Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Here, Part IV

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.

And we all lived happily ever after, THE END.

(I hope…)

Farewell Party

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.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Here, Part III

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.

(to be continued…)

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Here, Part II

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.

(to be continued…)