Checking in at Canyon de Chelly during a road trip through the Navajo Nation, I came to the line on the registration form asking for vehicle make and model. 

“Orange Chevy Blazer,” I wrote, which, though accurate, only began to hint at the deeper truths of my friend Tom Gamache’s truck.

“I think you’ll know this truck when you see it,” I said to the hotel clerk from Kayenta before offering her a few details about the Blazer, most notably its model year (1972) and mileage (more than 1.5 million).

“Oh, I love old trucks!” she said. “Can you take a picture of me next to it?”

Out in the parking lot, Tom and the Blazer were waiting: a boy and his truck. The grill and its reflective blue Chevrolet emblem, recently scrubbed of 900 miles of smashed bugs at a Chinle gas station, glistened, even on an overcast day, as the clerk posed along the driver’s side. 

In cities, the Blazer is more a curiosity than an object of desire. But on this trip and many others in the 20-plus years that Tom and I have traveled together, we’d noticed that the...