That was scary

It was a day of things where I should have known better. First of Angie was all hot to clear the driveway and although the storm hadn't finished and I almost never clear the driveway before the storm is finished I decided to appease her. Then I caught two wooden blocks I'd been using to hold up the snowmobile trailer in the snowblower breaking both shear pins for which I had only one spare. So it was down to the plow to finish the job. Sadly that thing is getting harder and harder to start, clearly the old K161 is on its last legs, this summer I MUST do something for it.

Then around 4:30 she suggested we go to the park. She'd walk the dog and I could ride for an hour. I should have known this was a bad idea, it was too late in the day, the trailer wasn't hitched, it was covered with snow. Anyway I managed to get it hitched up myself which is not something I'm good at but in the process I broke the welds holding the trailer jack. Looking critically at them there is decent penetration on the jack but zero on the trailer tongue. I'll have to cut the weld back off and really put the burn to it. I've also been fighting the tilt pin. The trailer is held down by two tabs with a pin through them under the tongue. One tab has a broken weld and has moved so its difficult to get the pin in and out which makes tilting the trailer a pain. My old trailer had a much better tilt mechanism. In fact other than the fact that it was only six feet wide (oh and its broken) my old trailer was much easier to live with, it was lower and had a less steep tilt too.

We headed out at ten minutes to five knowing we didn't have much daylight. Our neighbor was just starting to clear his driveway so I had to sneak around his car in the street. The street is really narrow with all this snow. Finally on our way we made the turn to head to the park and the trailer slid into oncoming traffic! Fortunately it didn't have enough mass to drag the truck with it but it was pretty scary for a second. I was extraordinarily lucky that it didn't sideswipe a truck coming in the other direction. I'm not too proud to say I freaked out and turned around at the next opportunity. Got home, got in a fight with a guy delivering a snowblower. Got the Jag unloaded, got the trailer parked and rode the Jag and Cobra around the yard to let off steam.

What a day!