We went down to the Spit again a couple of days ago and explored the rocky side of the beach. Koren was much more into this trip than the last and enjoyed finding rocks to throw in the ocean, as well as rocks for Kaelin and Daddo to throw into the ocean.
Kaelin found a large oblong rock and is convinced it’s a dinosaur bone. She also really enjoyed finding the starfish that had washed up and throwing them back into the water. She was most fascinated by the hermit crab we found, and was disappointed to find that the critter was disinclined to come out and visit.
Oh look! We’re back online, after half a day of trying to figure out why my site had disappeared into the black hole of cyberspace. That was fun. Except for the part where IT WASN’T.
Going places here requires a few more steps than we’re used to. First you have to suit up. In Texas, even on cold winter days, I’d often skip the coat because I’d only be exposed to the cold when walking from the car into the store. Also, I usually wore my shoes inside the house, so getting ready to leave was no big deal.
Here, shoes inside the house is a big no-no because they get so dirty. Roads, driveways, and parking lots – they’re all just dirt and gravel that is usually somewhat muddy this time of year with the melting snow. You should see our car. Dirt, inside and out. We’re trying really hard to teach the kids NOT to put their dirty shoes all over the seat backs in front of them. Kaelin has resorted to just taking her shoes off as soon as she gets in the car. Koren thinks it’s hilariously funny to see how MUCH dirt he can wipe on Daddo’s seat.
After putting on the coats and boots, we make our way through the ice tunnel to our car.
The road from our house to town is full of potholes, so it’s ridiculously bumpy. The kids love to open their mouths and let out one long “ahh-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h” as we’re going over the bumps.
We took the kids down to the beach to throw some rocks in the water.
Kaelin had a blast.
Koren tolerated it as long as he was holding firmly to someone’s hand. He’s not a big fan of sand. Or water. Or snow. He pretty much thinks we’re all insane for coming here.
He did like the white sparkly rock I found.
He also liked the horses. “HOSIE! HOSIE! HOSIE!” Until they got within 2 football fields of us, then he freaked out and clung to my legs, burying his head between my knees. Then he fell and got DIRTY! on his HANDS! And that was traumatic.
But he lived. He also liked the Airplane that zoomed by, as well as the powered paraglider that waved at us.
Kaelin just liked the water.
I think she would have stayed there all day if we had let her.
Where was I? Oh yes. God had developed a nasty sense of humor and our grandly laid plans for a year of adventure were going to put us into bankruptcy. Death! Destruction! Misery!!
And then it happened again. Jens put out the word that we were in need of new renters, STAT, and we got a bite. One of Jens’ former coworkers and her friend had been dying to get out of their apartments and into a house, and they were looking for a house like ours in an area like ours for a price like the one we were asking.
And then they saw the media room and were sold. Also, they told us they didn’t mind if we left all the furniture we had left for the original tenants, so that saves us the cost of moving the stuff out and renting an additional storage unit every month.
She just needed to get a certain job before they could sign the agreement. The next day, she got the job. The day after that, we received the signed agreement.
Since the lease term is starting later than our original one, we may end up staying here through next summer. But I gotta say, missing another Texas summer doesn’t really upset me that much.
I just realized that I never posted the pictures from Kaelin’s Farewell Party.
A month or two before we moved, I told Kaelin that she could have a Farewell Party so she could see all her friends one last time.
She talked about this party nearly every day, making plans for games, decorations, prizes, and all the activities that the party would cover. I was really starting to worry that whatever shindig I threw together at the last minute would never live up to her great expectations.
To avoid anything cost prohibitive, or anything that would require too much actual planning on our part, we decided to just invite everybody to our neighborhood park for some play time. I hoped that this low-key event wouldn’t be a disappointment to Kaelin, who had devoted a great deal of time to planning the imaginary event.
Little did I know that we had planned our party to coincide with the neighborhood Easter Festival. I call it a “festival” because it came complete with a petting zoo, pony rides, face painting, Easter Bunny, and egg hunts.
We had a great turnout and Kaelin loved seeing all her friends. Even her teachers from CLC showed up to wish her farewell. The girls oohed and ahhed over the different colored chicks, while the boys ogled at the snakes. Kaelin was thrilled beyond belief with the petting zoo and was too busy holding her chicks and mice to even participate in an egg hunt.
After the crowed dissipated and the petting zoo went home, the kids ran around, rolled down the hills, and played games with some of the dads.
All in all, I’d say our last minute shindig was probably the best party we’ve ever thrown! And the best part was that we didn’t have to pay for any of it.
As we drove through the Yukon the next day, the weather mirrored our moods. Gone was the bright sun and clear skies that we had enjoyed every day of the trip thus far.
We drove through a powdery snowfall much of the morning. The snow was so dry and fine that it didn’t even stick to the car. We didn’t need our windshield wipers on because it was more like driving through a cloud than a snow storm. It was difficult to see and slowed us down as the snow covered the roads.
The roads in the Yukon, by the way, leave something to be desired. Especially the part where half the gas stations are closed. At one point, we needed gas, so we stopped at a station that had a sign on the pump: “Sorry, no gas.” The sign said that the nearest gas stations were 125 miles ahead of us, or 13 miles behind us. Since we didn’t have enough gas to go 125 miles, we decided to backtrack and fill up at the station we had already passed.
Except, that station was closed too. So we kept backtracking until we were almost to the last gas station we had filled up at. It’s very difficult to digress that much when you’re so close to your destination.
Once we crossed the border into Alaska (which, by the way, was the Easiest. Border Crossing. Ever.), things started to make sense again. There were gas stations within reasonable distances of each other, and the roads were maintained. We even passed actual People! Working! On the Roads!
The weather and our moods improved greatly, and we enjoyed a sunny and beautiful drive through rural Alaska to Anchorage.
In Anchorage, we stayed with Phyllis and Freeman, some family friends from Jens’ days in Unlalakleet, Alaska. Jens was in school with their son Justin and they shared many childhood adventures. It’s always a pleasure to be around this family, and they made our stay very enjoyable. The next day, we hit Costco and Walmart, then started the remaining 4 hour drive to Homer.
We arrived in Homer to nice weather, and a winter wonderland. As we pulled into the long dirt driveway, there was a woman there working on shoveling a 3’-deep pathway through the snow that blocked our entrance to the house. Her head was shaved in a pattern that I assume normally fit under a baseball cap and she looked like she had the strength of a musk ox. She had been hired to shovel the path and thought that the over-the-snow path was probably good enough, but now that she had started a real ground path, it was a challenge and she had to finish it.
So we let her.
The house was a pleasant surprise because, even though I’d seen pictures, I’ve learned that houses always look bigger and better in pictures. I also feared that even though it was a 4-story house, it would seem cramped because the square footage is less than what we’re used to in Texas. But it was pretty clean and the furniture, while a mismatched and eclectic collection, is in good condition. We spent the remainder of the day and all the following day unpacking and arranging and boxing up some of the owner’s things for storage. And the end of each day, we enjoyed a bath in the larger-than-life bathtub in our room, and dropped exhausted into bed.
We were still tremendously worried about our rent (or lack thereof) situation. The more we thought about it, the less we could understand how every part of this journey could have been laid out before us so that every piece of the puzzle just fell into place, like it was just meant to be… and then once we had made the move, the table broke and the puzzle went crashing down. We wondered why God would have brought us all this way, just to have everything fall apart.
We ran the numbers and the options. To put the house up for rent to strangers, we would need to use a company to list and manage the property. We simply couldn’t afford those fees without asking a price for rent that was too high to get anybody in there soon. We could fulfill our 90-day agreement and head back to Texas at the end of summer… but that would still be 3 months of doubling our house payments. We could sell the house… and pay thousands of dollars to realtor fees and closing costs in a market that would net us a price equal or less than we paid for the house 2.5 years ago.
No matter what door we picked, there was something unpleasant on the other side. But we didn’t have time to dwell on it very long, because the next day my parents arrived with Kaelin and Koren, and our quiet house was suddenly very full and busy.
Did you know that you can drive through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, and North Dakota… THEN Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, Canada, without so much as a change in scenery?
By the time we entered British Columbia, I never wanted to see another grain field for the rest of my life. Day after day, hour after hour of driving through the same vast expanse of flat, meticulously groomed fields is disorienting at best. At worst, it’s an experiment in the brain’s ability to handle that kind of monotony without resorting to trauma defense mechanisms.
We had the pleasure of staying the night with Jens’ grandparents in Iowa. In addition to room and board for the night, they also treated us to dinner at Macaroni Grill, which was fun. Jens’ cousin Ellie accompanied us to dinner, and it was nice to see that side of the family again.
As a Public Service Announcement, if you’re ever traveling through North Dakota, be aware that they don’t put gas stations ON THE HIGHWAY. So if you keep driving and driving, hoping to come across one, there’s a good chance you’ll run out of gas right there on the highway in the middle of nowhere by yourself.
We had the good fortune of owning a TomTom that (once we were below E and finally thought to pull it out) guided us to the nearest gas station several miles off the highway, and not a moment too soon. When we filled up, the receipt showed that we put 18.1 gallons of gas into our tank.
We only have an 18 gallon tank.
Crossing the border was a real trip. They pulled us into a private garage and asked a few questions. Then they totally interrogated Jens when they found out he had a concealed weapons permit. He got the search and pat down, his pockets emptied, and was grilled about 17 times about what kind of guns he owns, where he keeps them, what he uses them for, what kind of guns MY FATHER owns, what he hunts with his guns, why he DOESN’T have any guns with him if he’s licensed to carry them, blah blah blah. Then when one officer finished a round of questions, another would come by pretending to have just entered the conversation, and ask all the same questions again to see if the answers changed.
I, on the other hand, could have been packing all kinds of heat on my person and in my bag, and they never would have known. They never even looked in my purse.
The whole process took about 45 minutes. It was a pain, but I’m glad they at least had the courtesy to put all our stuff back in the trailer and close it… because I’m not sure we could have accomplished that by ourselves.
There are approximately 5 people that live in Ft. Nelson, British Columbia. And fortunately Jens, being Jens, knows them. We had the pleasure of spending an evening with one of Jens’ hometown friends, Josh, and his family. Josh and his wife Dee live in Ft. Nelson with their 3 sweet girls. I think they’re very brave. Did you know it’s a 12+ hour drive from Ft. Nelson to ANYWHERE? And that -30° in winter is pretty normal? I know I’m moving to small-town Alaska, but THAT’S CRAZY.
Once we entered British Columbia, the scenery improved greatly. As did the wildlife sightings. We saw a lot of buffalo, and even more buffalo poop. It’s truly a spectacle. These herds just move along the highway leaving their own highway of poop behind them. If someone could find a way to make cars run on buffalo poop, we could end the energy crisis.
As we slowly crested the top of a hill, we came across a solitary male buffalo on a rampage down the side of the road. I’m guessing he just lost a fight over the females, because he was in a BAD MOOD. He noticed us, and we could tell what was coming next, but since he was ahead of us and we were towing a huge trailer, we would not have been able to out-maneuver him. He charged us, but somehow chose the wrong side of the guard rail and couldn’t jump over it in time to make contact with our vehicle before we drove past him. I snapped a blurry picture of him as he bounded past my window. I’ve never been so thankful for a tiny strip of guard rail!
That evening, we hooked up Jens’ computer in the hotel to catch up on some email, and pretty much got the rug pulled out from under our feet.
Amid some peculiar circumstances, our renters had decided to back out of the agreement.
No options for negotiation. No deposit. No 30 day notice. No rent. We were quite suddenly up the river without a paddle, because our entire ability to make this move was dependent on having that rental income. Even if we were to turn back now and head home, we were still bound by OUR agreement to our landlord in Alaska to give a 90-day notice.
Our fabulous opportunity had quite suddenly turned sour.
When Jens told me a few months ago that he was missing his home state of Alaska and wanted to move back, we had a conversation that included several variations of the word “insane.”
We eventually decided that an 18-month plan seemed to make the most sense, because that would give us enough time to get to a place where we could swing it financially, and the kids were already enrolled in their schools for the next school year, etc. Also, it was going to take a pretty big sacrifice in living quarters, since the price/square foot we were used to in Texas can’t be replicated anywhere else in the country. We weren’t really in a position to sell our house yet, having been in it less than 3 years, and didn’t want to purchase a house in Alaska and run the risk of getting “stuck” in a place we didn’t want to be after all. And then there was the matter of getting all our furniture to Alaska, which had me reeling when I requested a moving estimate and was told $16,000.
And then things just started happening.
A guy in Homer contacted us in response to an ad Jens placed on Craigslist, and said he had a 4-bedroom furnished house with a loft and basement that he would consider renting to us for a year because he was never there.
The home is on 6 acres and has views of the ocean and the mountains. We were pretty sure that opportunity wouldn’t be available in 18 months, so we started looking into whether it was really feasible to make this transition sooner.
Then we found out that a family we knew was looking for a house to rent for a year and they really liked ours. Even better, they were totally agreeable to us leaving some of the furniture pieces in the house for them to use.
We checked with U-Haul and various storage companies and found reasonable deals for bringing a trailer of our necessities with us, and storing the remainder of our furniture for a year.
We found the perfect vehicle for hauling our trailer and forging through the mountains of Alaska, and were able to obtain it at a price we could afford.
One thing after another, it was as though the path was cleared before us, making this entire undertaking seem… somewhat reasonable.
Friends and family chipped in to help us with the boxing and packing of all our belongings, and miraculously, everything we owned fit inside the Pack Rats box that was hauled away the day before we left. Family members also volunteered to take our pets for a year, which would have added another level of complication, since our rental house has no fenced yard for Hastings to run around in.
Finally, after weeks of stress and arrangements, we were ready to make this move.
First we said goodbye to the pets, and Kaelin had one last opportunity to trot around with Hastings before he went to live with my uncle.
Then, we put the kids on a plane with Jens’ mom so they could spend the week in Seattle while Jens and I drove.
We left early the next morning. Our route would take us straight north, then through Canada to reach Alaska.
Hi. I'm Amy. I started this website in 2005 as a place to deposit my journal and photos. It has gone through a few incarnations and masquerades as a family site, but since I'm the only one who contributes to it, it's really all about ME, ME, ME.
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