Alaska - Last Days of the Trip

Let's see, where did I leave off??? I made it through Monday, Sept. 7th. That's right about where I lost all track of days and dates. But I did manage to make some cryptic notes on my handmade calendar within my journal.


Tuesday, September 8th, however is rather lost. I think we must have spent it doing mundane things around town.


Wait...let's back up and I'll include some photos of things mentioned earlier.

Beautiful Fall Colors



The Fisherman cutting down trees at Jerry's.




Note the difference in weather. Same day, just a couple hours later. The saying in Alaska goes, "If you're not happy with the weather in Alaska, just wait a minute; it'll change." These trees are on two different sides of their yard. I have a photo of The Fisherman in this second tree with nothing but clouds behind it. This blue skied photo was taken literally minutes later.


Here's the top of Bear Mountain overlooking Skilak Lake ...



Some turning fireweed leaves along the Bear Mountain trail.





Surprises For Me At The Cabin

Wednesday, Sept 9th we took our Alaska truck to Homer. We needed to drive all the gas ...excuuuuuse me, deisel.......out of it before filling it with fresh deisel for the winter. Yes, I've learned from friends that it's NOT "gas", it's "deisel fuel". Anyway, on the way to Homer, The Fisherman took me for a drive into a neighborhood with large parcels overlooking Kachemak Bay, green rolling hills covered also with red fireweed stalks. The hot pink flowers were all gone but the red stalks seemed just about as spectacular. In Homer we went to the Time Bandit store again. They said it was moored in the Deep Water Marina. The gal told us she thought they were on board and that if we hollered out they MIGHT let us aboard. We were excited and hopeful. But when we got there, we saw that ships were parked two deep next to the dock and unfortunately, the Time Bandit was on the outside. There was no sign of anyone in the parts we could see. But we did manage to get a few photos of it. We also enjoyed walking the dock looking at the big ships, some of them rusted and patched hulks that looked like they'd been there for years.

Afterwards, we headed to Pioneer Rd. for the art galleries. Mmm, mmm, mmm. I had fun. Saw some gorgeous scarves made out of super soft Italian yarn and one scarf that was "partially felted" loosely laid out silk yarns. Also saw the art of a Downs Syndrome young man. I bought the book about him.

On the way back we took a detour 8 miles off the highway looking for a Russian community with a highly recommended cafe we wanted to try. When we finally reached the community, we got some stares from the kids on bikes and ladies wearing their traditional Russian Orthodox garments. We got to the cafe and found it closed up tight. That must be why we looked so out of place; the cafe may have closed for the season days or weeks before. Not sure. On the way out on this long isolated road we stopped at the side of the road for a moment. Turns out we were right in front of a small side road. It was so much in the country at that spot that it didn't matter that we were blocking the road. But... as fortune would have it, I soon glanced out my window and saw an ATV ridden by a man and a child, and a team of seven sled dogs pulling them! We moved out of their way and they carried on across the road to a path almost hidden by tall grasses running parallel to our road. It was so fun seeing them. Summer training, I guess.

Thursday, Sept 10th we headed the opposite direction to Seward. Still had gas to burn out of the truck and wanted to have some fun, too. We walked the black shale beach of Lowell Point and were joined by a playful stray dog. This muttly looking dog was so cute and smart. He got himself a five foot branch for us to play fetch with him! He would trot up ahead of us about 15 feet, drop the branch, and wait for us to catch up. Of course, he was wearing his most expectant, playful, happy dog face as he stared alternately at us and the branch. This was no long twig. It was a beefy branch! Try throwing a five foot branch for a dog to catch! He was pretty smart, though, and knew how to stay out of the way as we tried to gently heave it. But as we walked somewhat apart from each other (The Fisherman and me) we'd have to warn each other that the dog was approaching from behind and about to whack the front person in the back of the leg with the branch. Turns out he belongs to the owner of the store down the road and is often found roaming around on his own. Hmmm.

Next we went to a favorite "snaggin' hole" of The Fisherman's. While he fished with the others lining the rocky shore, I wandered around in the other direction. This snaggin' hole is right in town so wandering around by myself was not dangerous as it would be in other spots. While we were walking the beach earlier we were looking at these giant drift wood trees washed up on shore. Roots and all. They are so cool. Many people haul them home and place them root side up in their yards. Some of them are short and stumpy but others are fully trees. We admired them and planned to someday haul some off ourselves for our own cabin yard. Well, when I was wandering around the snaggin' hole, I found a miniature version. "Hey, Honey! Look what I found!" We took it with us.

It actually does have sort of a "bottom" on which it can stand, which will be better once we take a saw to it.

Friday, Sept 11th was spent unloading most of the van, re-organizing, leaving some stuff in the cabin and loading some stuff from the cabin into the van. We took off toward dinner time. Stopped at Gwin's Lodge to visit and say good-bye to friends for the season. No telling what next year will bring. The lodge is up for sale by the family of the owner who died last winter. It may be the last time we hang out there. We just don't know. Fly Bob will continue to work there over the winter and we'll just all wait and see what happens. We also stopped at Jerry and Kim's to drop off some salmon and pick up some bear meat. Jerry gave us a pair of female caribou antlers. Love them! Drove to Anchorage and camped.

Saturday, Sept 12th
Did errands in Anchorage nearly all day. While driving into the Home Depot parking lot we saw about 40 Canada geese on a grassy peninsula surrounded on three sides by bustling Anchorage traffic. Beautiful and ugly. Serene and obnoxious. Nature and technology. Peaceful amid chaotic. Left Anchorage around 3pm. Got to Glen Allen, smelled burning oil and saw smoke. Yikes. We were leaking oil. The Fisherman tightened the oil filter as tight as he could and replaced the lost oil. We proceeded cautiously and camped a couple hours later 50 miles west of Tok.

Sunday, Sept 13th.

Took us ALL day to get to Tok! There were just too many pictures to be taken. We stopped at a lake that had 17 swans in it! It was so beautiful.

We stayed there over an hour. Lots of other cars stopped. We met another photographer who is from Virginia. This year he said he put his jeep and motor home on a ferry and came up the inside passage. Great photo ops! That's on our list now for someday. In Tok we found a mechanic who put the van up on the rack for us where we discovered that the gasket from the old oil filter was stuck to the mounting. The new oil filter, freshly installed the day before in Anchorage, could not seat properly and leaked. After getting the bothersome straggler removed, we drove on with much more confidence. We crossed the border into Canada around 6:30pm. Camped around 10:30pm.

Monday, Sept 14th.
Awoke to condensation inside the van again. It has happened often, but this morning it was frozen. 32 degrees inside. No wonder my head was cold during the night! I learned in Ski School when I was in High School that we lose 90% of our body heat from our heads. The instructors told us, "If your feet are cold, put a hat on." I keep a scrap of soft and thick flannel by my pillow when van camping in the far north. It really helps to put it over my head. That way I don't have to worry about suffocating underneath covers pulled all the way over my head.

Saw two deer roadside, a buck and a doe. Odd...the buck was still in velvet. I thought they'd be shed by now.

We were all off schedule for driving because of our late start and because we took so long getting beyond Tok the second day. We find we're driving through some of the most beautiful parts after dark. Dang.

Tuesday, Sept 15 and forward.
We drove...and drove...and drove. Passed some beautiful, beautiful territory but were very tired. Stopped for photos as they presented themselves. Buffalo, Stone Sheep, windows of blue in cloud laden skies, autumn colors, birch and spruce.

The Fisherman decided to drive through the night. This really confused me on what day it was and where we were. Without stopping at night to camp, I found I got pretty lost as to where we were. Pretty soon we found ourselves in Ft. Nelson. We stopped for gas and lunch groceries. On the way out of town, we saw a B&B that had a special stack of firewood. What was special to us about it is the fact that The Fisherman has toyed with the idea of making our "real" cabin home in Alaska out of stacked logs. The walls would be about 2-3 feet thick, stuffed, chinked and sealed over. The inside and outside walls would be the round ends of the logs, like this:

This design would be creative, different, super insulated, and inexpensive, too. (We have PLENTY of wood on our property!) We're excited at the possibily of having such a unique home. I guess it's not literally "unique" because it's been done before. (I had a college english professor who's pet peeve was people using adjectives in front of the word unique. "Something cannot be 'really unique'", she'd say. "It's either unique or it isn't.") Back to the story... We pulled into the B&B property and were quickly greeted by the owner who asked if he could help us. We told him we were just admiring his uniform stack of wood and our thoughts of building our home that way. He was very interested, said he just read a book about alternative homes, and saw one he really liked built by some guy in Arizona. Arizona? We're from Arizona! No kidding, really? We had a nice long chat with Peter. He was very friendly. He had some antlers around this beautifully stacked wall of wood, moose, caribou, deer. On a whim, The Fisherman asked him if he might be willing to sell us the moose antlers. He said, "Aw, you can just take them. They were given to me so you can just have them." WOW! We were exstatic! Those things cost about $500 at the antler store in Sterling. (Yes, there's actually an antler store. But it's not that unusual; there's one at home too.)

So, we managed to squeeze these giant moose antlers (connected) into the van. It was funny because the van was already stuffed - I mean PACKED - with other treasures we'd accumulated along the drive. Jerry's caribou antlers, some birch branches to make easels out of, and one giant beaver gnawed birch log that was just too cool to not have. I've created a monster, as the saying goes. For the first 20 years of our marriage, I was the one always bringing home twigs and rocks (still do). Now, The Fisherman is into it. Only in a man-sized fashion. He carried a 5 foot log 7 inches in diameter about a half mile from the river where we found it back to the van. Yes, we were stuffed with treasures. Some of them we will haul right back up to Alaska next summer for our cabin. We just acquired them while going the wrong direction. On that same hike (part of why it took so long to get to Tok) we saw tons of blueberries. We had fun picking and eating them.



Thursday, September 17th
Mom's birthday. And I missed it. I was so lost in what the date was, and even what day it was, that I completely missed her birthday. I suppose this can be looked on as a good thing. Birthdays of loved ones passed on are among the hardest things to go through, especially the first one. And I was completely oblivious. It was about 11pm when we were driving, again bleary eyed and exhausted, almost home, when I heard the newscaster say the date. I was instantly sad and my eyes filled with tears. I was so sad to have not known it was Mom's birthday. I felt cheated somehow, not being able to spend the day in some sort of intentional celebratory remembering of her life. Her love. My love for her. Memories. I felt cheated. I cried.

Friday, Sept 18th, 1:00 a.m. HOME.

Alaska Photos 6

CABIN
We put up tongue and groove interior boards on part of two walls.

Here's to show you not only what a mess the cabin is during construction, but also how small it is. That's the same window as in the first photo.

The cabin is a mere 16x20. 20 long and 16 wide. Our loft is 10 feet deep by 16 feet wide - just enough for some beds, a nightstand or small dresser, perhaps a chair. We'll be putting two twin beds up there that we can put together or take apart.

We couldn't wait to put some of The Fisherman's photos up on the new walls. Doesn't it look nice?! It may be small but we're excited to make it beautiful. This is the front; you can see "our view" through the window a little bit. I planted Mom's Forget-Me-Not seeds to the left and down the road a little bit. The road (driveway) runs between the cabin and the end of the dirt showing in this photo.

Note again the size...the door is all the way on the right side of the front wall and the window is the same one as in the photo above.

We've been noticing that 16x20 seems to be a very common size of Alaska cabin. It must be because it's manageable to build by yourself as The Fisherman did. But, much as I would like something bigger, we're very happy and grateful to have a cabin at all. We debated about where to put a bathroom, The Fisherman not wanting to take up too much interior room (I see his point) and me not wanting to sacrifice a real bathroom. He finally came up with the brilliant idea of putting a door in the back wall and adding on a bathroom of any size we choose! Excellent! In the meantime...we have plans for an outhouse and I don't know about showers. We'll probably first put in a shower but take "jug showers" until we get a water collection/delivery system up and running. Just like we did here in Arizona.

ROAD WORK

Before

This is actually where we got the truck stuck. Right in that little curve before the hill. It's all nice and smooth because we scraped over it with the backhoe after digging out.

During

Here's a shot looking north. It shows the Typar road fabric we laid down first.

I was sitting on the edge of the road when I took these photos. For this next one, all I did was turn directly west. That's how dense the woods are! Those trees are on our neighbor's property. The nice strip of grassy earth in front of the trees that looks like you could drive on it is the road that was there when we bought our land. An unsanctioned road that turned out to be 75% on our neighbor's property. He made us move it. So The Fisherman had to rip a new road through our property right alongside the old road. You can see the stake with the pink tape marking the property line. Although, I think we had to move the stake more onto the guy's property so we wouldn't run over it with the backhoe.

Now I'm looking south. Oh, nevermind the 4 foot table resting up against a stump in the background there. It's as far as we got with it until later that day when we took it to the cabin around the bend and up a hill.

Alaska Bound

I am headed up north tomorrow and then we're off to Alaska in a few more days. I'm hoping I can post every few days while we're there. It will be at the mercy of internet cafes, travel agendas, and travel spontanaeties.

One of the things we'll do when we get to the Kenai Peninsula is go to our property and work on our cabin. Insulation and tongue & groove interior boards await us. We're bringing up a twin bed so The Fisherman can possibly stay at the cabin some of the summer. Our property is 17 miles away from where he works. That's kind of a long way when you sometimes have to be there at 5:45 a.m. so he has another campsite arranged right in town.

Speaking of "bringing up a twin bed", you probably can't imagine our living quarters. We van camp. I wish I had a picture. We have a utility van that we've put a bed in. We're able to store stuff underneath the bed and at the foot. The Fisherman installed rods to hang clothes on, bungees and wooden rods to secure his fishing poles to the ceiling, and a whole bunch of cool conveniences are velcroed to the wall, such as a flip light, an alarm clock, flashlights, and a little catchall bin. A little TV hangs from the ceiling in a custom made "cage" that holds it. Laundry bags and clothing bags also hang from the ceiling at our feet. There is no room to stand up, or barely even "kneel up" on the bed, so getting ready for the day requires some creative yoga moves.

Here's our little cabin. Still under construction, of course. When we only have a couple weeks at the beginning and end of summer to work on it, it's going to take awhile.
The view out our door.

Eventually we hope to build a "real" cabin just across the driveway perched on the edge of the trees looking out on....
...THIS!
Click to enlarge - there actually are mountains out there in the distance.
The current cabin - 16x20 - will become our guest cabin...someday.