Trailer Travails
Today I am getting ready for our one-year-postponed 25th Anniversary gathering of my motorcycle club. The plan is that on Friday we will drive with our friends Chris and Ann (and, of course, Betty) to Las Vegas with our motorcycles (actually, both of the bikes are mine since Chris will ride my Kawasaki and I will ride my BMW) in my motorcycle trailer. We will unload the bikes in Las Vegas and then ride them up to Teasdale, Utah, where we will stay and ride from for five days. Kim and Ann will drive the car and the empty trailer up to Utah in case we need it, then we all ride/drive back to Las Vegas in the same configuration and rom there reload the bikes for the drive back to Escondido the following week. The stretch from Escondido to Las Vegas is across the Mojave Desert and while that can be a pleasant ride, the fast way is a whole lot of slab (what we motorcyclists call highway), so I prefer to transport the bikes for that stretch. This is what the trailer is for, as well as to provide fall-back capability during the ride (which we have usually done as point-to-point rather than staying in one place and doing day rides).
I bought this trailer in 2013 for just this sort of purpose and used it pretty much annually until last year. In the early years I rented an outdoor space at a local self-storage depot, but several years ago, at my brother-in-law Jeff’s suggestion, I put the trailer in his warehouse, where it has been sitting for several years. In the meantime, I have changed cars. My old Mercedes (a 2010) had a tow hitch attached to it by Jeff. My new Mercedes (a 2019) caused me no end of hassles to get rigged with a hitch, but it finally got done in time for last year’s ride, only to have the ride cancelled. So, here I sit today with a car that has never been road-tested dragging the trailer and a trailer I have to get out of the warehouse for the first time. I will be doing all of that today and with any luck, I will have the trailer here later today to check out for roadworthiness.
The things we do in life that are less than efficient and more irrational than not are amazing. It makes little or no sense for me to own this trailer, but I had it fitted out with our motorcycle club logo emblazoned on the side. It is actually a very slick-looking vehicle with a sleek white fiberglass body with a blue/black/red flying wing logo on the side. Still, I am not sure all that justifies owning it and paying the cost of keeping it for annual use. I guess I assumed that when I retired I might use it more, but then COVID hit and I haven’t really had the chance to test that theory. Now that I am getting this trailer out of storage, I plan to rent either a storage unit (about $280/month) or a parking space (a lot less/month) to have it join all the other relatively underutilized recreational vehicles which are lodged in various storage facilities in the area.
I have had a strong point of view about storage units for many years now. It has been my thought that storage units are for hoarders and movers. If you are not in the process of a move, then, by definition if you have a storage unit you are a hoarder. It is fair to say that street vendors who use storage units to warehouse their wares may be a valid exception. I also give a pass of sorts to urban dwellers who do not have an attic or basement to store extra junk like seasonal clothing. I know Kim kept a small storage unit in NYC, but she also Hearn me drone on about getting rid of it far too long to be able to ignore it. I have spent my life moving from here to there and generally think that storage units are actually bad for you. They promote the saving of junk that you really don’t need and well afford to dispose of. That seems even more the case now that we have a three-car garage with one car and two motorcycles in it.
Our garage is an integral part of our daily life here on the hilltop. Some of that is due to the never ending flow of household projects we have had in process for the last year (one of which was the renovation of the interior of the garage itself). Some of it is due to the general outdoor existence of living in a warm weather area like San Diego. Nevertheless, both Kim and I have a shiny new cabinet and workspace unit at either end of the garage. Kim calls hers a wrapping station for all the gift wrapping she does. I call mine a workbench, which I use for any tinkering I do, which seems to be a daily practice out here. And then the back wall, running more than thirty linear feet is a row of stainless steel shelves that have all our Christmas decorations, motorcycle gear and miscellaneous items that need storage. We do not have an attic in this house and like most California homes, we do not have a proper basement for storage. We do have several utility rooms on either side of the lower house. This is where the HVAC and Solar Energy equipment is housed and one room is our tool and paint storage unit. the other utility rooms are mostly crawl spaces with earthen floors for the most part and thus not really fit for proper storage of anything we might actually care about.
So, you see, we have plenty of storage room in the garage and utility room, but there is no place to keep the trailer without having it get in the way of our daily use of the garage. When I get back from this Utah trip, I may choose to test that theory more aggressively. I would really prefer to avoid keeping my trailer in a remote location and falling into the semi-permanent trap of renting a storage room or storage space for the trailer. The question will then need to be, how much does having the trailer in the garage impede my daily life. As I write this, I am feeling the advantages of keeping the trailer in the garage. We could even use the empty trailer for storage within the storage space, but I cannot tell if that is more cumbersome than not since I should logically put motorcycle gear in the trailer and that means that I would have to empty it every time I wanted to use it. Still, it’s worth considering to avoid the pitfall of having a remote location that offends my mover/hoarder sensibilities.
This all goes to the rent versus buy decision matrix of life. We have all been ingrained to think that buying is far more economical and renting. I long ago starting leasing my cars and I tend to prefer that. I own versus rent my home, but there a million reasons why that is a good choice. Recently, I have opted to rent tools rather than buy more tools that I may only use once in a long while. I made that decision on a new power washer and a wood chipper. I wanted to rent the gantry crane, but had to buy it. It now sits behind the garage taking up space. I really should get rid of it. Maybe I can convince Jeff to take it for his warehouse since I am now convinced I will not put the trailer back in after the trip. I will either keep it in the garage or rent a space/room locally to keep it.
A trailer is a wonderful analogy for the stuff we collect in our lives. Much of it does not make our lives better on the whole and much of that stuff just clutters our lives rather than making them easier or better. Today I will enter the next chapter of my trailer travails and hope to find a solution for its storage. I bet that just getting rid of it would be my best option…right up until next year when I wish I could have it again.