I towed a trailer with my Mazda MPV, through the Blue Mountains, in the snow...and all I got was a broken fog lamp

So, here we are. It has been quite a while since last I posted, but I have a good reason. I kind of forgot I had this blog. I know, I know...it isn't that good a reason. Well...too bad, that's all I've got.

I was at Ft. Eustis, again, for three months. AND, I was taking a full load of college classes online. I found out a lot about myself in those three months. First, I enjoy active duty life a lot less than I thought I would, especially when I live in barracks that should be condemned. Second, I am actually much better at online college classes than I thought. And third, I have very little patience for slow cell phone internet.

Being back at Eustis was a little depressing. Well, for the first few days it was actually a lot depressing. Call me a wiener, but I hate being away from my family. I don't care to miss my kids growing up, even if it is only for three months. I don't care to be away from my wife, who is the only person I have ever met that I can stand to be around every single day (well, her and my kids, but I don't share a room with my kids).

Depressing or not, and sucky or not though, we got through it. Classes were fine and I got to talk to my wife and kids every day. I at least had access to a vehicle that I could drive once in a while to get away. Altogether not a bad three month "vacation."

One nice thing about being gone was I got home two weeks before Christmas. We finally had a really nice Christmas this year, too. And, for the first time since we got married, we celebrated Christmas in our own house, which we had just moved into. Yeah, we moved to Nampa, but the neighborhood is great and our house is amazing, even if it is a rental.

January was cold. It was made a little warmer because we always file our taxes as early as we can, and we got a decent refund. Enough to get Britt her front loading washer and dryer. However, it was made just a little bit colder by the fact that I enrolled in all on-campus classes this semester. That was a horrible idea. Why did I do this?

This month has been pretty darn good. Still cold, but the boys have been able to go outside and play in our nice back yard. They love to go out there and play with the puppies. I want to get going on setting up the trampoline we got the boys for Christmas, but the weather can't make up its mind.

Valentine's Day was really good this year, too. I finally gave Britt one that she deserved, and she gave me one that I will always remember. Plus, we took a trip to Seattle last weekend as a part of our V-day festivities. Which brings me to the title of this post.

Michele, my sister-in-law, had some stuff in an apartment up in Seattle that she needed to get out, so I offered to drive up there, have my brother and her just get a U-haul trailer, and tow it behind our van back home. I didn't know, however, that my van didn't have a wiring harness for trailer lights.

Fortunately, there is a U-haul near my home and they had all of the parts I needed. UNfortunately, I also needed to purchase a "stinger" and ball, AND a tool simply known as a "test light." That was a fun one.

I got all the stuff I needed from U-haul. I also got plenty of instructions from the guy that worked there, which was nice. Then, all I had to do was acquire a "12V test light," figure out which wires did what on my tail light, and hook up the wiring harness. I though, with all of my electrical experience in the Army, how hard could it be? Ha.

I am actually making this sound harder than it actually was, but it didn't feel easy at all at the time. I went to Walmart to find the elusive "12V test light." No dice. The guy in the automotive department didn't even know what I was talking about...unfortunately, I didn't really either.

My adventure then led me to O'Reilly, where there is an extreme overabundance of such "test lights." Naturally, being the savvy mechanical genius that I am, I figured that the more money I spent on the tool, the greater success I would have. Wow...and wrong. I am that a lot, wrong I mean.

After making a poor purchase decision in the "better" test light, I tried to get the wiring harness attached. The test light worked...kind of. It especially worked when I touched my hand against something metal, giving me a horribly erroneous reading of voltage being present, when actually there was only continuity between the test light, my hand, and the metal object. Boo.

After quite a bit of frustration, some cursing, and blowing the fuse for my tail lights, I gave up. Yeah, giving up is the pits, but sometimes you must admit defeat to live until another day.

To be continued...