Broken chains

Not really sure how to put into words the following event . The easiest way might be to share the inner feelings in a few words then I will recount the “incident”. Shock. Fear. Dis-belief. Dread. Those are what I felt when we had just came over 3,000 feet of mountain pass from Sedona to Flagstaff and pulled over to check the engine hatch cover in the back of the bus and I saw we did not have our cargo trailer; all that was there were two dragging safety chains, no trailer. “ OH my God!” was all I could say. It didnt compute. Where , what, how the hell?? I ran back inside and dialed 911. I reported the incident to highway patrol and then we started back up the mountain pass to look for it. I tried to replay the last hour and a half we had been driving to put together the pieces of how this could of happened. I remembered stopping at the summit because the engine was getting hot. I decided to open the engine bay door and drive with it open to see of it would help with the cooling. At that point we still had the trailer. We drove another 20 minutes down into Flaggstaff where I then pulled over to close the engine bay door before driving through the city. So the chancees we might see it are possible but there were so many places and drop offs where it could have gone over the edge, not to mention the possibility of causing an accident or injury. I’ll tell you that 20 miunte drive was one of the worst in my life, at least another 10 grey hairs! My imagination started to run wild with outcomes and I knew the only thing I could really do in the moment was pray. On the way up the mountain the phone rang. It was state patrol, they found the trailer. It was on the shoulder of the highway at mile marker 333. It was tipped over and the contents were strewn about. What a relief to hear that no one was hurt. And it was on the shoulder of the road and not down some embankment or gully. We arrived on the scene 10 minutes later and realized how luck we were, it could have been so much worse. All of us were pretty shaken, we assesed the damage and started unloading the trailer onto the grassy shoulder. The trailer was a write off but all of our stuff survived with minimal damage! We called a tow truck to haul the trailer away and loaded up everything into the bus. The kids had to go back and stay in their bunks because there was no room to sit anywhere. Next day we bought another bigger trailer with the help of my mother in law, Irene. We spent the next 2 days outfitting the new one, building shelves and divider walls all in the Home Depot parking lot! Thanks Flaggstaff HomeDepot! We came through ok with all of this and the lesson I’m gleaning from this is this: traveling around in a 16 ton machine pulling a trailer is serious buisness. Eventhough we had covered over 15,000 miles with no incidents I still have to be diligent when it comes to safety checks and routine inspections on the bus and trailer. It can happen anytime no matter how you think it wont. I realized my error that morning when I was hooking up the trailer in Sedona. My routine had been to connect the trailer to the hitch, latch it then lock it. Then do safety chains then electrical plug. That had been my habit and procedure the whole time. This time looking back I realized I had gotten distracted and missed the 3rd step, the lock. Not sure what it was, being tired or daydreaming or just not paying attention. I forgot to lock the latch on the ball. I can only surmise the latch eventually opened and when I hit the right bump it came off the ball. The chains broke clean off and driving this huge bus with no rear view mirror, I never even noticed it.