I got the tow pins tonight. All I will say about that is that I’m surprised that I’m surprised about how that went down.

Anyhoo, I arrived at Miranda’s parking spot for the last time around 7. I took perhaps fifteen minutes to unload boxes and empty as many of them as I could.

Then, I looked for the magic battery button, but I don’t seem to have one, so I positioned Pommette for a boost. Once I got Miranda going, I manoeuvred her into place for hooking up the toad behind her.

Hooking up was surprisingly easy!

My tow bar is a Blue Ox Aventa II. I would have bought an Aladdin, which is a high end model suitable for towing a small car, but much cheaper than the Aventa II. The Aventa II, also a high end model, could probably tow a Hummer. It’s really huge and heavy, but I like knowing that I could upgrade Pommette to a pickup or SVU one day and still have a tow bar I can use.

The Aventa II is a self-aligning bar. I can’t figure out what’s ‘self-aligning’ about it, but I can say that I was completely hooked up, safety cables and all, in less than 20 minutes. The hardest part was getting the toad lined up perfectly with the coach and at the correct distance. Then, it was just a matter of attaching safety cables and electrical wires. I figured out the wiring on my own. As it turns out, I had to open a thingy under the rig, push in another thingamabob, and then plug the cable into the thingamabob. I’d seen the thingamabob in the rear pass through and had offhandedly guessed that it was part of the towing system, so I was already one step ahead of the game when I couldn’t find a skinny rectangular outlet for the wire.

I’m surprised by how easy it was to hook up the car on my own. There is no way I could have done that with a traditional ‘fixed’ tow bar, the kind with a ball coupler. The only thing I wasn’t able to do was confirm that the brake lights were working on the toad, but since the turn signals were, I didn’t worry.

Then off we went, the very picture of freedom and the antithesis of the current economic climate, LOL!

The drive back to Ottawa was very emotional. I was pretty sure it would be my last time driving up the 416 into a beautiful orange sunset and watching the pastoral landscape slowly become the skyline of the adopted city I will always consider to be my hometown. For all that’s found, something else is lost….

I let Majel the GPS pick the best route to the garage where I would drop off Miranda. She had me go down a narrow residential street that had cars parked down it. The parkers were smart and alternated which side of the road they were on, so I was able to take a serpentine route all the way down. Maybe I’m just tired, but I really got a kick out of doing the moho slalom.

Towing was a piece of cake. It really helps that I could see the car in the backup camera monitor, as well as all the connections. I didn’t notice much of a difference when stopping and starting, even on hills.

I feel positively drained and have to keep reminding myself that this time next week, the first day of my adventure will be just about behind me.