Cherie fills in the blanks

9/7/06 Thursday

9/8/06 Friday
I haven’t written in this journal for three days now. Wednesday I worked on the trailer all day to discover I put the wrong plug end on the end that plugs into my truck. I went to the store and bought one and got that fixed. Fred came out and watched and watched and occasionally said something. Finally it came time for me to back the truck up and plug the trailer in. I was confident it would work because I had gone through every connection twice. One of the overhead lights didn’t work but that was because I had broken the bulb and of course forgot to put another one in. Easily fixed.

The other problem was not easily fixed. At least not for me. The left turn signal wasn’t working. Nuts. Cherie had come home and was fixing dinner so I called it a day. It had been a long day because I had a fight with the memory and staying on task. I would ponder a dilemma decide how I was going to do it. Then I would see something else to do and forget what I had decided. Finally coming back to that task I would have to figure it out again. It made for a long day with me starting many tasks over and doing them again.

That was Wednesday. Now to yesterday. I got on the trailer as soon as I got off the net. What a time waster that is. First I checked all the connections with a glance and traced down the wires to make sure they were the right colors, green for the right turn signal and I think brown for the left. No its yellow. That was all correct. FINE THEN, What is the problem. Now I started at the rear of the trailer, working methodically down the line with the idea that would keep me from getting lost. Didn’t really work. I called Wayne to see if he would like to come out and watch cause I figure he could help me keep on track. He didn’t want to come, so much for that idea.

Now it is going down the line again, this time checking every connection carefully. I redid some just on principle and did find one that was bad. I plug the trailer in and still there is no turn signal. Damn, I know the connections are right But…”The wiring job I did to install the truck’s trailer hook up!”. Now I crawl back under the truck to examine that.

Again, everything is hooked up right. Time to get my volt meter out and see if there is power. Nothing. To make sure I was testing it right I turned on the right hand signal. Yeah I was doing it right. Even though it looked secure I cut the wire that I had hooked up to the left turn signal wire. Putting the meter on it I see the truck side wiring didn’t work. Now that puzzled my non mechanic brain because the turn signals worked well on the truck. Must be a problem with the factory wiring. What a pain in the ass it was to trace the wiring harness up to the front.

It went into a black box under the hood. Lifting the lid I see it is a fuse box with forty or fifty fuses. “Nooo. It couldn’t have been that simple” I say to myself. Alright, it’s time to get the truck manual out. Finding the fuses for turn signals I checked the and they were not blown. Back to the manual I looked at the diagram and find two fuses labeled “Trailer RT and LT”. I suppose that would be the right and left turn signal. Sure enough, I pulled the left turn signal fuse and it was blown. Never thought about it and of course with me starting at the trailer and working forward it was the last thing I checked. By then Cherie was home and fixing dinner so that was the end of that. I plugged everything in and it all worked. I had Cherie press the brakes and everything to make sure. Yeah!! Finally it’s done.

Now we’re to today. It is 12:00 and Cherie is just coming home for lunch. She called and asked if I had eaten and of course I haven’t. I had gone out to follow up on a suggestion Fred had made while he watched for what seemed like hours yesterday.
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Sunday, September 10th

Howdy! Today is my parents 51st wedding anniversary! Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad! I guess I better go get a card or something………..

Bob has been incredibly busy, engrossed, swamped, and totally pre-occupied with getting the trailer rebuilt and the lighting re-wired for our move to Texas. He is also exhausted because he had to rent a couple of tools that he doesn’t have and had to make good use of them while he had them. He asked me to make en entry in his journal and for the blog – so here goes!

Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that in just about 5 weeks we will be leaving here to start the next adventure in our lives – building a life in the desert. From big city craziness to the slower pace of a country lifestyle. Last week I packed several boxes and we took them to the storage unit, as there is no room to stack them in our place. It seems that with every box I pack, I turn around and there’s more stuff needing to be packed! How did we end up with so much stuff? What am I supposed to do with all this crap!??! Some things I am actually giving away – the blue jars, some candles that I never used (they’ll just melt out there in the heat), some old junky clothes…………

Today is Sunday and much cooler than it has been. I welcome the change in temperature but I also worry – I’m a good worrier. When we took a load of stuff to Texas in July, we also took all of our winter clothes that I had packed away in the storage unit – oooops. Hopefully we will be able to make due with wearing layers and our jackets until we leave here. Here is the last entry Bob wrote a couple days ago.