my new job

for those of you that know me... you know that i'm not the corporate type. well... i've decided to not go the office route again and dive directly into teaching. i found out about a place that is a private school/gym. they have classes in the morning and then do sports in the afternoon. the sports part is the coolest part. in the summertime they go biking, hiking, ect. in the wintertime they stay indoors and do gymnastics; they have their own, full size gym ... and... a ROCK WALL. how freakin' cool is that? i get to teach the kids gymnastics (what the hell do i know about gymnastics???) and teach them how to climb. i can't wait.

the other teacher was telling me today that they push the kids pretty hard and get pretty good results. all the kindergardners can already read. i was pretty impressed. and the guy that i've become friends with (the one that told me about the place) told me that he gets he preschool kids to go on all-day 10/15 mile bike rides. PRESCHOOL!!! that means 3 and 4 year olds. when i asked him how the hell he pulls that off he just explained that he breaks it up. a couple of miles here, a couple of miles there, ect. at the end they have biked 15 miles and don't even know it.

anyways... i can't wait. here is the place if you are curious. http://anchorage-gymnastics.com/index.html

madeleine also got a job within days of being here. she walked into the biggest and most popular (read trendy... where rich people go to spend lots of loot) flower shop and got a job doing designing. she is in heaven. she got to go to the local hospital and decorate all the xmas trees today and after that went to a rich ladies house and set up her xmas decos and tree. for mad it doesn't get much better than getting paid to decorate xmas stuff.

i'll be starting school in the spring to get my masters in teaching. that way i can go teach at a school and have a few more options than preschool and kindergarden. (not that i'm complaining... in fact my boss asked me today if i would be willing to teach the kids german... very cool)

oh... holy crap. joe and i found the USGS STORE today. i thought that i had died and gone to map heaven. there were probably about 5,000 maps for just alaska. it was incredible. i have never seen so many maps in one spot at once. and CHEAP!! i got a six foot by six foot map of alaska for $15 and a four foot by four foot of north america for 7 DOLLARS!!! i think that i may have found a new favorite store.

i have also come to find out that people who actually have to deal with extreme cold DON'T wear name brand crap. i was wondering since you always hear people talk about north face and marmot and crap like that... nope... people on the north slopes (where they do oil drilling in the arctic) wear carhartt. you can get arctic carhartt stuff for less than 80 bucks. and that stuff will keep you warm. you couldn't hike in it, but if you were at a ski resort all day with wind and stuff... nothing better.

i have become a pretty good driver in slippery conditions quite quickly. they don't use salt up here.... at all. so when it snows they just push it out of the way. but there is of course still some on the road. and when it gets compacted it turns to slippery, slippery stuff. everyone up here has studded tires. they don't help much, but they do help a little. once we are a little more secure with dough we might get some. they cost $350/car (ouch).

we went to walmart and splurged on a couple of pairs of ice skates. there are two lagoons right in front of our house and the parks & rec clears and maintains one of them. i saw the thing today that they use and it is like a make shift zambonie. pretty cool really. they turn pond ice into ice rink quality. alaskans take winter seriously. in fact, as i was walking out of a resteraunt the other day the lady behind the counter was making small talk and said, "man, it sure would be cool if it snowed." and we all agreed. when was the last time you heard someone in michigan wish for snow. everyone up here is in agreeance that the more snow the better. these people love the winter. skiing, snow machining, ice skating, x-country skiing, skate skiing, biathalon, ... you name it... people up here do it. i even saw x-country high school teams practicing the other day while joe and i were playing disc golf.

yes... i said that we were playing disc golf in the snow. seriously. it rocks. just wear a thin glove on the right hand and a thick one on the left. no big deal.

hmm... the only thing left to talk about is nature i guess. i have seen 20x more stuff in four weeks than the whole rest of my life combined. i was within 10 feet of two eagles the other day. (there will be pictures soon. joe still refuses to bring them over so i can put them up on the web) i have seen 6 or 7 moose (two almost ran over our car the other day in homer). and ... the northern lights. we were in homer for thanksgiving (one of the most beautiful places i've been) and had a place with a hottub that overlooked the ocean and the alaska range mountains and the homer spit (if you want to google it). so... here we were in an AMAZING place, eating amazing food (i covered the turkey in a pound of bacon while it baked.... holy crap is right... why don't i cover everything in a pound of bacon is the real question) and then we go outside in 0 degree weather and sit in a hot tub and watch the northern lights. that will definetely be one of the days that i recall with a smile on my face right before i kick the bucket.

other than that? don't know. hope that everyone had a great turkey day. hope to talk to you all soon as well. take care.

we're almost there

Day 1:

Novi, Michigan to St. Cloud, Minnesota

After a semi-rough start with having to unpack and repack parts of the cars due to a small weight issue (the gas tanks were only inches off the ground) we made it out of the driveway and started our long journey. Along the way to Chicago we made our first stop in an Indiana truck stop to get lunch and pick up a CB. While looking for our radio antennae Joe found vinyl lettering to make a sign for the back of my roof rack.

We had gotten a Thule roof rack for my birthday and our x-mas gift a couple of weeks ago and were lucky enough to get a gear box with it. A couple of days ago I went to the Garage Sale at REI with Joe and Rick and found a bike rack for 25 bucks. As you can imagine I was super excited about that since that afforded me the opportunity to take my bike along with me. So far it has worked flawlessly. Ironically, my dad loaned us his old roof rack (ca. 1975) for Maddy’s car and that 30 year old rack has held up just as well as my brand new, expensive Thule rack; the same rack that now has “Alaska or Bust” on the back of it.

Between the traffic of Chicago and the traffic of Minneapolis the temperature dropped about 30 degrees to a balmy 16 degrees. That was the last time that we saw it so warm. Since then it has been on a steady decline as we inch our way northward; right now it is the fifth day and is currently 9.5 degrees (up from 6 this morning).

Day 2:

St Cloud, Minnesota to Whitewood, Saskatchewan

Following an eventful night of ordering pizza, drinking a beer and passing out within minutes we started our second 15 hour day of driving and our first day of driving the Plains. If you have never driven in the Plains or something similar I wouldn’t recommend it. If you insist on experiencing it you could either go to Kansas or North Dakota. I did Kansas a couple of years ago and North Dakota, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta all look the same.

The only break in monotony was when we very quickly passed through a couple of cities: first Winnipeg, then Regina, Saskatoon, Lloydminster and finally Edmonton. It would be a stretch to call most of these places towns, let alone cities. This day we saw two big towns in a total of 14 hours, Fargo and Winnipeg. It is a very sobering thought to think that drove 14 hours and only passed through two places that had more than 500 people. This whole trip has really made me realize how big North America is and how few people there are in it.

We did, accidentally, find a really cool hotel with a pool and hot tub that Joe and I made sure to take advantage of – very refreshing.

Day 3:

Whitewood, Saskatchewan to Whitecourt, Alberta

Joe insists that we are not racist and we are not seeking out towns that only start with “White”, but he has been the main one doing the directing and suggesting towns to stop in.

The description for this day would only vary from day 2 in so much as I would have to change the names of the towns that we went through to Regina, Edmonton and Lloydminster. Other than that you can re-read my description of the Plains for more info.

Whitecourt is a little town in the middle of nowhere just past Edmonton that is one of the most depressing places I have had the pleasure of laying eyes on. It consisted of a paper mill and a very depressed economy. With the exception the town that we just went through (Ft Nelson) it had the roughest people that I have ever seen.

Our waitress was one of three people working in the bar of the hotel. Ironically even with three people working it took us a half an hour to get any kind of service, although the only type of service was bad. We were only there for one beer, as they couldn’t serve us food since it took them so long to come and ask us what we want, and in that short amount of time we had three close calls with pool balls, watch a man get thrown out twice for trying to start a fight and, the highlight and finale, karaoke. The best part of the show was that there were so few people in the bar (one other table besides ours… not counting the two guys there doing the karaoke) that the whole bar staff sang multiple country songs. When our waitress finished her second song we headed for bed.

Day 4:

Whitecourt, Alberta to Ft St John, British Columbia

This was, so far, the highlight of the trip: the giant beaver. About half way from Whitecourt to Ft St John we stopped and made friends with the friendly beaver of Beaverlodge, Alberta. This was the first day of semi-interesting scenery; semi-interesting as in … no more plains. Flat, brown oceans were replaced by trees and rolling hills. This was to be replaced again by today’s firs and mountains (more of that to come later).

This day also marked our first real taste of shitty roads covered with snow. There were a couple sections that were hairy, but all in all totally doable. On the way we went through Dawson Creek (not to be confused with TV’s Dawson’s Creek… although I wish that it were so that I could meet all my favorite cast) and decided to push on one more hour to Ft St John. This turned out to be one of the best things that we could have done. Between the two towns was a massive 5k downhill where at points was at 12%. When we woke up this morning and checked the weather we found that just to the south of where we were there had been a big snow storm and that downhill may have not even been doable. Good job JOEY!! (in his infinite weather knowledge, he had advised us of this and in my infinite wisdom I heeded his advise and we lived to tell another tale.)

Oh… we also went to Walmart three times and stayed at a place with a hot tub. It was relaxing and soothing. I recommend it.

Day 5:

Ft St John, British Columbia to Muncho Lake, British Columbia

Mountains. We have reached the mountains. It is currently -2 degrees, the road is completely covered in snow and up, down and all around, and it is absolutely amazing. Two minutes ago we came around a corner and had to come to a stop to let the three Caribou in the road pass. It’s snowing, but it’s amazing. I will continue writing more when we get to Muncho Lake. We are staying there tomorrow as well to sit in the hot springs and have a day off of driving.

Day 5 (cont.)

We got to “Northern Rocky Lodge” on Muncho Lake later on that night and had dinner and a beer and fell asleep at about 8:30 local time. Our bodies are still struggling with the time adjustments. A lot of the time we get up and start driving at 8am local time and then drive into a new time zone where our bodies are telling us that it is time to go to sleep. Within the past week or so we have had daylight savings time, 4 time zones, and a sort of non-time zone zone (part of Northern BC doesn’t adhere to the rules of daylight savings time and so has the same time as Alberta, but was technically a different time zone.)

Day 6:

Up till now this was the best day of the trip… well… most of the day. We got to sleep in – not that we did – and went and enjoyed a long breakfast. Following breakfast we drove down the road a little ways and went for a walk in a glacial outwash (kinda’ like a big valley). It was freezing, but absolutely beautiful. To warm up we jumped in the car and drove to the Laird River Provincial Hot Springs.

When you walk up to the Springs they are about 50 yards long, by 20 feet wide and 3 feet deep. The only sign that you aren’t about to jump into 0 degree water is the mist coming off the top of it and once you strip all your clothes off in 0 degree weather the 105 degree water is the only thing keeping you from freezing all your parts off. Surrounding the springs is a winter wonderland of branches and firs that drip with diamonds from the mist that freezes on contact.

It may have been a lack of sleep from driving or the water may have been too hot, but all of showed at different times that our judgement was a little on the brink. Mom and I dared to walk all the way to the source of the hot water and place our rock on the small pile of other rocks where others had tested their strength in the 126 degree water. Mom got there and asked when it was going to start getting warm. The other three of us did something that none us dreamed that we would ever do; we rolled in the snow with nothing between our bodies but a little bit of stupidity. I think that Madeleine might join the Polar Bear Club next time she gets a chance.

When we got back from dinner Joe and I wanted to fill up the cars with gas and discovered something very bad: my car was broken. Something is very wrong with the engine and it doesn’t sound like something that is going to spontaneously fix itself (the hope that everyone has when any car makes any kind of strange noise). We worked for a couple of hours and after consulting the quasi-mechanic we all agreed that it was misfiring or only running on three cylinders – non of which are good. So, I called the Saturn Roadside Assistance.

This was one of the craziest things that I have ever experienced.

Woman on Phone: “Are you in a safe location with your car?”

Me: “Yes”

W: What is your current location?

M: Milepost 462 on the Alaska Highway

W: where is that?

M: about 8 hours south of Whitehorse and 6 hours north of Fort St John.

W: where is that?

M: Middle of nowhere in British Columbia.

W: Oh

The conversation went like this for a while and then she asked me to give her a couple of minutes while she called her Canadian colleagues for help. I have to give it to them though… they got it figured out and took my car away.

I had a couple of options when they finally figured out where I was and found the nearest Saturn dealers. Guess…. There are only two. The nearest one was in Kamloops, BC (not far from Vancouver… a FOUR DAY detour) and the next nearest was …. (you guessed it) Anchorage, Alaska. After begging her not to send it 2 days south of where we were she told me that she could have it sent to Anchorage, but I would have to pay for the extra miles. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity hoping and praying that they wouldn’t charge us 5 dollars a mile and that the extra wouldn’t be hundreds of miles. Well… if ever there were a doubt that there is a god… no more. Anchorage was only 44 miles further than Kamloops and they only charged us 2.70/mile. Although exorbitant, it only cost me 150 bucks or so. The funniest part about it is that gas for the rest of the trip for that car would’ve cost about $300. So, by that car breaking down, it actually saved me about $150. Amazing. Oh, and by the way, we did the math to find out how much it cost to tow that car from Muncho Lake, BC to Anchorage, AK (1252 miles * 2.70/mile + extra from the town he came from = about $3500). I think that it would’ve been cheaper for them to push it in the lake and give me a new one in Anchorage.

Day 7: Muncho Lake, BC to Watson Lake, BC

We had to wait around for a while for the tow truck driver to show up and while we did we switched the luggage and stuff around so that we could fit four humans and one cat into the green car. It was a struggle, but we managed to fit everything in and we are comfortably on our way. We have pretty much accepted the fact that there is just going to be snow on the road from now on. Yesterday wasn’t nearly as bad as today, but most of the time we never got above 40mph or so.

It took a while for the tow truck to show up so we were only able to go a couple of hours. We made it as far as Watson Lake – a real, live, gun-toten’, cowboy hat wearin’, on the edge of civilization, wild west town. Even the natives were wearing cowboy hats. We, coincidentally, stayed in the same town that the tow truck was from and (to show you what kind of town this was) it took a whole of about 5 minutes of being in the hotel before the woman from the tow truck company called our ROOM and asked to talk to me. In my shock, I asked her “How on earth did you know where I was?” Her response said everything, “It’s a small town; word travels fast.” Yeah. It was that kind of town.

Day 8: Watson Lake, BC to Haines Junction, Yukon Territory

Again, we rode all day in the clown car. Haines Junction isn’t really a town, so to speak, but rather a collection of a couple of buildings around the Alaska Highway. In this respect most of the “towns” along the way are like this. During the night we had to go out and start the car a couple of times to make sure that the engine and oil didn’t get too cold. Up there cold has a new meaning. Although there is no humidity to make it feel like it is so cold… don’t let it fool you – it is pretty damn cold. It was the last day in the car that we experienced our coldest temperature though… -28 degrees Fahrenheit. That is pretty friggen’ cold. The mountains along this stretch and the last stretch are awe inspiring. Just outside Haines Junction we came up on a couple that were towering above the town and the road – our first set above 10,000. this was, as we came to find, only the beginning.

Day 9: Haines Junction, Yukon Territory to Anchorage, AK

We had an early day with this one. We had decided to push through and make it all the way to Anchorage in one day. We had been in the car long enough and it would have been torture to have to stop and sleep one more night in a hotel so close to the final destination: our new home. So we got to see the moon set and the sun rise over some of the most impressive scenery I’ve ever seen. Shortly down the road from Haines Junction we came to the only real “touristy” area that I saw the whole trip. Touristy in the Yukon is different from “touristy” in the Lower 48 obviously, but we did see a campground. Kluane Lake is surrounded on all sides by 5 to 8,000 foot mountains and on the day that we went through the sun was rising over the mountains and through the fog that was rising off the lake like some kind of mythical tale. From there to Anchorage is truly worth doing just for fun. The mountains get up to 17,000 feet, the valleys stretch miles and hold some of the last untouched evergreens on the planet. I can only recommend to everyone that they fly into Whitehorse, rent a car/RV and drive through it. Trying to take pictures and video is an act of futility. There is no way that some manmade device can capture the feeling of smallness you get when you stand there in front of all that beauty and grandure.

We pulled into Anchorage in the dark (not a real feat since it gets dark at 5:00pm) and were met at our new apartment by Joe’s girlfriend Brook and were shocked more than I’ve been in a long time. The two of them had not only gone out and bought us tons of stuff for the apartment – cleaning supplies, food, toiletries, beer… - but they had gone out and found out all our favorites of each. Both of us agreed that we had never had friends that had done something as nice as that for us before. I am eternally greatful to the both of them for the love and kindness that they have showed us both.

After setting our stuff down and saying hello we headed out to Joe and Brook’s favorite resteraunt, Moose’s Tooth. They have really good pizza and amazing beer. This officially ended the adventure of the Alcan and started our new adventure of living in Alaska.