Unemployed in Alaska

at our camp site in Homer AK

Yep, we are still unemployed but I got a firm job offer yesterday and may be starting my new job 14 May, so that has taken some stress off.  Joe is still looking and has applied for some government jobs of his own but is in no real rush due to starting his last two classes for his bachelor's degree.  He is using his post 9/11 GI Bill, so he's getting paid a decent amount of money to take classes :). As Joe said a month ago...we will be fine!

Chris, Grandpa, and me

Things have a way of working out when you don't fight them. After I submitted my 2 weeks and was on leave, my Grandmother in Missouri took a turn for the worse.  She was in her 90's so it wasn't a big surprise.  Everything happened quickly and within a matter of days I was flying out to support my Dad during the funeral.  I got to see a lot of family I have not seen in awhile in addition to my brother.  If I was still working, it would have been stressful for me taking the time off and navigating all of that.  So I'm grateful that I could just do my thing and fly out with no additional stress.  I got to visit with Grandpa.  He suffers from Alzheimer's but he's happy.  With Grandmother gone, she was slightly controlling, he gets to watch westerns all day :)

Off to Homer AK

Stevie

When I returned, Joe and I took our new family member to Homer AK.  Stevie is a 97' Fleetwood Sport Jamboree.  She is are trial run for living small :P and a way for us to get out and explore more of AK without worrying about hotels etc.  Homer hadn't woken up yet, so it was more of the sleepy fishing town while we were there.  We boondocked on the spit and practically none of the stores and restaurants were open yet.  I guess the magic open time is in May.  We spend 2 nights there.  One thing that Homer is known for is the bald eagles.  There wasn't as many as pictures show, it's probably a season thing too, but we saw enough!  They are amazing birds!  The size of them and to see them just flying around...we were constantly in awe!

boat docks at the Homer spit

We had a decent walk about in Homer, walking 8.8 miles one day!  Joe and I usually end up doing a lot of walking.  It's a great way to see things and take up time when you got nothing going on, which is usually the case when you're camping.  

all to our selves!

Stevie is great!  The heater is awesome!  We had some things things that brought up questions but we either figured them out on the road or just adapted until getting home.  Joe has a friend that rents RVs here in Anchorage and he cleared up some of our questions.  We did good for our first packing for a trip too.  We under packed kitchen stuff but over packed clothing LOL. It's a learning process but we are good and going with what we got, working together to solve problems.  The only thing we didn't try out was the shower.  

a must have for AK traveling!!!

We may be taking another short weekend trip next month.  We will see how things go.  Stevie needs a good washing, outside and in before our next adventure.  

down time while camping

My goal is to do quicker blog updates... there is so much to say and share when we go on our trips and even life here in AK.  We tend to have a lot of relaxing time while we camp so there is no reason not to do an update ;)

17 Sept 17: Montana and Canada bound!

We are currently driving to Canada through Montana.  Trying out my light laptop and using a word document to write a current entry to cut and paste later to the blog.
Last night we did some glamping in Montana.  For those that have not heard about glamping it’s fancy campy.  Our tent was big and when we pulled up the owner, on his golf cart, welcomed us and said he was going to grab another comforter for us due to the cold temperatures. It was about 40 degrees last night.  
Driving from SLC, UT to our AirBnB glamping site was beautiful!  Neither one of us have driven into Idaho or Montana before (if I did when I was younger I didn’t remember it).  We saw a lot of snow!  We were not expecting all of that but it was beautiful and we enjoyed the drive.

Now back to the glamping :P  We only took the bare necessities into the tent since we had to park away from the tent.  Tux has been confused since we hit the road and it took him a little longer than usual to calm down once we hit the road.  He was very chatty!  I think he was telling us about his adventures in the basement with the nephew and how happy he was to be with us!  He’s taking to the constant changes like a champ!  

We settled into our tent and took a walk about.  There was a lovely creek going through the property, a pond, and a waterfall.  He had some Highland Cows, which are my favorite cows!!!! I first fell in love with them when we were gallivanting around Ireland and Scotland.  They also have a 400 lbish pig which they used as a food processor.  They had a restaurant and bar on the property and we didn’t expect too much being out in the middle of nowhere.  We saw some wild turkey and also some wild deer grabbing some apples that had fallen off some trees.  The owner also had some goats and one was 3 legged :P  I swear there is a joke about a 3 legged goat but I can’t recall it.

After our walk about we walked up the grill and bar and there were a couple of local guys standing outside.  One guy is owner of a brewery in Helena MT and Joe had a nice chat with him.  The other guy lived in Anchorage AK for about 9 years and worked with UPS. We went in and the bar was full, which surprised me!  The Alaska guy introduced me to his wife and she gave me an earful of information about Anchorage!  They got some food delivered and I was able to break free.  We then went in and had a seat for dinner and OMG!  The food was amazing.  I had lamb chops and Joe had the duck.  We even forced down some dessert which was home made key lime pie which was better than anything we had down in Florida!  I drove the whole day yesterday, about 500 miles, so with a full belly and couple of glasses of wine (they also had a wonderful wine selection) I was ready to crawl into bed!  Joe wanted to have one more drink and a cigar so he did his thing and I laid in bed with Tux catching up on some emails and Facebook :P  Joe wasn’t out too late and it was time to snuggle and get some good sleep!

Unfortunately in the middle of the nigh we both had to take a walk to the outhouse!  So we bundled up and headed out of the tent.  As soon as I stepped out of the tent I looked up and OMG the stars were expansive!  It’s been a long time since I saw that many stars.  I just took a minute (anything longer I’d start to freeze) and soaked it in!  We survived the walk to the outhouse and then it was back under the 5 layers of blankets and Tux!
We didn’t set our alarms and we just gradually woke up and it was little after 8 before our bladders were telling us to get out of bed.  We got moving, got packed up, said bye to the local deer, and drove off to grab a coffee in Helena MT.  

So the day ahead is a border crossing, got the passports ready, and seeing some cool stuff before finding the next place to catch some Zzzz’s in Canada!  
This will be my second time in Canada, my first time being when I was in high school and checked out Niagara Falls with the school band.  It will be Joe’s first time in Canada!