Collateral Damage

Not sure if you can guess from the picture above, but I have a new trailer!

Found a nice used trailer at a great price on craigslist.com. Happened to be near my in-law's house, so we combined a quick visit with a purchase trip and returned with a trailer.

Trailer

Only problem was the return trip got delayed slightly so that I arrived after dark. That wasn't in the plans. Now we're on a residential street, with a trailer that is QUITE long (38' from hitch to back) and several of the lights don't work.

OK, we'll just go up and over the curb and down into the back yard and deal with it later. Well, it hung on the sidewalk. Not just a little scrape, but really hung hard. Hard enough that the truck just spun trying to back it up. Now we're stuck and are blocking the entire main street of my neighborhood.

I had to unhitch from the truck and me and the family shove the trailer back loose by brute force. Moved the truck to a different angle and got the hitch back on the ball. I just need to shove it back into the street and at least get one lane open, so I don't fight with the ball latch, which is being a pain. Mistake (again).

Hop back in the truck and back away... fine, until the truck came off the curb and the trailer jumped off the hitch. Well, we're only partially blocking the road now (remember, its dark, the only streetlight in the area is well down the street and the trailer lights are now totally out since we're loose of the truck).

Somewhere in this timeframe is when the snack I had earlier reached critical mass in my stomach. I really, really need to go in the house. Now. But the road is blocked.

Get it cranked back up and back on the truck. Fine, enough of this, we'll just put it in the driveway and deal with it tomorrow. 

Great plan. Wish I had missed the mailbox. Missed the fireplug across the street though!

I had been wondering how to get that post out of the ground (it needed replaced anyhow). Now I know, just run over it with something.

All of this excitement was due to a few core issues: darkness, fatigue (I had been working over night and was running WAY minus on sleep), and being in a rush. I didn't want to leave the street blocked. It's those kinds of things that we always hear about getting us in trouble on the water. It's not much different on land.

Well, I did make it to the little room in time, but it was a very close thing.

P.S. To finish matters off, when I went out this morning to move the truck a little so we could get the car out of the garage to go to church, I found I had left the window down on the truck. It rained last night.