One more Round of Appreciation for Friends

Ken and I spent six days with Beverly, visiting Jake at the Veteran’s, and at Rosie and her mom’s house. It was a fantastic, leisurely, helpful, and friendly time. We had such a fun time laughing and learning and sightseeing we got over the car trouble and heavy load pretty quick. We spent the day reloading the trailer and restructuring the sleeping quarters. Ken and I will have a full additional ten inches for bed space, added to our cramped 5 will give us space to actually turn on our sides! Woohoo! 

With an extended somewhat relaxed pit stop, we were able to see another cool business Ken had been interested in for years: Kitfox Airplanes. Kitfox is actually located in Homedale, Idaho http://www.kitfoxaircraft.com/ about two miles from Beverly’s house. Ken has been interested in these kit planes for decades. It is such a great idea for an individual to build their own plane, so they could know all the ins and outs of it. This would also keep the cost of owning a plane down. 

Ken and I called Kitfox and asked if we could come visit and they said yes. We went down on a beautifully sunny day and the owners were so generous as to give us a tour. We saw the manufacturing hangar with all the hand made parts, forms and assemblages. I had a great feeling seeing the parts for a quality product made in the United States. The final hangar was a museum, there were three beautiful planes shining brightly proud of the awards they had won at Oshkosh. Here we are with our next project after the boat! 

We wrapped up our fine visit with a classic family dinner. Finally Beverly was able to reconnect with Rosie and see where she lived. When Beverly travels, she is usually on a mission but it always nice to know someone in the area if you need them! 

There was such a warm feeling of friendship it was hard to leave. And maybe my head was telling that literally, the next morning when I woke up to leave, I had a pounding, piercing headache. I thought we were going to just get up and go early since we had the trailer at Rosie’s doing the unloading and reloading. Not so today. This was one of those nasty migraines I did not catch in time and it was difficult to reel in. So, basically I stayed in bed all day. Ken was a great caretaker and rounded up all the elements and Rosie offered up chicken noodle soup when I was able to eat. Nice to have a second mom around! But a bummer that the day could not be enjoyed. 

Around sunset is when I finally could move, here is the great view they have from their upstairs window. 

Knowing Someone Who has Driven to and From Alaska is a big Help!

Besides rebuilding planes, Johnny also rebuilds cars. The next project he is embarking on, the 1952 Chrysler, sounded like a major one to me. It had been sitting on his Aunt’s land for over 40 years, what condition could it possibly be in? No one had really seen it in ages so He and his sister Rosie will be going to visit the car to make a preliminary plan on how to move it. 

Johnny and his cousin will be putting the car and a farm tractor on a trailer and towing the whole load up to Alaska with the cousin’s truck. The car will be going to Eagle River and the tractor to Soldotna. Pretty amazing feat to carry out as we are learning just with our little trailer. While Johnny waited on his cousin, Rosie suggested we ask Johnny about carrying some of our gear in the car to help lighten our load. 

One thing Ken became concerned about with our rig due to the oil loss was too heavy of a load. Rosie had the great idea of putting some boxes in the Chrysler on the trailer as a way to help us out. Plus, another serendipitous moment for us, our destination is Chugiak which is two miles from Eagle River!!!!! How crazy is that! We talked to Johnny about it and he had no problem with it. He talked to his cousin who was not totally hip to the idea, but went along with it anyway. 

Ken and I spent the day separating out goods that could withstand frigid temperatures and that would fit in the car easily. We figure we offloaded about 800 pounds of goods. These containers were not light. There were two with clothes in them. The clothes where in vacuum bags so there were a lot of clothes smashed in there! One container was office equipment, the two below are tools, a kitchen mixer, juicer and all kinds of small items filling the voids-things that might be missed, but can be replaced should anything happen to them. We also gave Johnny a few extra dollars for gas and the trouble. We could not have been more lucky or grateful! Thanks a million times over to Johnny and his cousin.

Our original total rig weight was 7940 pounds measured the day we left Wichita at a truck scale. 

The vehicle alone weighs 4000 (with us). Which leaves 3940 for the trailer so that WAS a little over our 3500 pound towing limit. OOPS

With our offload, we estimated now to weigh 7000 total. Estimate.....

We also packed up a few more boxes and sent them through USPS, adding to what we sent from Wichita we have spent $555.00 on media mail, parcel post, and priority mail.

Plus we gave up our Canon ink jet printer. It would not fit in the car so we left it with Rosie. Not a big deal as she was more than kind to us while we were in Nampa! Thanks Rosie! Clearing out some bulk should also make it more comfortable for us to sleep in the trailer without moving too much around. 

Moving is rarely fun or easy. Moving from one end of a continent to another is the exact opposite of easy. We knew we could not take all of the possessions we had been living with for the past 3, 5, 10 years with us. Ken had already moved from the mainland to Hawaii and back, so he was aware of the drastic slashes that had to be made in material possessions. Sure, I had moved across the U.S. a couple of times, but each time I made provisions for storage or made the purchase of a used moving truck happen. This time I did have space offered to me by my sister, that was a huge help for family mementos and artwork. To the folks who only drive a car up, our rig may have seemed big, but to us it felt small. After assessing what would or must be kept and stored, selling or otherwise donating that which was not absolutely necessary, we thought we were left with what we could afford to carry and what we felt was absolutely required to start a new life in Alaska. Alaska is not uncivilized, many of the things we left behind we knew we could replace if we wanted to. I thought we had limited what we carried with us very well. However, with the realization today that we had to take more stuff out of the trailer, looking at this stuff and deciding what I could do without should I not see it again, was just an amazing decision to make. After a few moments though, I did not let it overwhelm me. We had made a decision to move a long way from where we were entrenched, from where we had connections. By letting go of more items, it seemed we were really cutting our ties to our old life. But a bigger realization than that emerged. We were discovering the minimum requirement of stuff we needed to survive. Our rig had to be mostly self sustaining, especially due to the time of year we were driving north. So really, what did we need? Safe transportation, food, shelter, warm clothing, safety gear. 

Just a few things to think about if you are planning on moving to Alaska.

A Night in Cody: Tips to Save Money on Camping and Internet

Another feature that seemed to have changed since my sister and I visited Thermopolis was the availability of camping. I could have sworn we camped in the park area outside the hot springs. There was ample open space and picnic tables, but there was also a small amphitheater so things may have changed. Or, my memory may need refreshing. At any rate, the only campsite we were told of nearby was an RV park on the edge of town so we decided to head on into Cody. (Our previous RV park experience in Casper having not been too exciting.) As we drove to Cody, we did pass a state park with tent camping sites along the Big Horn River. Which leads to another tip of road tripping: finding a place to sleep before it gets dark. Try as we might on this trip or my trip of 1999 (or numerous others in between) it is hard to stop driving when you still have daylight! We might have considered stopping in the state park on the river if we had known about it...but Cody also seemed like a good destination. 

I remember Cody being a good ol’ western town. There is the Buffalo Bill Museum, lots of tack and farm stores, many old buildings still in use from last turn of the century, and lots of open range and mountains. At night it kind of looks the same, with the addition of many more chain restaurants. Being dark and since its out of season, we were not going to spend time looking for a campground. When Ken and I departed for this trip, he asked that we sometimes stay in the parking lot of that big chain whose name shall not be spoken. The gianormous RVs do it so it should be ok. I agreed, only to save money and have a 24 hour toilet if we did not buy anything there. 

We drove trough town and found the spot, then went out to look for dining. We also wanted to contact our friends in Alaska to alert them of our status. I could have just called, but we wanted to Skype and check in on emails. Unfortunately, I had been talked out of a traveling internet service so we cruised the hotels for an open network. Some of the chain hotels did have available networks, but the range just wasn’t quite good enough. In the search we noticed a retail store network pop up. It was a business that was closed for the night so we did not feel bad parking right in front to gain connection. I won’t mention the name so they do not feel imposed upon, but I was glad to find a route to the internet superhighway. Hey, when you are on a fixed income moving you have to save money where ever possible. We talked to Jim and Lindsay for quite a while and found out the weather in Alaska was cold already. After the call it was back to the resting spot to bundle in for the night. The weather in Cody this night was cool, not quite cold, maybe 40s though they expected frost overnight. The elevation here is about 5,000 so the air is crystal clear. The town was fairly dark so we could see many stars. 

Preparing the trailer to sleep in was hard and easy. Easy in that the beds were already laid out. Hard in that we had packed a lot of stuff on top of the bed which had to be moved. We had a suitcase up there, the box of kitchen supplies (utensils and food), shoes, extra coats, and spare packing boxes. Most of the non-valuables we moved into the car, the valuables–computers, cameras and the like–we moved into the trailer with us. This would be our third night in the rig with the narrow sleeping space. Ken cracked open the rear fold-down door for ventilation and we closed the side door. He put the locks closed on the latches out side so no one could lock us in. It was a little uneasy getting to sleep thinking about this but we had no problems. 

With the two of us in the small space, we actually kept fairly warm. To liven the home-on-the-road up, Ken installed our battery operated LED twinkle lights. Those really made all the difference! Have to have fun on a trip like this!