Prius Trailer

I wanted a Prius for years before I bought one. When I finally bought my Prius two odd years ago, it was very exciting. I'm driving my dream car, which is a great feeling :) However, even back in high school I was talking about buying a trailer to haul my SCA gear to medieval events.

I was visiting my family for Christmas, and driving in town with Andrea. She spied a cute little yellow trailer at Don's Rent All in Eureka. We stopped and asked -- they were selling it for only $1500, which is $500 less than the list price.

So I called the Prius dealership, and they told me that while it wouldn't exactly void my warrantee, if anything went wrong that they could blame on hauling a trailer, they wouldn't pay to fix it. They were so serious about it that a manager called me back the next morning to emphasize the point (which means they know who I am!).

Nonetheless, I did some online feasibility research. There were some really informative websites, and it seemed entirely possible. In fact, some lunatics in the Yahoo Prius group haul boats with their Priuses! So I went back down to Don's to take a second look. I ended up talking to the boss (though I didn't know it at the time) and managed to talk him down to $1300. That's $700 less than list (a hefty 35% discount says the math teacher) -- I couldn't pass it up! So I went ahead and bought it, and they agreed to store it for me for a couple (or so...) weeks until I could install a trailer hitch.

So after a bunch of research, I ordered my parts and Dad and I installed the hitch and the wiring kit. Since wiring kits for the Prius aren't exactly common, I ended up following some online instructions to adapt a Camry wiring harness. After some initial stress (we broke 3 tiny screwdrivers trying to pry with them and still had a heck of a time getting a couple of wires to let go!!!) we finally go the wiring harness rewired for the Prius. After that, the installation of the hitch and wiring harness was pretty routine (a minimum of swearing) and we were able to go pick up the trailer that day. (Note that the time estimates are a crock of poop. We started at about 10am, and finished just after 3. Though, this did include two store trips to replace tiny screwdrivers that we broke prying with them and a missing 10mm socket. Still, longer than the instructions indicated by rather a lot.

After picking up the trailer at Don's, Dad took a few photos of our triumph.






Anyhow, after my triumphant return to Crescent City, I was faced with the sad quandary of where to park my trailer. Unlike a car, you can't secure it by simply locking the doors, so I really needed to store it in my garage. Alas, that meant that I couldn't park my car inside the garage bcause I had too much junk stored in there. And it's been raining here for the last 3 weeks. Insert a whole week of parking outside and running to and from the front door. Ugh.

Well, I bought two more wire shelves, and last night I finished the chore of mucking out my garage. I had a lot of empty cardboard boxes! In fact, I even had three boxes of crumpled newspaper from when I moved my dishes!!! So after ruthlessly pruning out a bunch of junk to give away and a whole car load of cardboard and newspaper recycling, I AM ABLE TO PARK MY TRAILER AND MY CAR IN THE GARAGE AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!!! Did I mention that it's been raining for three weeks?!?! YES!!!


Then this afternoon, I got a call from another Prius owner. Apparently, he'd been looking at the same trailer I had, though I beat him to the punch. He wanted some advice on installing a trailer hitch and wiring harness for a Prius. I thought I'd include my email to him, so that if anyone is searching for similar instructions, they can get them :)

***

Hey there,

The two best explanations I found for installing the trailer hitch and the wiring harness were by the same guy; you can find them at http://www.evnut.com/prius_hitch.htm and http://www.evnut.com/prius_trailer_wiring.htm. I ended up using the parts he used in his project. I purchased them from etrailer.com -- it's a big enough order that shipping was free. You can find them at http://www.etrailer.com/pc-H~11468.htm and http://www.etrailer.com/p-118308.htm.

I can confirm that (so far) the wiring works just fine and hasn't shorted anything out :) Once we finally got all the stupid little wires undone (try to find a non-brittle pry tool), it was really easy to rewire the part. Of course, if you're color-blind, you're going to want to get a friend to help you to make sure that you end up with the right wires in the right places :)

Etrailer.com also made a movie of installing the Curt hitch -- I felt much more confident about the project after watching it. http://www.etrailer.com/tv-hitch-install-2007-toyota-prius.aspx


Etrailer.com does sell other hitches for the Prius -- I'm quite happy with the Curt, but you can examine their selection at http://www.etrailer.com/hitch-2009_Toyota_Prius.htm. They also recommend a different wiring harness. The part they recommend doesn't require rewiring (since it's designed for the Prius) but it does require splicing wires on the Prius, which I wasn't interested in doing. You can look at it at http://www.etrailer.com/pc-VWH~119146KIT.htm?vehicleid=20098041

Here are some more random links: http://www.ehow.com/how_2091017_hitch-toyota-prius-bike-rack.html http://www.marcuse.org/harold/pages/PriusBikeRack077.htm

The tools you'll need are:

socket wrench
10mm socket
14mm socket
"breaker bar" = socket wrench with a really long handle for leverage to undo tight bolts (you can just slide a piece of pipe over a socket wrench's handle)
torque wrench (so you know the bolts tightened the right amount on the hitch)
phillips screwdriver
flathead screwdriver
teeny tiny pry tool (non brittle)
zip ties (to hold down loose wires)
knife (to shorten zip ties)
tin snips or shears to trim plastic underbody panel
and I'm probably forgetting something...

Notes:

There are 4 kinds of fasteners holding the underbody panel on -- two weird compression screws that you pry off with a flathead screwdriver, one big phillips screw, one 10mm bolt, and one weird threaded spike that you have to pull the panel straight down off of (last fastener).


Good Luck!

Earthquake

I'm at Mom's house this weekend, after flying back from donating stem cells. Today around 4:30 a major earthquake hit. Andrea, Gabby, Haley, Mom and I were all downstairs, and we all jumped into doorways. I was crouching on the floor clinging to the door jamb so I didn't get thrown out of the doorway! It was so sharp and hard, we really thought the the roof might come down or the house might fall off its foundation. (Bear in mind that we're native Californians and have been through *lots* of earthquakes!) Finally it stopped and after the aftershock we were able to assess the damage. The lawer's bookcase in the living room with all the antique books had fallen down and been destroyed. Lots of paintings fell off the walls, and the fridge had come open and lots of condiments fallen out and smashed. The power was out and the gas was leaking so we had to run outside and turn it off at the meter (our neighbor helped).

Although the official magnitude was only 6.5, we were fewer than 30 miles from the epicenter. The general consensus has been that this one was far stronger feeling than any we're had locally in decades (including a 7.2 in 1992). Luckily everybody was ok, and while the house is a mess it doesn't look damaged. Just a block away another Victorian fell off its foundation, so we were pretty fortunate. The power came back on at around 8pm, so we have lights. PG&E came by to check that we'd properly turned off our gas, but they've got so many emergencies that it might be a few days before they can get the gas working. So no heat or stove for now, but at least we can see to clean up :)

Donating Stem Cells

I had a big adventure lately!

A couple of months ago I got a phone call from a nice lady who asked me if I remembered registering to be bone marrow donor. It turns out that I was a tentative match for a 26 year old woman with Hodgkin's lymphoma; would I be willing to get a blood test so they could see if we were a close enough match? Of course! And thus began my Stem Cell Donation Saga *grin*

First I had to go to the hospital and get some blood drawn. Some was to check if I was a close enough match for the recipient, and some was to check and make sure I didn't have any infectious diseases (cancer patients are already so messed up with the cancer and the meds that getting sick can be the last straw).

Weeks and weeks and weeks later I got a phone call telling me that I was indeed a match. It had been so long I thought we weren't a match and that was the last I was going to hear of it, but I guess not. So then I got reams of paperwork to fill out. It turns out there's an experimental study going on -- instead of jabbing a needle in my hip and sucking out bone marrow (incredibly painful!) they wanted to give me a shot every day for five days and then just draw some blood. Great!

I can't remember the order of all this, but I had a phone interview, I had to get a physical at my doctor's office (since it's too far to travel to one of their sites), and I ended up having to get more blood drawn (since it was too long from the first blood draw until my donation date).

Finally, I had to get shots every day for five days. They were pretty big -- 2mL in each arm :( My RN friend came over to my house to give me the first shot, since it was a Sunday. She also had to draw some blood since they wanted a baseline before giving me the shots. The next two shots I got from my doctor. Then I flew down to SF for my donation, and had the last two days of shots given by the UCSF Medical Center (they were running the study).

Sunday:

The shots hurt, but other than that I was ok. By the end of the day I had a headache.

Monday:

Headache time :( It was weird; normally I get a headache towards the front of my head (you know, like when you have a sinus infection) but this one was at the top/back of my skull :p

Tuesday:

My headache retreated somewhat but my back started to hurt. I've never had a back spasm before, but I'm pretty sure that's what these were. After work I finished recording lessons for my sub to play for my students. Note to self: however long the finished video is going to be, figure you're going to need at least 6 times that much time to edit and encode the video. There is nothing worse than being in a hurry and sitting by your computer for hours while it exports the video to the burning software, and then compresses it for burning. I didn't leave home till 9pm! I took my video to the classroom and popped it into the DVD player, just to make sure everything was ok. And then it didn't work. I contemplated violence, and then popped in the 2nd disc that I'd burned on a just-in-case whim. Whew -- it worked!!! So then I drove down to Eureka.

Wednesday:

Andrea drove my friend Rio and me to the airport. My head and back both hurt, and I was definitely low on energy (though staying up until midnight the last couple of nights wasn't helping!) We flew down to San Francisco and were picked up at the airport by a limo driver. Alas, he wasn't driving a limo when he picked us up *grin*. He dropped us off at the UCSF medical center, where they gave me my 4th set of shots and took more vitals. Then we were escorted across the street to the Acute Dialysis center. They had about five beds in a row, and then a little glass room in the corner -- my semi-private suite for the next day's procedure. There the nurses examined my veins, and concluded that they probably wouldn't need to install a shunt into my neck (ack!) Then they sent us on our merry and told us to be back by 6:30 the next morning. We wandered around a little bit -- our hotel was right on Fisherman's Wharf, so we checked out the cannery and Ghirardelli Square. Rio and I really liked the fountain :)





I didn't have much appetite for dinner that night, so we just ate in the hotel restaurant. It was a pretty hard night for me -- my hips had joined the pain party and I wasn't allowed to take ibuprofen or asprin. Tylenol didn't cut it -- I wished I'd taken the nurses up on the Vicoden they'd mentioned.

Thursday:

The big day! We got up *early* in order to have breakfast and get to the UCSF medical center by 6:30. I felt a little better (I'm always sickest & whiniest at night). I finally got to meet Susan, my official National Marrow Donor Program liaison.


I got my last set of shots and was given a pill to put under my tongue.


Then they sent me to the bathroom for one last pee. (Side note: while you're hooked up to the machine, you can't just get up and pee. So if you've "gotta go", you get to use a bedpan. Avoiding that was a big goal for me, but dehydration is a big no-no. So I drank two liters of water the day before, and then very little that day...)

Then the nurse stuck a needle inside one elbow, and a flexible tubey needle (catheter) in the other wrist.


Thank goodness my veins were up to snuff -- they had me scheduled at 8 to install a neck shunt if they couldn't get the blood flowing well enough without!


The tubes were hooked up to this very steam-punk machine that had spinny, clicky things. The blood came out from my elbow vein, got mixed with an anticoagulant and some other stuff, and then got spun around in a drum inside the machine.


The red cells were heavy and the plasma was light, and in between were the white cells and the stem cells, which they collected.


Then they returned the red cells and plasma to the catheter in my wrist. The hard work was all done -- I'd filled out my paperwork, gotten all my shots, showed up at the right place at the right time... Now all there was to do was relax. The pill they had me stick under my tongue kicked in and I mostly napped for the 5 hours it took to cycle 22 liters of blood through the machine.


At the end of the procedure, they had given all the blood back except for this little bag of stem cells (a few red blood cells get in there too, which is what causes the salmon color). They carefully packaged it up, and a courier collected it to deliver to my recipient. This is less than I give when I donate blood :)


After the procedure I felt fine (still headachey and my bones ached, but I didn't have any additional weirdness from the procedure). A doctor interviewed me and I was released from the hospital. On the way back to the hotel (actually, it was a cross-city detour, but whatever!) we asked the cabby to stop by Yoppi, a frozen yogurt shop :) Then we went back to the hotel and I crashed for a few hours.

That evening I was feeling well enough to ride a cable car to Union Square, where we had sushi :) We also stopped by a pub so I could have a half-pint of draft cider :)


We got all of our tourist goals accomplished in addition to the actual purpose of our trip, so it was a very successful journey :)

It's Saturday now and my back and hips are a little achy and I'm a little tired, but otherwise I feel fine. So just a couple of days later I'm almost fully recovered :)

My overall opinion: It was a big fat pain in the butt, with all of the paperwork and medicine and feeling like I had the flu for a week. It was also incredibly awesome -- I got an all-expenses-paid trip to San Francisco, not to mention the opportunity to help save somebody's life. The chances of being a match are very rare, so I may never come up on the list again, but if I did I would agree in a heartbeat :)

Seattle, Day 3

Our last day in Seattle we headed over to the Woodland Zoo. Again, we got there pretty early, so the crowds weren't too bad for the first part of our visit. I got lots of great animal photos, so I'm just going to show them off a little.

A jaguar


A toucan


A gorilla (atop the tree)


A brown bear


Haley in a "bear cave"


Bald eagles and their nest


Lots of wallabies


A snow leopard


A giraffe


An ostrich


More giraffes (cause they're so cool looking)


Haley playing a drum in the "African Village"


Then we took a bus down to the waterfront and just caught the 1:30 harbor cruise. It was pretty cool, though Haley didn't listen to the narration at all. There were 3 stories (everybody was in the top 2) and you could sit outside or inside. It was pretty posh!

Of course, I took a photo of the space needle :)


The globe belongs to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer - the big newspaper in the Seattle area


Can you tell I like the space needle?


The skyline was really pretty from the water :)


Of course, the obligatory "we were there" photo :)


After our cruise, we walked further down the docks to Ivar's Acres of Clams, and had an early dinner. for only $20 each we got an appetizer (we both picked clam chowder) an entrée (I had broiled salmon, Haley had acres of clams) and ice cream. Yum!

Then we wandered back to Pike's Place Market. I managed to find the store Kell's had sent me to and picked up 2 six packs of Strongbow hard cider imported from England. Yay!

Seattle, Day 2

On our second day, we headed off to the Seattle Center.

Here's our first glimpse of the Space Needle.



We got a nice early start, so we were able to go up before the crowds got bad.


Next we walked over to the Pacific Science Center. Haley loved this granite ball that she was able to roll herself (yay water!)


In the butterfly pavilion, a butterfly took a liking to Haley.




Then we went to the Music Experience and the Sci-Fi Museum.


Lastly, we took a bus up to the REI headquarters. Like visiting Mecca. I can't believe I made it out of there spending less than $25! They had a bike trail to test mountain bikes before buying, a hiking trail to check new hiking shoes... They even had a waterfall.


Then we hurried back to the hostel for a free taco dinner. Yummy!

Seattle, Day 1

We didn't get out of the Grandparents' until after 10, so we didn't make it to the hostel until 12:30. Following Google's directions, I was able to make it to the hostel and then to the parking garage in one try (no need to loop around the block). We did manage to haul all our stuff (including the cooler and food) to the hostel in 1 trip (yay!).

The Green Tortoise isn't the kind of hostel we normally stay in. We usually stay in Hosteling International hostels, while the Green Tortoise isn't associated with them. It must be political, because the Green Tortoise is a great hostel. We have real sheets instead of sleep sacks. The mattresses are spring (OK, I kind of prefer the usual hostel foam mats). The bunks each have a light, a fan, extra power plugs, and (so cool) curtains around the bunk for a little privacy :) It's nice to be able to shut out the light -- Haley was actually able to go to sleep before dark :)



Once we'd checked in, we wandered down to the aquarium. Very cool!

Haley's favorites were the sea otters.


She was a little unsure about touching some of the critters in the tide pool.


After the aquarium we walked to Pioneer Square and joined an Underground Tour.

This tour was actually primarily underground.


The city was originally built too low, so they raised the street level, leaving an entire street level more-or-less intact below. The original first floors of the old buildings became basements.


There was lots of neat old stuff down in the tunnels.


Then we ate dinner at Kell's Irish Restaurant. I got a bottle of Strongbow with my dinner!

The longest 2 miles of my life

Aka, the Hoyt Arboretum

Our last day in Portland was to be somewhat truncated. We had to pick Mom up at the airport a bit after 3, and then ferry her to the Grandparents'. So I planned an activity that we could do for an hour or two and then be glad to be done -- hiking.

After a visit to the local Apple store (new power supply - $79.99; lusting after all the new equipment - free) we checked out of the hostel and headed over to the Hoyt Arboretum.

So Haley and I planned our hike. We would follow a 2 mile trail (theoretically a 1 hour hike) and then go pick up Mom at the airport.

So we followed the trail. When we ended up back at the visitor center in 10 minutes, we looked at the map again and then walked along the right trail. And walked. And walked. There was lots of neat scenery. Like this awesome cherry tree:



Did you know there's an archery range in the arboretum? And lots of houses back up the the arboretum -- very nice to have the cool shade and birdcalls behind your house :) But we kept walking and walking. The trail didn't seem to have much to do with the map in our hands, nor did the maps posted beside the trail. But eventually we staggered back to the visitor center. We spent a few minutes doing our best to suck the water fountains dry and then dousing our hair with water. When we got back to the car we found out it was 97˚. Ouch.

Portland, Day 2

The best laid plans... So we wandered over to Lloyd Center, as planned. We arrived just at 10, when the public skating was beginning. Haley was really excited to go ice skating! I figured that I had a book in my backpack, so if I got bored I could entertain myself for a bit before we headed over to the water park.

In theory, we were going to hang out for a couple of hours. But when I suggested going to the water park, Haley begged to keep skating instead. So we ended up hanging out at the skating rink for 6 hours. I wandered over to a bookstore and bought myself another book to read!

Here's what Haley looked like most of the time:


I helped her get out to the middle, and threatened to leave her stranded there. She was almost amused...


It helped that she met some friends who would have rescued her :)


Finally the rink kicked us out, and we went to explore the pirate store next door. It was pretty cool :)


Finally, here's a little video of our awesome hostel room. We have our own little nook and an in room bathroom!