Living in Alaska

Finally Adding to Blog

2008-07-19T11:59:00.000-07:00

Well, a lot of things have happened since the last time John wrote in here. So a quick update.

When I first moved to Ketchikan John and others told me that it didn't snow much here and when it did the snow didn't stay on the ground for very long. I am not a believer. We had lot of snow and it seems like it stayed on the ground for quite awhile.

In January we had the opportunity to get out of the snowy weather and go to the heat in Phoenix. It was the first time I had truly been warm in months. While there we were so excited to attend Cassie and Russell's Temple Wedding. I went down there a few days early to help finalize all the plans and to visit with Cassie, Russell, Alexa, Cody, Cynthia, my sister Jeanine and her family. I didn't have enough time to visit with all I wanted to. I said the next trip I took to Phoenix, I wanted to leisurely visit and have no time restrictions. John, Collin and Connor arrived in Phoenix two days before the wedding. It was a really nice ceremony. I got to do the mother thing with her daughter bride. Cassie looked really beautiful and I couldn't stop smiling. One of the highlights was that Alexa was sealed to Russell and Cassie right after their own sealing as husband and wife. We were so thankful for this to happen. Well, on Monday morning following the wedding Connor, Collin and I got up early to fly back to Alaska. John stayed to drive back his truck to Alaska. We had left it in AZ for Cody to use.

Alexa, Connor and Aracely (Maid of honor's daughter)

Alexa with Grandma and Grandpa

The happy Couple

We were hoping Cody would have his mission call by the time we went to Phoenix so that we could all attend the Temple together but it didn't happen. So when he did actually get his call which was on March 20, 2008 to Milwaukee, Wisconsin Mission we started planning another trip to Phoenix and that wasn't the leisure trip I had been looking forward to either.

That is another whole story in itself. If you go to Cody's mission blog it will explain what we did and the adventures we took. http://codysmission.blogspot.com/

Well, I will be planning another trip to Phoenix sometime in February. Cassie and Russell are expecting a baby then. They are so excited and so are we. Soon John and I will be grandparents twice. Cool, huh?

There Just Aren't Words

2007-11-11T04:34:00.000-08:00

We made it through October without getting washed away. I had written previously that Ketchikan averages 22 inches of rain the month of October. We collected 32 inches. This came in 5th for an all time record. But I have to admit it didn't seemed that bad. Most of the rain came at night so during the day it wasn't too bad. There were a few days where the weather was miserable and we just stayed indoors. Maren, Connor and I went for a picnic the other day to Carlanna Lake. Well it was just above freezing and the dock were we went was wet so we couldn't even sit down. So we ate our sandwiches and headed back. On some maps it is referred to as Reflection Lake and we could see why. I had forgotten my camera so I didn't get a picture to so but it is easy to describe. To steel a line from 'Forest Gump', "It looked like two mountains, one on the top and one on the bottom".

It gets dark early, around 4:30 in the afternoon and by the time I go to work it is pitch black. Last Sunday was a nice evening and I decided to walk to work. This turned out to be a bad decision because as I was crossing Baranoff Rd., in the crosswalk mind you, the pick-up that had stopped at the intersection didn't see me and took off. The bumper impacted my left knee, knocking me off balance. The only reason that I wasn't run over was a bug guard attached to the hood. I grabbed the flimsy piece of plastic and started pounding on the hood as the driver continued to accelerate. The moment that he realized there was someone attached to the front of his truck he slammed on the brakes. I picked myself up off the ground with visions of being dead still running through my head. He was extreamly appollogetic and I was glad to be alive so I sent him on his way. The knee hurt for a few days but I was no worse for the wear.

Snows comin' and school sports

2007-11-03T21:25:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I have written a post so here it is.

I looked out my front window Friday and saw the mountains on Gravina Island just above the airport were capped with snow. (Wish I had pictures but haven't had time to resolve software issues.) The weather has gotten a little cooler but we all seem to be adjusting to it and the change is barely noticeable. We have had a lot of storms lately with high winds and lots of rain. If you look at the previous post I updated the radar picture and this storm brought winds with gusts to 40 - 50 mph. Friday morning Maren and I went for a walk between rain showers. We caught a glimpse of Deer Mountain with the sun shinning on freshly fallen snow.

Courtesy of Ketchikan Daily News
http://www.ketchikandailynews.com/

There is wet snow forecasted for tonight and tomorrow which should add to that. Since I don't have tires yet I may need to walk home in the morning. More on this later.

Walking along Water Street we saw a tree that had fallen across someones truck. A young girl told us that the owner had recently had his tires slashed and had them replaced. Then two days later he comes out to go to work, only to find that a tree had fallen on his pick-up smashing the hood and windshield.

Collin is well into his wresting season. He started the season at 189 pounds and this weekend he was able to wrestle at 161. Thirteen teams were in town this weekend for the Bill Weiss tournament. Mr. Weiss was an editor and type setter for the Ketchikan Daily News for many years and a big supporter of sports in S.E. Alaska. This is one of the few times this season we will be able to see Collin wrestle since most of his matches are off island. Generally leaving either Thursday afternoon or Friday morning and he returns Sunday sometime. Like Cody he has enjoyed getting in shape but seems tired most of the time since, starting his day at 5:30 am for seminary and doesn't get home until after six. With all of that he is still carrying A's in all of his classes.

For those of you that are wondering I have postponed self publishing 'Some Secrets Shouldn't Die'. I have decided to continue attempting publishing via the traditional route. I will be entering the manuscript in a writers competition with the results due March of '08. I appreciated all the wonderful comments I have received from those of you who have read the manuscript and will let you know if I receive a publishing contract. I continue to write, usually on a daily basis and am currently working on a story that is set here locally and in southern California.

Now about the tires. I spent many hours on the Internet for the cheapest way to get studded snow tires. What I ended up doing was buying the tires from Tirerack.com and having them shipped to Alaska Marine Lines and put on the barge. I hope to receive them this week so they will be ready to put on when the time arises. This protracted procedure saved me several hundred dollars over buying them locally. Had we not still been recovering from moving here the saving would not have been that big of a deal.

OK, so I was wrong and Island Economics

2007-10-13T13:26:00.000-07:00

In my last post I said that the rain comes in gails. While this is true, the current storm has lasted 3 days. I guess that this is pretty common. I have heard more than once that if you can make it through October and November that you have it licked. Well it is the 13th so we only have another month and a half to go.
Collin's first wrestling meet is today, it will be one of the few we will be able to go to since most of them are out of town and he will have to fly. We will keep you posted on how his season goes.
If you want a fun website check this out
http://www.airnav.com/airport/PAKT
On the right side is a picture of the airport and farther down you can put in your airport code and it will tell you how far you are from us. Just below that you can see your sunrise/sunset for the day. Right now we have a little more than seven and a half hours of daylight that is filered by the clouds. That will drop to around six by the winter solstace.
Since the area is hilly (see Steeper than I Imagined) we will need studded tires to get around on the days when it is icy. Though food and gas is expensive up here, nothing will give you sticker shock quicker than tires. In fact I found that I can order tires online and have them mounted on new aluminum rims, balanced and shipped here Fedex for the same price or less than buying them locally. Go figure.
How important are studded tires you ask? Well the way I figure it Maren will be ready to go home the first time she goes down Carlanna Lake Road sideways.
Sorry I don't have any pictures for you, I guess I'll have to dust of the camera.

22 Inches and How to Get There

2007-10-09T16:31:00.000-07:00

The days have gotten cooler in the last few weeks since the cruise ships have left. Proof that the cruising industry knows just what they are doing. Short sleeved shirts and light jackets have been replaced by sweatshirts and raincoats. Coming from Phoenix makes this difficult to imagine. This month alone we will be getting as much rain a phoenix does in about 3 years. When telling people that we were moving to Alaska the most common comment was, 'Oh you are going to be so cold'. Too which I would reply, 'It doesn't snow much but mostly rains in Ketchikan'. 'So like Seattle,' they would say. The answer is Seattle gets roughly 37 inches of rain per year compared to Ketchikan's 156 inches, so no not like Seattle.

October begins the rainy month for Ketchikan. If you go to http://weather.msn.com/local.aspx?wealocations=wc:USAK0125 and scroll down to the averages for temperature and rainfall you will see that Ketchikan gets 22 inches of rain this month.

So how do you get to 22 inches of rain in one month (that is more than half of what Seattle gets a year)? Well it requires roughly 3/4 inch per day. But it doesn't rain all the time so some of that rain comes in the form of large storms from the Gulf of Alaska.

This is the current image for Dec 23rd. ( I will try to update it regularly)

These arrive in South-East Alaska in the form of gail force winds and several inches of rain in one day. Unlike some places, Phoenix for example, if you don't like the weather you just wait a few minutes and it will change. In Ketchikan if you want to wait for the rain to stop before going out you'll have to wait until April. People just go about doing what they want to do despite the rain.

The other thing that surprised me about Ketchikan is the moss on the roofs. I remember the line from Elton Johns song 'I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss', now I know what he meant. I had never seen moss on roof before here. I will try to post some of those pictures when I get the chance.

One more link for you folks. If you want to see what the weather is like in Ketchikan click on http://www.earthcam.com/usa/alaska/ketchikan/ . The site refreshes every twenty seconds.

Whale of a Good Time

2007-09-19T20:04:00.000-07:00

On Monday Sept. 12th Tommy Mulleneaux came to visit and go fishing. The hopes for his stay was to take some fish home and get to see a little bit of South East Alaska. He arrived after an all day trip that involved driving from Thatcher Arizona to Phoenix, flying to Seattle then on to Ketchikan. It was after dark when he arrived so he didn't get the chance to see anything until the next day.

I got a call early in the morning from a co-worker that invited us to go fishing. Tommy and I rushed out to Walmart to get our licenses then met with Byron at his boat. The three of us headed Southeast about twenty miles to one of Byron's favorite spots. We caught Halibut, Snapper and Rock fish. There were also pesky Dog Sharks. The Dog shark is about 2 feet long and loves the same bait as the Halibut.

After a pretty successful day we headed back. About five miles south of Ketchikan we ran into a pod of Killer Whales. Some of them surfaced less than one hundred yards from the boat. This, I will tell you is very exciting.

The following morning we went fishing with the Fitzgeralds. We left in the early morning fog and ran into the same pod of whales (I think) and had some come within 25 yards of the boat. It happened so quick that we didn't get any pictures. We had a successful day fishing taking home ten large Halibut, several Rock fish and a good sized Snapper.

The following few days We went on several hikes around the area, showing Tommy the sights, and discovering some for ourselves. Tommy instantly fell in love with the area and I wouldn't be surprised to see if he returns in the future to stay here.

I am having trouble with my picture software and will add more pictures later.

Getting Out in Ketchikan

2007-09-04T18:18:00.000-07:00

On Labor Day September 3rd, after sleeping for a few hours we got our first chance to get out and see the island. We went to a sale at Tongass, the local outfitter and bought some rain gear for Maren and Collin. We then headed south along the highway that goes through Saxman and Herring Cove. Twelve miles south of Ketchikan we hit the end of the road. Here is where Ketchikan gets it's power. Water drains through what looked like a 48 inch pipe from a lake up the mountain and runs a hydroelectric generator and this is where we get our power.

On the way back we spotted this waterfall, just a sample of the amount of rain that Ketchikan gets. Since our arrival last week he have not seen a day where we didn't get at least some rain.

From there we drove north of town and went hiking up Brown Mountain trail.

(The picture shows us coming down)

We walked to the end of he board walk, which is not the top. From there the trail became muddy and we weren't prepared with the proper foot wear. I would like to return since the view, so I was told, is amazing.

I did shoot this picture from the board walk. It is hard to believe that we are on an island

Steeper Than I Imagined

2007-09-01T14:11:00.000-07:00

Monday evening we met at the church for a multi-family FHE. Someone asked Maren how she like Ketchikan and she replied, "It is steeper than I imagined." The next day as we drove around and I took her up some of the steeper hills, trying to put some of the other hills she had previously been up in perspective.

Our container was delivered Tuesday morning and we went about unloading some of the items we really wanted, for instance, chairs to sit on and our card table dinning room table. Most important of all, to Collin and Connor, was our new 37 inch HDTV so they could play X-Box.

Our house is towards the end of Tower road and is the upper portion of a duplex that also includes the garage. The first two nights Maren and I slept on a air mattress while the boys slept on the floor, or where every they could.

On Wednesday we went to the DMV because our temporary permit for Arizona was about to expire. We have some advice for you if headed for the DMV in Ketchikan. Before you leave, let someone know where you are going and how long you expect to be gone. That way, if they don't hear from you at the scheduled time they will know where to come look for you. After a wait of more than 2 1/2 hours we finally got our car registered. The sad part is we still need to get our Drivers license and register the truck when it gets here.

The Journey Continues

2007-08-28T23:50:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Prince Rupert on Sunday August the 26th around 4:30, having had driven over 1000 miles since leaving Seattle. We stayed in a older overpriced hotel not too far from the ferry terminal. Since the ferry was leaving at 7:15 we had to get up at 3:45 to check in. This amounted to little more than waiting in line, in the car for over two hours. We had enjoyed the drive through British Columbia but next time I would rather sit on the ferry for two days. We were a little exhausted by the time we got on the ferry so we tried to get a little more sleep in the lounge area.

Collin moved to the corner and put on his ear phones, Connor slept on either I or Maren. I leaned my head against Maren's seat and slept until my arms went numb. When I awoke I looked out the window to see a barge being pulled by a tug. The green and yellow containers were unmistakable those of Alaska Marine Lines. We had passed our belongings in the inland passage!

We arrived in Ketchikan a little after 12:30. We got off and went immediately to the address printed on the 1 year lease I had signed but we had not yet seen. (no pictures yet)

We arranged to have our container delivered to the house, ate lunch and met with the landlord to get the keys. We are now officially residents of Ketchikan. Well not entirely. We stopped by the high school to get Collin registered, since Tuesday was to be Freshman orientation. I turned into the high school to face an insurmountable amount of on coming traffic. One man started yelling at me and telling me to turn around. I had entered a one-way street the wrong way. As a struggled to turn the car around and get out of every one's way he commented after taking one look at the back end of the car, "You must be from Arizona?" Now I really felt like I had just gotten off of the ferry.

Many Questions

2007-08-25T19:22:00.000-07:00

Aug. 28, 2007
We sit in a small motel room in Burns Lake British Columbia on our way to Prince Rupert to catch a ferry. Our ulitmate destination, Ketchikan Alaska. Over the last several months the most common question that I have been asked is 'why are you moving to Alaska'? This is a question I can't easily answer. But I will try.

I have wanted to move to Alaska for many years, but since getting married and having children, this made it impractical. But in recent years I have become increasingly disillusioned with my job and my career, I was reaching burnout. As my interest in writing continues to develop I am seeking a quiet, slower pace in which to write. These coupled with the traffic and over population of Pheonix helped solidify my decision. Maren and I have been wanting to move from the Phoenix area for some time but couldn't decide on a place. So when I found the job in Ketchikan I convinced my family to give it a try.

So now we are on our way to a new adventure. For those of you who want to move to Alaska, it is no easy task. The move is more than normal and alot of planning has gone into it.

After spending Sunday evening and Monday until nearly three in the afternoon heat loading our 16 foot Budget truck with our belongings. We left Phoenix on Monday the 20th and headed for my sister's house in Monrovia. After spending the night we caught I-5 headed for Seattle. After a stop Tuesday in Yrueka, CA we reached Seattle on Wednesday. Thursday we moved the contents of our truck into a 20 foot shipping container that was to be loaded on a barge and leave for Southwest Alaska on Friday.
On Friday we struck out for Canada and entered the country sometime in the afternoon. We drove through a beautiful canyon called Hell's gate on Hwy 1 until we reached Hwy 97 in Cache Creek and spent the night in Williams Lake. The drive from Williams Lake to Burns Lake is some of the most beautiful land I have ever seen.

We have been busy for the last six days moving and driving so I haven't taken many pictures. I will try to change that in the future.

Tomorrow on to Prince Rupert and then to Ketchikan.