Cross Country Move - Part Two

So let's get down to business because this is going to be a LONG one.

DAY ONE: We left Fairbanks, AK at about 9am (later than we wanted but it is what it is). The drive took us about 13 hours. It was during this day that we crossed the border into Canada and stopped in Whitehorse. We saw SO MUCH wildlife, horses and caribou, and were delayed by a lot of construction. It was also during this day, DAY ONE, that we determined the original setup with Ditto (our cat) was just not going to work.
So the plan was to make the trip as comfortable as possible with our furchild. We got him a harness and one of those seat belt adapters for dogs, so that he could have the whole backseat of my car to himself. We even went as far as to run the idea by our vet and take the harness to him to make sure that everything fit properly. He had food, water, a litter box, and a bed. It was a great setup! Well, it lasted towards the end of day one. During the ride he was a little vocal (which we figured would be the case). The change in elevation was making his little ears pop and there was A LOT of mountains we were driving through. As it got later and darker I was super focused on the road (I'm blind at night!) and I didn't notice the silence that came from the back seat. The next thing I know that little turd has wiggled out of his harness and climbed up the back of my seat! He then proceeds to climb onto my chest and sink his claws in. I CAN'T SEE! So I immediately pull over and jump out of the car. Ben pulls in behind me and asks what's wrong. I point to the car and Ben just breaks out laughing, the darn cat is just chilling in the front seat like he owns the place! So yeah, from then on Ditto stayed in his pet taxi unless we were stopped.

DAY TWO: We drove from Whitehorse to Fort Nelson. This drive ended up taking closer to 14/15 hours. We were EXHAUSTED by the time we'd arrived at our destination for the day. Heck, I get tired just thinking about it. But we were able to see the Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake AND there were lots of wildlife sightings. Just in this day alone we saw caribou, elk, bison, goats, a fox, and a bear. I was able to capture pictures of almost all of them.

DAY THREE: Fort Nelson to Grand Prairie. Thank goodness we finally hit a shorter day because we were pooped! We arrived early enough in the day that it was still light out and there were restaurants open other than McDonalds. We had a fantastic hotel and we decided to take showers and watch TV in our PJs while we ate. It was heaven! Haha.

DAY FOUR: Grand Prairie to Calgary (Yupp, still in Canada!): At this point we were just so ready to get Canada over with. You see, we have Straight Talk, so we didn't have cell service or anything all the way through Canada. The only way we were able to update family and friends on where we were was through a Facebook group that we had created.

DAY FIVE: Calgary to Great Falls, MT! FINALLY, we were back in the US. We got up early and crossed the border. There was a small mishap at the border, when a guy drove into the back of the Pontiac that the hubby was towing. He was not a happy camper. Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done because it happened on the Canada side, but thankfully there isn't too much damage.

DAY SIX: Great Falls, MT to Billings, MT. Originally we were supposed to be headed to South Dakota, but there was a lot of construction showing up when we checked out the route. Plus at this point we were really just trying to hang in there. So we chose to stop in Billings, do a load of laundry, and get the hotels booked for the rest of our trip. We also made a call to Uhaul and had the dolly that we were using to tow the Pontiac switched out for a trailer. Honestly, the Pontiac shouldn't have been on a dolly to begin with, but it was all Alaska had.

DAY SEVEN: Billings, MT to Hill City, SD. This was a big day for us, and probably my favorite of the whole trip! Before entering South Dakota we saw a sign and pulled over to do a little sightseeing. We were able to see and take pictures of Little Bighorn Battlefield! That was cool. I'd only really read about it in Mrs.Wine's history class. We're suckers for a good piece of history though so we took the opportunity to get out, stretch, take pictures, and look around.

After that little pit stop we pushed on to Hill City. Now let me first start off by saying, we knew this was going to happen but we definitely underestimated the enormity of it! Because of who our fathers are we were fully aware of what event occurs every year in South Dakota at the beginning of August. What we weren't prepared for was the nonstop parade of bikes and streets being closed down for the event. That's right! We got caught up in Sturgis! We didn't actually go to Sturgis, we would've loved to, but with a cat and a massive Uhaul and trailer it just wasn't feasible. We honestly figured choosing a small town 50 miles away would put of out of the chaos. NO, the Black Hills is biker central during the first couple weeks of August!
ANYWAYS, after we checked into our hotel we jumped back into my car and drove over to MOUNT RUSHMORE!!! It was a dream come true. Haha. I've wanted to see it since I was a kid. It was cool. :) Total nerd alert. We walked around, snapped a bunch of pictures, hit up the gift shop, and drove back to our hotel.

DAY EIGHT: Hill City, SD to Sioux Falls, SD. Getting out of Hill City was stressful because of how crowded and busy the area was but it was pretty smooth sailing the rest of the way. We did start to get grumpy though from the long drive and all the traveling. Once we made it to Sioux Falls we called the housing office and set up an appointment to move into our house the day that we arrived.

DAY NINE: Sioux Falls, SD to Madison, WI. Driving in Wisconsin was fun because of how beautiful it is there. It was another day full of driving though. It was such a smooth and uneventful drive that we didn't even realize that we had went through Minnesota.

DAY TEN: Madison, WI to South Bend, IN. Originally we were going to drive from Wisconsin to Ohio but we didn't want to drive that far so we went with Indiana instead. It was about 100 less miles and a couples hours less of a drive, which was great because getting through Chicago sucked majorly. I don't ever wanna go back to Illinois.

DAY ELEVEN: South Bend, IN to Pittsburgh, PA. We ran into some crappy weather right before Pittsburgh. We were driving towards a dark cloud and expected some rain but what came down was just insane. There was lightening and the rain was so heavy that we couldn't see the road in front of us! Not even the brake lights of the person in front of us!! Traffic practically came to a stand still, we were all crawling down the highway at like 10mph. Thankfully that only lasted about 10 minutes. Once it let up we booked it the rest of the way to the hotel in the hopes of avoiding it again.

DAY TWELVE: Pittsburgh, PA to Frederick, MD. On our last day we were up and out the door at 6am. The plan was to get to Maryland early and avoid the storm that was brewing. Fortunately we did arrive and the weather stayed mostly clear for the rest of the day.

So, yeah! That was essentially our trip. Haha. The day we arrived we were given the keys to our new home and thankfully a friend came over and we were able to unload the whole Uhaul that day. We were lucky to already know someone here, he's like family. The next day we turned the Uhaul in. Since then we have SLOWLY been working on getting settled in. We got the cable and internet set up, washer and dryer have been delivered, and boxes are slowly being unpacked. I started school this week (8/20) and the hubby will start work next week. Though this move was totally last minute and super stressful, we're so excited to be here.

Cross Country Move - Part One

When I first started this post I was prepared to call it "The PCS from Hell". The past two months have been a big bowl of crazy! For starters the hubby reenlisted in June. We knew a move would be coming up and we were expecting to leave Alaska at the end of September. In the beginning of July we went to a briefing to cover the moving process and what to expect. It was after the briefing that we found out that because of some paperwork that had been submitted that the moving date had been moved up by a whole month! Personally, I was in a panic and it felt like the craziness just kept spiraling from there. After talking with a couple more offices we learned that there wouldn't be any movers available to move our stuff before the end of the month, and that because of the paperwork that the hubster would need to be signed out on leave before the end of the month and we would need to be on our way.

The rest of July was a big blur. We did some last minute sightseeing and went to The Great Alaskan Bowl Company. Then we also drove back over to North Pole one last time to see Santa's house and to meet up with a friend of ours before leaving. While there we were able to feed and hang out with the reindeer, which was AWESOME!

Of course the relaxing was short lived because a couple days after that we got a call from Uhaul. The truck and trailer that we reserved hadn't shown up in Fairbanks. They gave us two choices: 1. We could wait a couple days and maybe they would show up (not an option because we had to be out of our house in a few days) or 2. We could make the 6 hour drive down to Anchorage and pick up a truck and dolly. So after Ditto's appointment to get a 30 day travel health certificate we drove home, packed a bag, and jumped in my car to head to Anchorage. We spent the night in Anchorage, picked up the Uhaul in the morning, and made the 6 hour drive back to Fairbanks. After making it back to Fairbanks we had about 36 hours to finish packing the house and to have the Uhaul loaded up.

Once we were loaded up and out of our house we spent 4 days in the hotel there. Our hope was to get out of our house on the 31st and then turn around and start the drive down on the 1st. Yet again though, there was some paperwork holding us back and stopping us from leaving Alaska until the 3rd. It was annoying at the time but looking back having a couple extra days to sit and make sure we were prepared for what we were about to do was nice. The drive from Alaska to Maryland took us 11 days!

Watch for our next blog posts! In those I'll cover the route we drove to get to Maryland, where we stopped, how we booked our hotels, and tips/things we would do differently.

Denali National Park

This past weekend we decided to take a trip to Denali National Park. The trip was somewhat impromptu. We had been planning on going for a while, but the weather wasn’t wanting to cooperate. When we woke up Sunday morning I checked the weather and it wasn’t raining, nor was it super cloudy, so we jumped in the car and headed that way.

The drive from Fairbanks to Denali took us about 2 hours. It was a pretty easy drive, especially considering there is only one highway. After about 30 minutes the view during the drive was gorgeous. Even the drive down was worth the trip! Once we arrived we headed into the Visitor’s Center to get our park pass. Active Duty military get a free park pass to any National Park. We chose to drive my car into the park rather than take a tour bus. The downside to this of course is that, that option only allows us to drive 15 miles into the park to Savage River. The reason we chose this option is because we wanted to be able to stop/pull over if we wanted to take a picture or if we saw wildlife.

We ended up seeing a good amount of wildlife on our 15-mile drive to Savage River and back to the Visitor’s Center. The two animals that we saw a lot of was hares and caribou! We got some pictures of the caribou but the gosh darn hares were fast! I was hoping to see a bear or goat, but we didn’t get lucky enough.

When we arrived back at the Visitor’s Center we ate the lunch that I had packed for us. It wasn’t too special. 😊 Just a sandwich and some Pringles. I also thought to pack a cooler with water for us. After lunch we went over to the bus stop and waited patiently to board the bus to the Kennels. Denali National Park has a bunch of sled dogs that work and live at the park. During the summer they are basically on vacation. They put on a free demonstration twice a day for park visitors. During the winter the dogs job is to haul debris and such out of the park. They can go places in the park that machines can’t get to.

The demonstration was great! We got to hang out and pet the dogs for a good twenty minutes when we arrived. Then we went to the seating area and watched as the workers picked 5 dogs for a demonstration. They hooked the dogs up to a special sled with wheels (you know, since it’s winter and we don’t have snow). They explained the dog’s jobs, their physical appearance, what makes them so unique, and the history of the park’s sled dogs.

These dogs are the strongest draft animal pound for pound, so they can haul a lot and they are hooked up to the sled in a specific pattern according to their size and job. They have a SUPER thick coat that allows them to stay warm and dry in the winter. When we arrived, these pups were laying down napping like they had been running all day. This was because the dogs are used to negative temps, so this was 70 degrees hotter than their “ideal” temperature. During the summer they eat once a day but during the winter they eat twice a day because of the energy they burn when they’re running and working.

After the demonstration we got about 10 more minutes with the dogs and then it was time to get on the bus and head back to the Visitor’s Center. At this point it was already almost 4:00 in the afternoon so we hopped in the car and started making our way back to Fairbanks. It was on our way out of the park that we saw a moose (which let’s be honest we’re used to; they’re in our yard all the time). We managed to snap a couple pictures, but he was headed in the opposite direction than we were. We also made a quick pit stop in Healy, Alaska. We were back on the road to Fairbanks within 15 minutes and made it back home by 6:30pm.

We had a great time and it has sparked our interest in seeing other National Parks in the U.S. This summer is most likely our last summer in Alaska, so we have a lot of stuff planned! Plus, of course, there is most likely some big changes coming our way. These past few years have been interesting. Make sure to keep an eye out for future blog posts. You won’t wanna miss what’s in store!

Our Daily Routine.

I thought it would be fun to change things up a bit and give y’all a look into our daily lives. At this point I am a full-time college student. I’m working hard to stay on track and hopefully I’ll be finishing up my second-degree next year. I just completed my associates degree and my second degree will be a BA in English. My end goal is to someday get a master’s in library science so that I can be a Librarian. I’m very passionate about books and reading; I couldn’t imagine spending my days any other way. So, without further ado, here is a typical day in the Stryker house.

5:00-5:15am our day starts. The alarm usually starts going off incessantly until I get up and start flipping on the lights and waking Ben up. Between whenever we roll out of bed and about 5:45-6:00am when he leaves, he gets up, puts on his pts, shaves, and finds all the items he needs. I'll take my meds, make sure one of the cars is started for him (hello, Alaska winter), and most likely follow him around finding the items he says he can't find!

There is usually about an hour and a half to two hours between him leaving to work out and coming home to shower and eat breakfast. I take this time to go back to sleep since I can't eat or drink for an hour after taking my thyroid meds. Once he walks in the door, around 8am, he starts his coffee and heads for the shower. While he showers I’ll throw some form of breakfast together for him. Breakfast is usually a wide range of who knows what. Sometimes it's a fancy omelet and some fruit and some days it's a pop tart. It just depends on how our morning is going!

Once Ben leaves for work at around 8:45-9am I'll get dressed and check my email, Facebook, and online classroom. I have about 2.5 hours to focus on the housework. You know, laundry, dishes, mopping, vacuuming, dusting.... The whole shabang. Once he comes home for lunch at around 11:30-noonish we'll sit down and eat together. We talk about our mornings, what we hope to accomplish for the day, and decide what we're having for supper. At around 12:35pm-ish he'll head out the door for work and I'll go run any errands that need to be done. This includes stuff like pay bills, run to the store, or whatever else.

He USUALLY works until like 5pm-ish. I will admit there are days when he doesn't come home until 6pm-8pm. There are also the rare unicorns! The days in which he is home before 5pm. Those days are mythical, so we don't mention those. Between the hours of 1pm and 5pm I have 4 long hours where I can work on my assignments uninterrupted. Added over 5 days that's 20 hours I have to focus on schoolwork. But have no fear, I don't sit in front of a computer screen for 4 straight hours! I like to get up, get a workout in, play with the cat, and sometimes read if my workload for the week seems light.

Once the hubby gets home from work, we talk while I cook dinner. Then he either heads off to his office to relax or we'll watch a movie together. We like to use evenings to unwind from our day. We talk about the frustrations that occurred during the day and our goals for the next day. I'll make sure his uniforms are clean and get my shower in for the day. It's a good system and it works for us!

Signs that winter is almost over in Alaska

It's that time of the year! Winter is almost over! We are so ready to have some nice weather so we can enjoy some summer activities. Here are some signs that winter is almost over:

1. It starts snowing again. True story! Once the weather starts getting a little warmer it starts snowing. When it’s super cold and the middle of winter it rarely snows because of how cold it is. 

2. Winter clothes will start going on sale and grills and AC units will start popping up in store. It may not feel like winter yet because it’s still below freezing but now is the time to buy your winter gear for next year and your air conditioner for this summer.

3. You’ll start to see snow removal vehicles all over the place. Large dump trucks and plows and such show up and start removing snow from the roads, sidewalks, and end of driveways. They haul it away to a designated area, which is oftentimes an empty lot. It’s better that it melts and becomes a swamp there than the middle of the roads. 

4. Time for hard pack removal! Once all that snow is removed from the roads a second set of vehicles will comes through and start scrapping up the hard pack off the roads. Hard pack is all the snow and ice that has accumulated over the winter and hasn’t been removed. People end up driving over it continuously and it gets packed down and takes a lot to remove. This year we had so much hard pack in our driveway that we gave up half way through and paid a guy to remove the rest with his bobcat. 

5. Everyone will change their boots. In the winter you will see people in an assortment of different winter boots. Most wear actual, rated to negative temps, winter boots. I, however, usually just wear a pair of cute bear paws. If it’s so cold that I need boots rated for cold temps then I have no plans to be outside for that long. But once winter is over people will change into RAIN BOOTS! With all that snow melting there are puddles everywhere. Plan on walking through a mini pond just to get to the store from the car. Plus, with warmer temps come rain.

6. People will start wearing shorts and t-shirts. Even though it’s still 30-40 degrees people here are slowing pulling out the summer clothes. I’ve had a lot of friends ask why because it’s still cold but after 7 months this is really a heat wave! It’s a good 50 degrees warmer than we’ve been dealing with.

7. Car washes start having sales. A lot of people, including us, opt to not wash our cars in the middle of winter. It’s too cold and honestly many of the car washes close during the winter anyways. So, once you see those sales it is time to give your vehicle a really good bath.

8. The sun seriously comes out of nowhere! As most people know Alaska loses sunlight during the winter and then gains it during the summer. But during those times between winter and summer there are a lot of overcast and rainy days. Once the sun shows up it’s just like “holy crap where did that come from?” Currently today (April 14th) the sun is rising at 6:18 and it sets at 21:25. I swear just a couple weeks ago we were only getting 6 hours of light a day, now I find myself squinting when I first step outside.

"Home" for the holidays!

We tend to do our holidays a little different than some people, it’s hard to celebrate when you are so far from the ones you love. But we have been blessed with great friends who are willing to spend time with us and I wouldn’t change our “traditions” for the world. Here’s what we did this holiday season.

Thanksgiving

When it comes to Thanksgiving ours isn’t the traditional kind. We live thousands of miles away from our family so we can’t just hop in the car to spend the day with them. For us it’s been six years since we spent the holidays with our family and we miss them a lot around this time of the year, so each year we try to do something special to make the holidays memorable. In the past we have went to the movies, went on mini vacations, hosted for friends, went to other people’s houses, and boycotted tradition with tacos.

This year, Thanksgiving 2017, we hosted Thanksgiving again! We were excited and blessed to be able to do this for people who are like family to us. This was only my third time making a Thanksgiving dinner, 2^nd time hosting, and I feel like I have the whole thing down to a science. When we host like this I try to make it epic! I want the food to be homemade and everything a person could possibly want for Thanksgiving is on the table. Here’s what I do to prepare for our feast.

I start at the beginning of October (crazy I know!). At that point I start planning the menu and making an insanely detailed grocery list. Once I have that all nailed down I’ll go ahead and start shopping for the nonperishable items, the stuff with a long shelf life, like sugar, turkey pans, pie pans, plastic plates and utensils, and seasonings. By the end of the month I’ll have my husband ask around at work and start inviting people. When he’s able to give me a loose headcount I start shopping for my turkey and buying items that I know will be okay in the freezer, like butter, cream cheese, shredded cheese, and pie crust. By the time the great turkey month rolls around I am pretty close to done with my shopping. I did have to go in last minute for some items I wanted to add and of course for the rolls (the one thing I don’t make).

The cooking process for all this food is just as complicated. I usually start prepping about a week in advance. I’ll double check to make sure that we’ve bought everything that we need, and make sure the turkey is in the fridge thawing. Then the day before Thanksgiving I work on some of the baking. This year I did 3 pies, 2 dozen cookies, and 2 dozen deviled eggs all the day before. We’ll also go ahead and prep some of the other food so that it will just need tossed in the oven for a bit before eating, we try to keep the oven totally available for the turkey.

Here was our Thanksgiving:

Appetizers: Crackers, Cheese, and Summer Sausage.

Main Meal: Turkey, Stuffing, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Green Bean Casserole, Company Potatoes, Baked Mac n Cheese, Rolls, Candied Yams, and Deviled Eggs.

Dessert: Pecan Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Apple Pie, and Oatmeal Cranberry White Chip Cookies

Christmas

Christmas was a little impromptu for us. We weren’t sure that we were going to have people over, but Thanksgiving went so well that we couldn’t resist a chance at round two. There wasn’t as much planning put into Christmas since there wasn’t much time in between the two holidays but I think we pulled it off nicely.

The menu was simple. We decided on lasagna and salad for our main dish. There was no reason behind that choice other than I wasn’t feeling the traditional foods and lasagna sounded good at the time. Dessert worked out the same way. I picked a peanut butter pie because I had never made one before and chocolate sounded good and a red velvet cake for those who didn’t want the crazy rich pie. We also did some sugar cookies and fudge.

The hubster and I did an intimate Christmas celebration on Christmas Eve. That was when we decided to open our gifts from family and each other. We had crackers, summer sausage, and cheese while watching A Christmas Story. We knew that Christmas Day would be hectic, what with me trying to make a lasagna from scratch for the first time ever, so we wanted to take a moment the night before to just relax.

The day of we had friends come over. We played some holiday games, like the white elephant gift exchange and the saran wrap ball game, as well as games like Cards Against Humanity and Trivial Pursuit. We ate lasagna and had a blast! We didn’t focus so much on the food, like you do during Thanksgiving, but rather we focused on spending time together and having fun.

We spent the rest of our Christmas vacation (my time between classes and the hubby’s time off of work) relaxing, cleaning, and celebrating. We went to the Santa Claus house in North Pole, Alaska and we went to the Ice Park next door. We also won the Christmas decorating contest for our neighborhood and it took us DAYS to get all the decorations taken down. But it was all worth it! Unfortunately, we both ended our time off with the flu.

 Thank you to all that joined us and I wish everyone a good year in 2018!