As I said a while back, my dad took a new job out in western Nebraska. He’s working for a guy he used to work for out in Tooele who just bought a Ford-Toyota dealership in a little podunk town out there. He put my dad in over parts and service, and he’s been doing such a good job that he’s already trying to move him up to general manager. Most importantly, though, my dad really enjoys his job.

My parents finally sold their house here and found one out there, and yesterday was the day to load up the moving truck. I knew my parents had a lot of stuff to move, but I didn’t realize quite how much until we started putting in the truck. We filled up a twenty-four foot moving truck and still had tons left.

Luckily my dad was able to borrow a big pickup and trailer from his boss. The boss had borrowed the truck from the dealership in Nebraska, so it needed to go back anyway. We loaded up the bed, packed some stuff in the huge crew cab, filled the trailer, loaded up my mom’s car, and still had a fair amount of stuff that wouldn’t fit. We gave some stuff to the neighbors, and we kids took some a few things home, too. The rest is going to the dump or being sold in a yard sale this week.

My parents finally finished up last night, and they headed out this morning. My dad drove the moving truck, towing my mom’s car behind. My mom drove my dad’s minivan. And they enlisted my brother, who was able to take a day off of work, to drive the borrowed pickup and trailer.

I should note that we’ve always been GM people, so we joked about the Ford truck—fix or repair daily, found on roadside dead, all the usual. I doubt any of us really thought there’d be a problem, though; Ford does build decent cars, and it was a brand-spanking-new, $49,000 truck. Not exactly an unreliable old beater.

Well, the poor thing made it to Coalville—about one-eighth of the way—before it overheated and gave up the ghost. They left it at the Ford dealership in town and continued on without it; most of the stuff in it and the trailer was pretty non-essential, anyway. My older brother drove up to Coalville to pick up my now-stranded brother and bring him back home.

Fortunately, my parents just called to let us know that they’d made it safely there. The dealership in Coalville is going to fix the truck, and then the dealership in Nebraska is going to send someone out to pick it up. My parents will just have to live without their lawnmower, exercise equipment, and patio furniture for a few extra days, I guess.

And now, for the first time in my life, I live in a different state from my parents. For most of my time in college, I was only about ten minutes away from them, though when Brinestone and I moved up to Salt Lake it became a 45-minute drive to their house. Now they’re two states and eight hours away, living on five acres just outside of a town of about 20,000.

I’m happy that my dad loves his new job, and I hope they like the town, but I’ll certainly missing having them around. It definitely won’t be as convenient to drop by and raid their fri—er, I mean come over and spend quality family time together.