The Long Road to a New Home

You haven’t lived until you have towed a rental trailer behind a small, underpowered SUV for the better part of two days. Although, having grown up in the South and having owned an actual truck at one time*, I had never towed anything. So naturally I decided towing a trailer was the best way to move my family to our new home.

Just renting the trailer was more hassle than I ever imagined. I had to go to a seedy gas station roughly 45 minutes from my house to pick up the trailer. Of course, I had reserved the trailer weeks before and had expected to be able to swing by one of their two large stores on my way home from work that day, but that rental company had other ideas. They also refused to allow me to pull it with my mid-sized SUV due to some class action lawsuit. Thus, I was forced to use our other, less powerful SUV.

Behind schedule and unable to back up the trailer, an issue I discovered after a frustrating practice session in an empty parking lot, I made it home and we loaded the trailer. Since we were renting a furnished townhouse, we were only bringing the necessities such as electronics, clothes, toys, and bikes. It wasn’t long before that trailer was packed full with just the necessities.

The drive was a stressful one. My lack of experience towing had me on high alert. The poor, little SUV struggled with the load. Every time we somehow managed to reach blazing speeds of 55 or 60 mph, the trailer would start swaying scaring both my daughter, who had the misfortune of riding with me instead of her mother, and me. 

We made it to the beach town without incident. I am sure I must have felt the same combination of pride, satisfaction, and relief as the pioneer dads who had spent months battling weather, cholera, swollen rivers, and other hardships to take their families to Oregon or California.

I thanked God as we pulled into a gas station to top off our tanks. The SUV jerked like the entire rear end had been pulled out like a scene from The Dukes of Hazzard. I thought SUV given up and finally died or that I had hit a gas pump. I expected to see people running away right before we all died in a huge fireball.

Nothing. Nobody seemed to have noticed that I had caught the fender of the trailer on one of those metal pilings that protect the pumps from idiots pulling trailers. As a person who never takes out optional insurance on anything I was thankful that I had had the divine inspiration to have done so this time. When we returned the trailer the next day I noticed almost every trailer in the lot had at least one dented fender. It made me feel better about myself.

I think both the SUV and I sacrificed some of our lifespan on that trip.

So, we had managed to have had arrived in one piece at our new home. We were ready to start our new lives.

* That truck I bragged about earlier? Well, my wife owned it when we got married. I owned a sports car. Never tell your new wife that you only married her for her truck. I cannot stress this enough.