like the best in the world and days where things didn’t quite make sense. A truck like that starts to feel less like a vehicle and more like a quiet companion. Something steady while everything else in life keeps changing.
And one day it’ll stop running, that much I know. The miles will finally catch up to it. But until then, I’ll keep turning the key and letting that old engine fire.
