One of the first trucks I drove was a 1959 GMC tilt bed. In the days before roll back trucks, there were flat bed trucks with hoists that would tip the bed all the way to the ground. The angle was too steep for modern automobiles, but clearances were higher at that time.The angel was too steep to drive an implement up, so we used the winch to load every machine that we hauled. I worked pretty well for small tractors and other farm machinery. The cab of the truck was a bit noisy and there was quite a bit of wind that got in around the imperfect door seals. The old 232 cubic inch inline six cylinder engine didn’t produce much horsepower, but the combination of the 4-speed transmission with a 2-speed rear end meant that we could make it up the steep mountain passes, even if we were going pretty slow. Granny gear was really, really slow. I doubt if I ever got the truck going more than 60 or 65 mph.

When I worked on the farm there was an even older GMC truck that was half of our harvest haul fleet. That an an old International truck, both with grain boxes and hoists, shuttled between the combines and the bins. I drove both of those trucks, but I gravitated towards the old GMC because it was familiar to me.

Those days were a long time ago and I hadn’t thought about those old trucks much until yesterday when our U-Haul truck, from the short-term rental fleet, was an older GMC. It was perfectly serviceable for our move and worked for us very well, but as I was driving north on Interstate 5, with much of the traffic passing me, I remembered those days of driving the old trucks that were a part of getting the jobs of farming and farm machinery delivery done. When it comes to doing work, you don’t need all of the brand new flash and show. You need reliability and strength. The U-Haul did exactly what we rented it to do: it moved our furniture from one town to another. With less than 100 miles round trip, the fact that it doesn’t get very good gas mileage isn’t really a factor. The ability to rent a truck with a rain-proof box for 24-hours is just what our job required. It took our crew about 2 hours to load and about the same to unload. Most of the furniture ended up in the right room in our new home, though we are aware that we still have a few too many possessions for this house. The job of sorting will continue.

We did, however, sleep on our own bed in our new house for the first time. It was way more comfortable and we are way more set up than when we arrived at our rental a year ago. The first night after unloading that truck we slept on our mattress on the floor. Our bed wasn’t set up. And we didn’t have the gas turned on in our rental yet, so with no furnace we huddled with an electric space heater to keep us warm. At this house, we’re much more set up, with our living room furniture in roughly the right places, our dining room table ready to use, and a study, with a place for my desk and computer. Our bookshelves are set up, but we haven’t started to unpack books yet.

It is already feeling like home and we haven’t yet spent 24 hours in this house. Part of feeling at home is the simple fact that we drove down the road to our son’s place for dinner last evening and had a normal family meal around their big dining room table. I may have some hang-ups about chicken butchering day, but I certainly enjoyed the baked chicken and fresh garden vegetables last night. We even had slices of fresh pears from the orchard to top off the meal.

Last night as we were sharing the things for which we are grateful, I gave thanks for a year and a bit more of moving toward retirement. We had a plan. We would move closer to family. We would take our time. We’d rent for a year and evaluate both the market and where we wanted to live and they buy a house. Last night I was feeling especially grateful that our plan had worked. It was an imperfect plan. We hadn’t anticipated how wild the housing market would be and how high the prices would go, but we were able to navigate the wild market with a little help from a very good real estate agent, and here we are in a new-to-us home in a place where even a year ago we couldn’t imagine.

When I started writing this journal nearly 15 years ago, I called it simply, “A Pastor’s Journal.” If I were to re-name it today, perhaps I would call it “The View from Almost Canada.” The title isn’t one I created. It was the name of a column that used to appear in an obscure boat building journal written by a man who lived in Eastern Washington, near the borders with Idaho and Canada. That column is no longer being written and its title is remembered by just a small number of followers of homemade low-budget boats. And we are almost in Canada, preparing to face our first winter on the 48th parallel. Because the 48th parallel as a division between Canada and the US goes only to the Pacific Ocean, we are not only just south of Canada, but also just east of Vancouver Island. Our home is even a bit north of Victoria, the capitol of British Columbia. It isn’t a place where we thought we’d live. And even a year ago, I couldn’t have imagined living just a short 15-minute walk from the beach. To top it off, we’re in the fastest-growing community in our county and one of the fastest growing communities in the country, which means that there are plenty of changes coming.

We may be facing a lot of changes and challenges in the years to come, but for now we are at home and it feels good. A new chapter is beginning and it seems to be one as interesting and as enjoyable as those which preceded it.