Been dealing with a lot of people constantly wanting me to solve their problems. Super annoying. One of which is the 4300lb sea ray….. getting her up at the beginning of summer absolutely kicked my behind. It was a crap ton of labor and time getting her here and ready to hit the water. And then all summer long said family friend didn’t invite me out on the boat once for any wakeboarding trips. And then another friend in the group told me that I didn’t get any invites because I don’t like to get up early to go. Which is total BS….. so my attitude the last month or so in anticipation of the call coming in to haul the boat down for winter storage has been “you know what…. It’s your boat and if you don’t want me around so be it….handle transport on your own”
During the first week of the line fire, while I was down at the lake house, she messaged asking me to take the trailer to the marina so the bunks could get replaced before they trailered the boat to shrink wrap it. I just responded and said sorry out of town can’t help. That got me time but of course last week the boat was shrink wrapped and ready to go off the mountain. Unfortunately the beginning of last week saw a big flare up in the line fire and almost evacuation orders again. Two out of the three highways in and out of town were shut down and she of course was on me saying the boat needed to get down asap. I responded and said no because of the highway situation. And I had no desire to tow the boat down the one highway that goes from 7,000 feet elevation, to 4,000 feet elevation in less than 20 miles, with its gnarly grades and multiple sets of back to back tight switchback corners. I’ve towed my mom’s boat down that highway a couple times and I’m totally capable of doing it. In fact it doesn’t scare me at all but I just didn’t want to. That bought me another week but now that all the highways are open and the line fire is under control of course now the boat needs to get down the mountain ASAP because of cold night time temps. Ugh…… why is everyone else’s crisis my emergency to fix.
Anyways I told her today was my only free day. A Sunday….. I was hoping she’d say she busy and couldnt deal with it today but no such luck…… so of course cuz I’m a nice guy and do things even when I don’t want to and even when it puts me out……. I handled the tow to Orange County. And of course it couldn’t just be easy. Went to the marina and hooked up the boat to find out her trailer tie downs were not in place…… which means the knucklehead Marina guys didn’t grab her tie downs and tie the boat down when they trailered it…. The tie downs were on the drivers seat of the boat…. They shrink wrapped the tie downs into the boat…… insert palm to face emoji here…… I guess this is what you get for sending an amateur to do a professional’s job….. oh wait I’m not a professional hauler….. no I'm just meticulous with all the little details.
So I had to unhook, drive ALL THE WAY back across the valley to my house to fish my ratchet tie downs out of the garage, and then go ALL THE WAY back across town, hook up, and then head BACK ACROSS TOWN AGAIN to get to the east end of the valley to highway 38….
At any rate I’m still happy that when I’m called in to be the problem solver as always, and in this case the solution is my rig doing a tow job, I can rely on my Denali to get the job done.
I won’t lie, spending the money on correct replacement parts for the Z55 suspension and then the airlift bags I put in my rear coil springs, was worth every penny….. I love that the truck stays completely level no matter what I’m towing and there’s no back end squat whatsoever. Snapped these photos down at the base of the mountain when I stopped to check on the hitch, safety chains, and trailer tires before hitting the freeway. Not bad for an 18 year old shitbox with 203k on it lol.
