Chapter 8: Trailer Time

I’d spent the evening munching on pizza, sending emails and contacting breeders. I mapped out my journey to my brother’s house and planned my trip. I also reviewed the research I’d done on trailers and came away a positive feeling about my decision. Measure twice and cut once is the old adage and that was what I was trying to do.

The pizza was surprisingly excellent for a delivery pizza; it’s understood that no matter how good the pizza joint you order from is, unless they are a top-end restaurant, they employ mostly teenagers and young adults. If you’ve ever watched a teenaged boy order pizza you’ll understand what I’m talking about, they believe more is better because – well – that’s how they eat it. That night the young ones must have been out to see the new superhero movie or some such because I got an elegant and crispy pizza-pie with just the right mix of everything. I tipped very well that night.

The next morning was another flurry of activity at the guest house. We had a team meeting at 8am with coffee and breakfast eats for all; a lot was happening in the next few days and we all needed to be on the same page. The first order of business from David’s point of view was to give me a verbal tongue lashing about my investment in the retail auto business the prior day, that was on the schedule of investments for my account and I was supposed to be a silent partner in this business. I took my lecture with grace and promised to avoid such maneuvers in the future.

The next business matter was new hires for the fund, and I took my cue to get back into the role of silent partner, meaning I stayed silent. We were updated on the status of our new clients and prospects, and Traci proposed a few new reports which would keep our meetings to a minimum. Traci also updated on the sub-lease we had just picked up on a furnished office space and the details of the move that would happen this afternoon. That was good news for me as I’d have the guest house back to myself until I left on my journey.

Breakfast meeting over, Sonya and I went out the door; I was off to look at trailers at the specialist shop in San Diego I had decided upon. It took Sonya an annoying amount of time to pull together the things she would need to work in the truck on the drive down to San Diego; I sat in my truck twiddling my thumbs while I waited for her. It was worth the wait because once she got her working space set up in the passenger seat (which I couldn’t have done) we started to get a lot accomplished really quickly; she was amazingly efficient. She gave me full reports on the status of my real estate project, purchase requests and responses from my family to the gifts that were offered. Sonya had full access to my email so she saw whatever came and went; this was business and it was important that she saw everything.

It took the full length of the drive to cover all existing business: she reported to me, I made decisions, we made a few phone calls and then suddenly two hours had passed and we were at the custom trailer facility. This was their main assembly & custom fabrication shop, distribution point and included some display models for their elite models. I wanted an elite model.

After parking, we walked amongst the display models until we found their highest end live-in livestock trailer. It was an impressive thing slightly more than fifty feet long and sitting on three axles. It had stalls for five animals, a tack room, overhead hay storage and a luxurious living area. Most importantly was that you could have it fully customized. Sonya took notes as we toured the living area, and we were quickly met by your predictable salesguy.