As a Utah native I am allowed to harp on Utah all I want. I do enjoy living here, but Utah has some funny quirks about it. Did you know Utahans eat more Jell-O per capita than anywhere else in the world? Not to mention the weird weather. We can have warm and sunny one day and a blizzard the next or even in the same day. When I was younger I actually snow skied and water skied in the same day.

Weird weather was the case about a week ago when my wife and I decided to make a trip down to IKEA. As my loyal readers would know, all two of you, (thanks Mom, thanks Aunt Clara), I have been remodeling the basement for what seems like a lifetime. (No pun intended)

We now have all of the major work complete and are starting to furnish it. The first priority was getting the kid’s toys organized so they could use the space to play in but we could use the space for other things too. This meant a trip to IKEA. My wife found some shelves there to store the kid’s toys. IKEA has some great stuff at good prices but you have to haul it home and assemble yourself. The assembly part is not a problem but getting the stuff home without a truck is tough.
Problem Solved – remember “my” Lifetime 5’x8’ trailer my Dad bought that I wrote about a few months ago? I now had a solution to my IKEA dilemma. 

Saturday morning was beautiful so we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to go down and pick up the shelving unit. Heading down to the store, the sky started to look ominous. By the time we had completed our shopping and come outside to load up our stuff we were in the middle of a blizzard.

I live in a part of Utah that is right up against the mountains and where whenever there is a storm we seem to get more snow than most of the rest of the valley. Great! Now we had a 45 minute drive home in blinding snow, with two screaming kids, and a trailer full of furniture. Yep, sounds about right for me and the kind of predicaments I get into. After what was normally a 45 minute commute turned into about an hour and a half we finally arrived home. Now the fun really began. We live in a circle that is up a road so steep that it is a challenge to get up even when you are not pulling a trailer behind you. And, of course, the road had not been plowed yet.

We quickly talked through a plan. I would punch it up the road and my wife would have the garage door opener at the ready. If we hoped to make it up the road and up the driveway there would be no stopping mid-way. This meant that if the door wasn’t open by the time we reached it there would be trouble – i.e. A smashed garage door and screaming, not coming from the kids.

Our plan worked out well except for the fact that with the trailer attached to the car we were now eight feet longer and would not fit all the way into the garage. The snow was still coming down hard and I did not want to leave the garage door open or have the trailer in the way when I tried plowing the driveway.
But wait, I thought, this was no ordinary trailer. This was the Lifetime 5’x8’ FOLDING trailer (shameless plug).  A trailer that could be folded and stowed away. We quickly unloaded the furniture boxes then folded the trailer. Since it folds to only 29” wide it easily slipped it into the garage between the two cars. There it would remain safe and dry. I could now close the garage door, and plow the snow from the driveway. My wife was impressed with my cleverness and of course I acted like I had planned this to work out this well the entire time.