four weeks

Today marks our fourth week in Sitka. In some ways, it feels like we've always been here. In others, well, there's a lot still sinking in.

JoElle has gone off to work for the first time since before Seren was born. She worked largely out of the home where we last were, but now she's in a job where she's being paid an hourly wage to work somewhere that has a dress code and everything. She's working for the Russian America Company at Random House downtown here, and seems to really enjoy the work and her bosses (although adapting to the hours has been tough on all of us).

Porter seems to be really settling in and enjoying himself. We set his crib up as a daybed, which he hated for one night and then realized that he could roll himself out whenever he gets bored with napping. This has resulted in FAR shorter naps. He's also getting around well enough that he is being a real pain to his sister.

Seren has been loving it here. Whether she's going for short walks to the store or the mail or whether she's heading out to pick salmonberries or play with the daughter of our landlords, she loves where we live. Every couple of days, she begs us to go to the library, which is her favorite spot in town! She also loves the Whale Park.

I've been working on setting up our house since Thursday, when all of our worldly goods were delivered in brown paper wrapping. Almost everything arrived undamaged, and I've been going around seeking out places to store things and trying to figure out where all of our things are (not all of the packing was done in the most logical manner). I've also been working on figuring out a day care/preschool solution for the kids, as Seren is of preschool age (although the cost of sending her may be an issue - is it really $250-$300 a month everywhere for only 10 hours a week?). Since our household showed up, my work getting my classroom and office inventoried and set up has taken a back seat, but I'm glad to have my bike back so that I can start commuting.

Music teachers: Alaska has some of the simplest standards I've ever seen. On the one hand, this is awesome because it means that the bar is set low. On the other hand, there are detailed standards for math, science, social studies, and English. I guess at least I know what the priorities are here?

I know that it's going to sink in at some point that we actually live in Alaska, and the huge distances are going to become a reality instead of just something that I understand intellectually. For now, every time I open up a library book or get a piece of mail and see "Sitka, AK" written, it throws me for a little bit of a loop. In a good way.

...because I'm talkin' about The Road!

Long day today. We covered almost 900 km from Brandon MB to Lloydminster AB, completely crossing Saskatchewan and seeing its biggest cities (Regina and Saskatoon). We spent about three hours loving the CBC Radio 2 coverage of Canada Day, featuring a bunch of Canadian musicians.

We just set up our hotels in Fort St. John BC (about 11.5 hours away) and Watson Lake, YT (about 12 hours past that), so that we can be in Skagway on July 4, dashing my hopes of a Canadian Independence Day. JoElle has been busy on the phone while I've been using Google Maps on my computer and we've been busting our butts trying to reserve the few remaining hotel rooms that will allow our pets in these remote locations. Oddly enough, Skagway is proving to be our biggest challenge in this regard.

The next two days will hurt, but then we're only doing 7 hours to Alaska (plus whatever occurs at Customs) and we will be able to have a long night's rest before loading up for the ferry ride to Sitka.

The end is almost in sight, but I don't dare start thinking of it. There's work aplenty to be done when we get to our new home (utilities, moving in, setting up an entire music program from scratch), so there'll be no rest for the wicked.

Impressions from the road!

OK, you need to understand two things to appreciate these pictures. 1) JoElle takes pictures with her phone and I take pictures with the camera while driving, so the pictures I take may not be in focus. 2) I have just picked up the camera to take shots quickly when something amused me. This means that a lot of my pictures are probably not representative of the area.

ENOUGH OF THAT HERE ARE SOME PICTURES

Yesterday!


Yes, this is what I think of when I think of Wisconsin.


OK, there's some pretty stuff there, too.


Today!


North Dakota: beautiful driving, LOTS OF WIND


My kids are about as cute as it is humanly possible for kids to get. I say that as a completely unbiased individual.


Manitoba: not only north of North Dakota, also north of Minnesota!


Yes, rednecks have these on their cars at WalMart in Canada, too.

Day Two/Six on the road

We just finished our second day of the second leg of our trip to Alaska, logging a combined 900ish miles in the past two days and winding up in St. Cloud, MN. I'm pretty sure that some joker kept pulling that Wile E. Coyote trick of grabbing the chunk of road we'd just driven and shoving it in front of us because Wisconsin felt approximately 6000 miles long. On the up-side, we did have a run from Chicago to Cheesyresortville, WI where the Pathfinder got 27 mpg, which is 4 mpg better than it's ever averaged before.

We're wrapping up our day at 8ish local time (got in to the hotel at 7ish and just finished unpacking and setting up). It feels good to be off the road early with a lot of travel done, and we're looking forward to getting into Canada tomorrow. Hopefully, the border crossing will be uneventful and we'll get to enjoy a clean country full of exceptionally polite people.

first day: done

Some quick pictures from the drive. We're in Moriarty, NM for the night, thinking of The Bean constantly!

The poor, poor car.

Why yes, that is a high chair on top of that car.

We're crashed in a Super 8, looking forward to another 8-10 hours on the road tomorrow.

almost on the road!

We just spent the night in sleeping bags on the floor. Not as bad as it could have been, but I know two people who definitely aren't 14 any more. We got the carpets vacuumed last night and have to mop the tile and scrub a few counters this morning before we have the head of maintenance come over and look things over. Once he's done, we head to the business office to try to get our housing deposit back. Once THAT is done, we hit the road!

Our plan is to go about 200 miles and stop for lunch in Holbrook with our friend Roger at Romo's (disregard that negative review - I've never seen service that bad, although it's rarely perfect) for my last fried shredded beef tacos for a long while. Once that's over, we're getting back on the road to try to make it to eastern New Mexico for the night. Our goal is to make it to Tucumcari, where I'll do my best not to talk like John Wayne all night.

observation: moving sucks, even with professional help

The packers are here, putting all of our belongings into boxes and brown paper wrapping at a remarkable rate, leaving us with surprisingly little to do. Despite that, I still hate moving.

On the agenda this afternoon: watching 95% of our worldly possessions get loaded onto a truck, then cleaning the house like crazy with a brief interlude for dinner with Jeremiah (who is a hero for understanding the need for a quiet dinner cooked by someone else at this point in the move).

things i've learned or observed recently

In no particular order...

 1. Moving sucks
 2. Moving is made only a little less sucky by paying someone else to pack for you
 3. People will often surprise you
 4. Family members are not often among the people referred to in item 3
 5. Alaska is really, REALLY big
 6. Alaska is really, REALLY far away
 7. Kids are made of rubber
 8. No matter how minimalist you try to be with your possessions, you still end up with more than you need
 9. Family is stronger than distance and sometimes they just need to be reminded of that fact
10. It's only money
11. Alaskans are more friendly/helpful than the average American
12. There will ALWAYS be unexpected expenses (refer to item 10)