A Trike Disaster, er, Adventure, that is

Today's Trike Track via APRS and Ham Radio
It's been a few days since we rode any of our human-powered vehicles, in part due to Jacque being down with the local epidemic of colds & sore throats.
She felt good enough today to want to take a ride and suggested we haul some giveaway items to our local thrift store on our trike:  about 7 miles each way.
This is the first time we'd tried hitching up the trailer to the trike but it worked fine.

We had to add a cardboard "floorboard" to keep the plastic trash bag of goodies from sagging between the rails but it worked well.
We rode up to the Post Office and took a break, then rode on up to the Triangle Shell station for another break, only a quarter mile or so farther up the road.
While relaxing and drinking my soda and Jacque's lemonade, we looked at our clocks and realized, that since it was by then 4:30 PM, there was little chance of our completing the entire ride to the thrift store and back home before dark.  We decided to cut the trip short and return instead.
The bike trailer really is  a relatively painless way to haul lopsided or heavy (or both) loads using the human-power puller.  It requires some jockeying when backing up, and turns must be made carefully to keep the trailer from hitting curbs or running through the off-path thorn infested weeds and grass, but it truly reminds us the wheel is a wonderful invention indeed.
Also - On the trike - we find we can successfully climb hills that we normally cannot do by ourselves on individual bikes or trikes.  it helps that we have 27 chain/gear combinations.... climbing steep hills have made us intimately familiar with the lowest ("Granny Gear") combo.
We were chugging along in Granny Gear up our last hill toward our house when suddenly "POP" the trike stopped and I had to grab for the brakes:  The rear chain had broken.   I have a link-breaking tool and we struggled with it for a while trying to get the chain in position to remove the broken link and re-link the remaining chain but we finally gave up and un-strung the whole 139 links of chain and turned the trike around and pulled it between us up the hill.
We found ourselves VERY thankful the chain had separated so close to home.  This would have been very much more difficult if it happened miles away from home.  We weren't carrying a bike lock so would have found it difficult to secure it somewhere and walk home.  Our chain had a couple other links ready to pop, and the entire chain had been worn badly on one side from friction somewhere, so when I put the new chains on I will have to check all that out and hopefully make it more better.
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles:  6.07
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
2.4 MPH                                 5.2 MPH                    29.0 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
2 hours 31 mins                     1 hour   9 mins          1 hour 22 minutes