I haven’t owned a vehicle since I turned my truck over on its side three years ago. I’ve been able to get by due to working from home, kind friends, and frequent flier miles.
Through stubbornness and luck, I’m once again driving a Toyota pickup truck. No compromises were made, and I found it in Paradise, CA.
For reference, I live in a cozy 300sq ft. apartment in NW Portland and bike into an office three days a week. I do get to leave the city a lot for work, but over the summer, the desire for my own wheels was revived when I went on back-to-back trips that reminded me how being in wild places is integral to my happiness.
On a Saturday morning, a friend picked me up, and we drove to the Gorge for a run around Coyote Wall. After 10 miles on the hill, I ate a burrito and watched kiteboarders glide across the windy Columbia River. We felt a world away from the bustle of Portland, but an hour and a half later, I was back in my studio.
The following day, a different friend pulled up to my apartment complex with surfboards strapped to the roof rack. We drove an hour and a half west and surfed the rugged, beautiful coast. Once again, I watched the water after being humbled by the waves and realized I needed more of this in my life.
Finding a vehicle is pretty annoying, and my method was a mix of asking friends about their cars and keeping my eyes peeled on the streets as well as Craigslist. I asked Lyft drivers about their mileage and how their cars handle wet conditions.
One friend swore that now was the best time to lease a vehicle, and another said he lost a ton of money trying that process and advised against it. I test-drove Honda Fits and other hatchbacks that Google recommended. Did the song and dance with car dealers for loan offers. I listened to people advise me against manual transmissions and older models and why I shouldn’t be driving at all!
Flash forward to mid-October; a friend loaned me his car to drive to a wedding in California. If it wasn’t already apparent – I have GREAT friends. During weekend downtime in Chico, muscle memory took me to Craigslist, and the location settings pulled up Butte County. Between overpriced Subarus and lifted trucks that had been hacked apart in garages, one truck caught my eye. It was an access cab Tacoma with low miles. It was also posted in Paradise.
Did I know the owner? A slightly blurred photo and minimal information hinted that they were elderly. This was it. It had been posted two days earlier, but I had to send an email if I was going to make it happen. I made sure to mention that I was also from Paradise and to call me as soon as he saw the email if it was available. Like many other ideas that flash into my mind, the thought of buying a car left as quickly as it had appeared.
The next day, I went to Paradise to see a friend and check out Johnny Appleseed Days, my favorite town holiday. While I was between bites of a caramel apple on a stick, my phone rang from a local number. It was him, and he told me to come over and check it out in 30 minutes. My heart was racing from the sugar and excitement.
We spotted the truck across three empty lots. It was backed into a driveway of an older home, which was among a cluster that survived the fire.
“Holy shit, that’s clean.” my friend said
As I’d suspected, an older man with a checkered shirt tucked in came outside to greet us. As you do when you connect with someone else from Paradise, they ask who your family is and where you were during the fire. After formalities, he simply said, “Key is in it. Feel free to go test it out.”
I chuckled, thinking about how this wouldn’t happen in Portland – giving a stranger from the internet your key and letting them test drive on their own.
The truck felt different than my old Toyotas. Slightly wider and newer. Well, newer is a relative term. My first vehicle at 16 was a 1985 Toyota pickup with five gears, two seats, and not much power. The second was a 2004 Tacoma, also with five gears, jump seats, and enough oomph to get me over the Siskiyou Summit when I transferred to Southern Oregon.
For a year or two, there was a Honda Civic in the mix, but you get the idea. Now I was sitting in a 2009 – a truck that’s about 14 years old but has been cherished by its original owner — six gears with a slightly wider body and access doors for someone to cram in behind me.
I told my friend not to laugh at me if I stalled it, but I’d never driven a car with a clutch so smooth. As I drove around the empty streets of the Ridge, I shifted with ease and knew that this was what I was looking for. When we returned, finding the reverse on the left side of the gears threw me for a loop, but I backed it in as it was when I found it. After test drives, conversations, and unreturned emails, I knew that this had to be my truck. Naysayers be damned.
We agreed on a price, but I told him I couldn’t get the truck for about two weeks. Could he hold it for me? The perfect truck had appeared at the least perfect time.
I still had my friend’s car in California, and I needed to drive 8-hours back to Portland. I had to get funds from the bank, and I had to get car insurance. Also, I would be going to New York – twice in the next three weeks.
I expressed this to the man as clearly as I could without sounding like a crazy person. He said with a handshake he would hold it for me.
My excitement was through the roof, and I was so hyped leaving the house that it didn’t bother me when I had to lay on the horn and swerve out of the way of an Amazon delivery car that pulled out in front of me.
When I came back two weeks later, I was exhausted. I had flown from New York to Portland and Portland to Sacramento. My mom picked me up in Sac, and we went to her house in Chico. In the morning, we drove back up the hill, and I let out a sigh of relief when the truck came into view across the lots. The man looked happy to see me. We had exchanged a few emails, but there’s always some doubt when dealing with strangers. I was on a tight timeline to get back to Oregon for the second time in two weeks, but we chatted in the man’s kitchen.
He said that many people had contacted him about the truck, but he’d turned down all of their offers. He was happy that we were from Paradise, and he told me about his Camp Fire story. On November 8th, 2018, he was up early and keeping tabs on the fire. When he realized how bad things were, he took off in his RV, leaving his house with the Tacoma parked in the garage behind.
The fact that it survived the fire made me love it more.
My mom could sense my excitement and, in her wise, motherly way, reminded me that while the truck was beautiful, it was still just a “thing” and that things don’t make or break us. She was right. I do have a hard time not attaching meaning to objects, which has led to some heartbreak.
As I drove down Skyway and back towards Portland, I felt mixed emotions. Excitement for the new truck and sadness thinking about the beautiful trees that used to line the main road. I felt tired from non-stop travel and nervous about the long drive with work waiting for me at home.
More than anything, though, I felt thankful. Thankful that the old man trusted me with his truck and thankful that it had come from Paradise.
It is still just a thing, but a thing that makes me happy and one that I hope will be with me for a while.
Eli Stillman 
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