IWTDI tour blog, Volume 5 (Day 14), 6 April TRAILER SHOPPING BLUES

Monday morning, we left San Francisco earlier than we might have wanted to, but we had trailers to buy. We had been calling all over, and Rachel had been getting some very quick lessons on trailer makes and models. We had been working with a big trailer chain called Trailers Plus or something like that, and we thought we had a plan. We drove to a town called Gilroy on the 101, expecting to buy a trailer for about 1600 bucks. Sadly (for them) the trailer store we went to had just decided to be closed on Mondays, so we were stuck with a U-Haul and nothing else. We didn’t have time to sit around though, so we hit the road towards Ventura and decided to google and call trailer stores along the way.

There are lots of trailer stores out there. And there are lots of trailers. And they are all kind of expensive, but they are also very hit or miss in terms of quality. Of course we had just lost a trailer so we knew some of that, but we must have hit six different places over the next few hours. The second or third one we hit was tucked away just off the road, but it was the kind of place you would just drive past without noticing. Somehow I saw out of the corner of my eye some really nice trailers, and so we did a couple of U-turns and came back around.

This place had the trailer of our dreams! But it was around 2600 dollars, just way too expensive for us to think about buying. But looking at it, the trailer gave us a very clear idea of what we needed to look for in terms of size, suspension, tongue, hitch, etc. We hit the road again, hearing tale of an elusive, comparable trailer for almost half the price a few hours south in Paso Robles.

We drove the two hours to Paso Robles to find a nice little 4X6 trailer, made by the same company (Wells Cargo), but the thing was crazy flimsy. It seemed like an errant stone could pierce the shell of this thing like a thin pane of glass.



Thwarted, we continued down towards Ventura, calling places ahead of us and finding nothing. It began to dawn on us that if we really want a trailer that would make the trip, protect our gear, etc, we would have to be willing to spend the money. If we had the benefit of time, we might be able to find something cheaper but we have business to conduct.

This is where our incredible label comes in. We called Todd, owner of Greyday Records, telling him that we were in trailer trouble and that we might need help affording a new one. He did not hesitate to say he would help us out. This guy is amazing, putting the same skin in the game that we’re putting. We do this together, succeed or fail. Anyway, our plan was to meet up with him in Ventura and bring him home to Portland, so he came in just at the right time to help us resolve this.

The U-Haul has been great. It has been easy to use even though it’s way too long. We can fit all of our gear into it, and it doesn’t bounce like the last trailer did. But we are eager to have a trailer of our own again. By the time we got to Ventura, we were still empty handed though, so it looked like we would still be waiting. Stay tuned for the rest of the story!