Moving Stuff…

Saturday - Sunday - Yesterday, I drove out Chena Hot Springs Road to the local radio club’s ARRL field day at the volunteer fire department. I saw quite a few people who I haven’t seen for several years and also met Delta John, one of the other volunteer examiners. I’ve talked to him on Zoom numerous times over the last 4 years but this is the first time I’ve met him in person. 

I didn’t take any pictures but several people had some impressive portable HF setups and there were a few participating in contests. Basically, trying to make as many contacts as possible. I’m not very interested in contests. But it was a fun couple of hours. Some were planning on staying all night until the event ended at 10am this morning. It’s probably easier to do that up here on the summer solstice.

Today, we hauled more stuff to storage in preparation for the contractor starting work in another week. The high temperature hit 80°F. 

We went to Hot Licks, a local ice cream stand, but the interesting flavors were sold out so we didn’t wait in the long line. We’ll try again some afternoon.

Monday - Waiting for the septic contractor again. Communication doesn’t seem to be one of their strengths…

It’s a smoky day with the fire south of Harding Lake. The McDonald fire is over 50 thousand acres and was started by a lightning strike. Normally, you would be looking at the Alaska Range all the way to Delta. 

Still getting decent performance from StarLink. No complaints. The download speeds do vary quite a bit but rarely go below 70Mbps. I believe that upload is capped at 20Mbps. 

Work has started. They are digging up the septic tank and getting rid of a lot of trees. They asked if we had any sentimental attachment to any trees as they were all going away… 

Almost Solstice

Monday - After the morning test session, we met with the credit union about a short-term load to get started on the house repairs. So much stuff to get done. We then stopped at Costco and Safeway for groceries. I'm still floored by the cost of groceries here in Alaska. 

The days are almost at the maximum with sunset at 12:55am and sunrise before 3am. So it really doesn’t get dark.

Wednesday - We attended a community band concert at a park in downtown Fairbanks right next to the Chena River. We brought our dinner with us. 

This weekend is the Solstice festival where they close down several streets in the downtown area for food booths and entertainment. 

Other than that, it was hauling boxes to storage and to the transfer station (trash).

Thursday - Today is Solstice, i.e. the longest day of the year. From this point, it’s just a slide into winter…

We were scheduled to have the septic system worked on today but the contractor put it off until Monday. I’m not sure if that means actually starting or just showing up with equipment and material. 

Friday - Another week down and even more stuff hauled off to the transfer station. The septic work was postponed by the contractor until Monday. He said that he was running behind. We still haven't heard back from the other contractor to work on the interior projects. 

RV Travel Review

Sunday - The days will continue to get longer for a couple more days then the rapid decent towards winter begins. I had a nice walk to church this morning but got a ride back up the hill. My back is still sore from moving things around. 

And just because it's hard to keep track of our travel, I thought about a summary post.

May 2017 - Drive truck to Washington. Set up the 5th wheel with batteries, solar, transfer switch, RV Lock, LED lights, camera, etc. Northern California, truck repair in Redding, Yosemite, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Moab, Capital Reef, Pikes Peak, Glacier, Helena, Salt Lake City, and Sun River. Drive back to Fairbanks w/RV in July. This was our “practice retirement” trip to see if we like traveling in an RV. About 2.5 months.

June 2018 - Drive RV to PNW with Talon. Store RV at TT Sun River. Drive back to Fairbanks through Vancouver, BC, where we attended a family reunion. About 1.5 months.

September 2018 - Drive truck from Fairbanks to Sun River to pick up the RV. Head to the Oregon coast, Northern California, Yosemite, Needles, and Benson. Store RV in Benson, truck in Tucson. Fly to Fairbanks in November. About 3 months.

January 2019 - Fly back and pick up the truck and RV. Head west to Quartzsite and Quartzfest, Needles Marina (short stay), Joshua Tree, Disneyland, Menifee, Oregon coast, family reunion, Helena, and tow RV to Fairbanks in May. About 5 months.

August 2019 - Drive Prius to Oregon, fly to GA to pick up the motorhome and drive it back to Oregon. Head east through Utah to Zion, Las Vegas, Page, Grand Canyon, Benson, Tucson, Quartzsite, Needles (month stay), now 2020, El Paso, Big Bend, southern TX, northern TX, (Covid), Casa Grande, Pendleton, Oregon coast, southern WA, eastern Oregon, Pahrump, northern Texas, Houston, Harlingen, Carlsbad, Benson, Acton (CA),  Centralia. Store RV. Prius to AK on the ferry in May, 2021. About 21 months.

September 2021 - Fly to Washington to pick up the RV. Head east and south to Albuquerque for the balloon festival. Then east through Oklahoma, Tennessee, South Carolina, to Florida. Pick up the Jeeps in December. Five months in Florida. Left FL in June 2022. North to GA, SC, NC, Tennessee, towards San Antonio. RV was in the shop for a month with a major oil leak. Head for Tucson in August, 2022. Stay in Tucson for four months. In January 2023, head for Yuma and Quartzsite. We went back to Tucson for two months. Then north through Nevada to Centralia. Drive Jeep to Fairbanks. About 20 months.

July 2023 - Head south with the Ural on a trailer. Stop in Helena to store the Ural for a couple of months. Then on to Centralia to pick up the RV. Seaside, Corvallis, Leavenworth, Aspen Crossing, Yellowstone, Helena, Nebraska. The motorhome was towed to Cheyenne for engine replacement. In November, 2023, I picked up the motorhome and drove it to Hondo, TX.

December 2023 - Jeep road trip to Minnesota. 

January 2024 - Jeep road trip to Oklahoma

February 2024 - Jeep road trip to Florida

May 2024 - Fly to Outer Banks. Then drive to Centralia, WA. Fly to Fairbanks. About 10 months.

We lived and traveled ~62 months in an RV over the past 7 years. Thats ~72% of the time. If you don’t count the first “practice retirement” trip in 2017, then it’s around 82%. 

More Junk...

Tuesday - I rode the bike to morning coffee at ACRC and it was a lot more tiring than yesterday. Sore arms and shoulders more than anything else. After coffee, DaveR gave me a ride back home. Especially nice since it had started to rain, which wasn't in the forecast. 

I sorted through more of my junk and hauled my bins of "must keep" to the garage. I'll go through all the junk at least one more time before committing it all to storage. I did find some things that I thought were lost such as the special USB cable to program the PDM60 (power distribution module) on the Ural. It's been missing for years.

Friday - Participated in the morning and afternoon test sessions. The sessions give me a break from moving things around. Hauling stuff around the house is a real pain (literally) especially if books are involved. There must be at least eight feet of cookbooks. I remember picking up most of them as they looked really interesting at the time. These days, most recipes are found using Google searches and most of these books haven't been touched in at least a decade. 

More things are leaving, one way or the other, than are being put into storage. That's a good thing. 

Saturday - Garage Sale #1 of ?  So much stuff to get rid of.

Getting Rid of Junque

Saturday - Got some of my bigger items sold before the garage sale. The air compressor and air tools, a working 2,000-watt generator (plus one that I couldn't start)), a folding aluminum ladder, a glider rocker, a bunch of random tools, and auto servicing stuff.  We also hauled some more stuff to storage.

Sunday - Today, I moved most of the furniture out of our bedroom to either the upstairs bedroom or the garage. The oak desk and large dresser went out through the sliding glass door and the backyard. There was no way I was going to get up the stairs. Both the desk and dresser I’ve had since before moving to Alaska and I must have hauled them up at some point. I really don’t remember when.

My Apple Watch says my heart rate peaked at 180 while moving the dresser up the hill. But recovery time was only a couple of minutes. Not too bad. But I’m pretty exhausted now. Too bad we only have one car, which is in Anchorage today. Hot Licks sounds pretty good around now…

I did get in over 10K steps and climb 41 flights of stairs (according to Apple).

Monday - After yesterday’s effort, I thought I’d do something a little different. I dug out my 50 year old touring bike. I aired up the tires, checked the brakes and cables, and my only helmet here was the one I purchased around 1975. My other helmet is in the RV. So I donned the 49 year old helmet and headed for Beaver Sports for a helmet. Not a long ride but 8.5miles isn’t bad for me.

The bike works fantastic. Easy to shift and rolls effortlessly downhill though the uphill “engine” needs a lot more work. But I can just downshift and plug along. Or walk…

Puttering Around

Sunday - After church, there was a fundraiser for the short-term mission trip to Ethiopia. I was volunteered to help cook burgers on a flattop griddle. Something within my ability. We made around 150 burgers and almost that many hot dogs. I think they reached their fundraising goal. 

The only other task was dismantling the propane half of the grill. It was a nice unit that had both a propane and a charcoal half’s. But it is showing its age with a lot of rusted areas. Since there is an almost full bag of charcoal in the garage, I’ll keep the charcoal half until we run out of time or charcoal. 

Monday - More de-cluttering and getting things ready for the upcoming garage sale. Sorting what goes to storage and what gets sold. As well as a lot going to the landfill. What causes us to keep all of this junk?

As it was the first Monday of the month, there was a BMW Airhead get-together aka barley therapy. We met at Brian’s home and enjoyed some good discussions. Brian is another sidecar rider and has a Ural sidecar on his BMW R60. 

Tuesday - We met the group for coffee this morning at ACRC then hit Costco and Fred Meyer for some groceries. It wasn't a lot of groceries but still hit close to $200. Food is ridiculously expensive in AK. 

Wednesday - I hate garage sales. I'm almost inclined to just toss anything we don't want to keep. So much junk...

Thursday - We had long-time friends over and it allowed me to do a little cooking. That always makes for a good day. I was going to say "old friends" but I resemble that description. We had some ribs, potato salad, grilled broccoli, and turkey burgers. They brought watermelon and cookies. It was wonderful to visit with them as we had been friends since the early 80s when we were all students at the university.

Friday - Still pushing along trying to get things filtered down. I keep running into things I want to keep. Kind of sad...

We spent the evening at a U-Park retiree gathering. I made a deconstructed California roll for our contribution. It came out pretty good. There were some familiar faces including the hosts as I had worked with him for years at the university.