One is the view just outside my door at 9 this morning. The other is from 2am. (Again, the benefit of the midnight bathroom run.) Soon both of these will disappear.
Aurora season ended a week ago at my job. Last week was all about closing things down and cleaning up before the break. I don’t think I was really prepared for the break. With the extra daylight and the busyness of season’s end I seemed to be more energized than usual. I had momentum so it was almost a shock when everything was done. Now I have to readjust.
In the last two weeks I ran several private shuttles at odd times. I drove to the Castner Glacier twice, once with a church group, then again as driver for a staff outing. I did some laundry and cleaning at the shop and showed up on last Thursday ready to do some more, only to discover that I wasn’t scheduled. That was okay. I did my own laundry and worked on a quilt until the needle broke. I had a massive headache anyway so it was a good thing to rest.
Okay now it’s picture time. A picture really is worth a thousand words because I could never fully convey what it’s like with mere words. Even photos are barely adequate. Most of this has to be lived and even then it barely seems real.
Driving down to Delta. Inside the glacier there are bands of gravel in the ice. The pebbles and dirt just float there.(Shhh, don’t tell him I put in a pic of him.)View of the world.The river was breaking up south of Salcha.
So now I have to shift toward summer. I have a lot of things that need to be done and I will have to crank out a list soon to make sure it isn’t really the same five items rotating to look like infinity. But for now I rest a bit. The world isn’t ready for me to start on all the things I want. That will come later. There is a season for everything.
Most places already have spring. Up here in Fairbanks we kinda skip spring and go straight from snow into summer. No, that’s not quite right…let me explain the seasons of interior Alaska.
Summer is green and bright.
You have Summer. That one is pretty easy to recognize because there’s no snow on the ground and even though the sun does set the sky never gets dark. Summer runs from around Memorial Day through mid August. The first night it gets dark enough to see the stars is August 14th or thereabouts.
The first dusting. Winter takes hold.
Then there’s Fall. This goes from late August until there’s snow on the ground. I have been told that the latest date on record for snow was October 19. Last year we got our first good dusting on September 19 and our first 6 inches on the following weekend. It was just in time for the wedding that rented out the entire property up at Basecamp. Those must have been gorgeous photos with the golden birch trees in the snow.
Noon at the solstice. Watching the aurora is the best part of dark winter.
Snow means Winter. Winter means darkness. Well, at least for the first five months or so. The darkest part of dark winter is the winter solstice. Here in Fairbanks that means that the sun doesn’t rise until around 11am and sets at about 2:40pm. Even though the sun is only above the horizon for 3.5 hours though, there is over an hour of pre-dawn light and twilight, which gives us around 6 hours where the sky isn’t totally dark. Every minute of that time has color in the sky. I love it!
Sunset and snow means gorgeous color in the sky.
Light winter kicks in around Valentine’s day. That’s when you suddenly realize that it isn’t dark before dinner time and you might leave the house with the sunrise. It’s a great relief, but it also signals time to find your sunglasses. The sunlight reflected off of all that snow gets pretty bright.
Light winter gets bright. At least the roads start clearing up.
That brings us to Breakup. Our version of spring. The roads are finally clear of ice. Mostly. The ones that aren’t yet clear are either slushy or polished shiny as glass. You have to be careful driving still. The snowbanks get plowed one more time to push them off the shoulders of the road so that meltwater doesn’t run across the road and turn to ice overnight. Parking lots are getting scraped clear and the thick chunks of ice are piled up to the side to melt. People bet on when the river ice will break up and move. Really! Look up the Nenana Ice Classic. I think it’s too late to buy in though. Pretty soon the creek will start to thaw out also. It’s a great time of year.
Soon. It’s getting warm enough that we’ll see this soon.
Spring? Yeah, I guess we get that too. The trees green up and the birds and squirrels get more active. Locals don’t talk about Spring though. It’s Breakup and Mud season. That’s because the ground thaws more slowly than the snow and the water doesn’t drain away very quickly. It takes until June to be fully out of Mud season and by then we are firmly into summer.
AK Tuff boots are a favorite for good reason.
That’s the year up here. Was that clear enough? Clear as mud, right? That’s okay. The seasons, like so much else up here, are hard to wrap your head around until you experience them. It’s worth the visit.
It has been two months exactly since my last post. I never mean to go that long between posts, but life is kinda weird. Either I feel like it would be just another weather report or things are so crazy that I have no energy to put words together at the end of the day. Ideally I would get into the habit of a weekly or even a daily post. We’ll see if I get there.
So the first thing on my list is that I want to acknowledge what should have been. I had a FB memory pop up this morning.
Today is what should have been my 27th anniversary, but this year will mark 10 years that he has been gone. I keep wondering what George would think about this crazy adventure we’re on. If he was here we would have made a lot more progress, that’s for sure! He had more energy than any ten other people I know. But I don’t know if he ever would have been on board with coming to Alaska. The month he spent on a longliner ruined his opinion of the frozen north. At one point he swore he would never come up here even for a summer vacation trip. Maybe that’s part of why I like it up here. It’s my adventure. I’m living my dream, not his. I certainly don’t feel the weight of dates so much anymore.
Here’s my annual reminder for everyone. Life is finite. When they put up a tombstone they put two dates and a dash in between. Everything you are and everything you will do is contained within that dash. Make the most of it. Tomorrow is not guaranteed, so make sure you live today. Find adventures small and large. Work to live, but don’t forget to live. Make that phone call, give hugs, share smiles, have no regrets. Second chances are few and far between.
Sunsets are the best! Try to zoom in and find the mountain silhouette in the background. Last night’s midnight bathroom run was above average.
Now for the adventure!
December rolled along mostly smoothly. It was cold. There was snow but it was thin enough that people were worried about their septic systems freezing up. About the only thing I remember was that on Solstice day I could hardly keep my eyes off of the sky. It was gorgeous all day!
January has been the month of crazy. We had a day where it got ridiculously warm and poured rain on top of ice roads. Then the temperature dropped and we got nearly 2 feet of snow. That all got packed into a thick layer of ice on the roads that they’re still trying to scrape off. It is not fun to drive on!
Then we had some mechanical issues to work through. The alternator on my truck died and we had to drive home on just battery power. They lasted just long enough to get us into the driveway, but the lights got dimmer and dimmer as we went. Talk about nerve-wracking! No moose were struck and we made it in one piece. Thank you God! That night the temperature dropped to -40° again and stayed in that range for nearly the next two weeks. Even though we had a replacement alternator in the back seat, there’s no way anyone wants to touch tools at that cold. The metal will burn you. Trust me. We needed to figure out how to get it to a heated shop. In the meantime we made arrangements for riding to work with our friends across the creek.
Now if having the truck go down wasn’t enough fun, when we got home from work on Sunday it was to discover that our brand new generator had gone out. At first we thought it was just out of fuel, and maybe needed some time in a warm place. No. It started sucking oil through that rubber breather tube into the carburetor. Nothing anyone did could make it stop happening. It simply wouldn’t run longer than a couple of hours before the carb was too fouled to run. The generator it replaced had quit due to a suspected electrical problem. It would give an overload warning even without things being plugged in. To top it off, our friends started having generator struggles as well. Cold may have been a factor, but not completely. We ended up moving in with them for a week until some of this could be resolved. Our RV was frozen in the meantime. Even the propane stopped flowing. Sometimes you give in for a little while and do the minimum for survival. That includes getting a couple nights of good sleep without shivering.
When things got better they did so almost all at once. The weather warmed up to zero. The old generator let itself run again. (It’s still going. The new one went to get fixed by professionals.) Being indoors and warm may have helped. The truck batteries got warmed and charged. And finally, we made arrangements to bring the truck to a church friend who has a heated shop that is much closer than the only other option we could think of. The story of how it got there is the best part.
My son and my friend’s daughter teamed up to get the truck running. First they had to convince the generator to run long enough to warm the oil pan and engine block so it could start. They put in the batteries and hoped for the best. It fired up and the clock started ticking…
The shop is about 16 miles away. They only got halfway there before the batteries gave out and the truck died on the side of the highway. Ironically, it was right next to the NAPA in North Pole. They toyed with the idea of trying to borrow a charger for the batteries, but that would take too long. Then Nena saw the tow strap. It was perfect. The hooks were small enough to work with a hook on the back of her Prius. Yes, a Prius. She hooked it up to my big truck and pulled it the remaining 8 miles to the shop. Yes, a Prius pulled my Dodge eight miles on icy roads. No, nobody got a video of it. We have plans to recreate the situation just to get video proof that it can be done…at least on level ground. The poor thing didn’t quite have enough oomph to get it up the minor incline into the shop. They had to use another vehicle for that.
So we are now back to mostly normal. The old generator is working. The new one should be home soon as a backup. The truck works fine. And then someone was made a manager at Chris’ work, then promptly manufactured an excuse to fire him so he now has no reason to not find a better place with better pay. We’ll see how that shakes out. He has some great options that have come along.
That’s my month summed up. I left out a little bit, mostly because I want to see how some things work out before I share them. I’ll try not to wait another two months before the next post.
Now go figure out how to make the most of your dash. It’s a whole new year. You have 11 months left to fill.
I had a calendar reminder pop up just a bit ago. Generator maintenance. I put that in for every two weeks so we wouldn’t lose track of our oil change schedule. This week it is hardly necessary. We have been forced to maintain the heck out of the thing! It has been bitterly cold lately, with highs of -15° and yet slightly humid. This causes frost to build up in the air intake, choking the engine to death. Friday it happened every 4 hours until we stayed up past midnight and completely took the thing apart to even clean out the fuel tank. It lasted two days. Last night it added hose pop-offs and oil spewing to its bag of tricks. We are starting to look at our budget to see where we will fit in a new one.
Look at that, no frost! Will it last?
With our current lifestyle electricity is the cornerstone of everything. If we lose power we have no way to heat this RV. Without heat we cannot stay in here. Our water and food will freeze. It is an actual life-threatening situation when the overnight temperatures dip to -35.
We are fine so far. Maybe a little bit sleep deprived, but the only casualty of the cold has been a bag of potatoes that froze solid. And a truck battery. (I might have jinxed us with that last post.) This cold is testing us but we haven’t broken yet.
I will say, though, this is the last winter I spend in an RV.
The last few days have been a bit chilly. Temperatures dropped below zero and kept falling. This morning is colder than we have seen since last winter.
Friday morning was -22° and the truck would not start. These temps are hard on diesels. We plugged in the block/oil pan/battery heater to warm it up and let it sit all day but still it wouldn’t start. The batteries got low, which can be the end of even a new battery when it’s this cold. So Chris brought the battery inside to sit by the heater. It spent almost 24 hours warming up. Then yesterday afternoon he put the battery back in and the truck started up. What a relief! We were down to the last bit of generator fuel and the heating oil was getting low.
Typically we use 1 gallon of gas for 8 hours of runtime on the generator. We even have a schedule we keep. 8am, 4pm, midnight keeps it running. Plugging in the truck goes through more fuel. It has to be filled every 5 hours instead. Good thing we picked up a couple extra gas cans.
Indoors is colder than most people would like. I’m finding it hard to leave my nest of blankets this morning, and even the dog has come to appreciate his sweater. (It’s a blanket you can wear!) But the Toyo keeps it 70° warmer than outside. Using the oven to make dinner helps. We would use the propane heater as a booster, but the blower went out just in time for this cold snap. I’ll have to find a replacement soon.
This was last night, comparing indoor and outdoor temps. At least 60° warmer inside!
We shrink wrapped the windows yesterday and that helped a lot with the draft. Lots of hot beverages and soup helps too. Honestly, a cabin would be easier to keep comfortable, but we’ve mostly got this figured out. We’re ahead of last year by a longshot. All systems are working so far. The only thing to do is improve.
The above picture was taken 2 weeks ago. We drove out to check on our driveway and see how accessible it might be. It wasn’t. Chris hiked the whole way in nearly thigh high snow that had begun melting away underneath. He came back exhausted.
Last week we went back to see how it’s going. The snow was only shin deep. Still too much to risk trying to drive on. If we tried to plow it off we could end up stirring up the dirt below. So we wait. The sawmill waits. The new blades and replacement parts wait. The logs wait. Mother Nature has her own ideas.
The creek is thawing on top. Ice floated free of the bottom of the creek.
Today we had to get outside for a while. The season ended for my work and while I have been going in two days per week to help with their summer projects this is a quiet time with not much to do. I have spent too much time indoors. So we went for a walk. The creek has been thawed enough to not walk across for a while now. But though the surface flows there was still thick ice on the bottom. Well, at least until today there was.
The kids had to play on the creek. Just like when it first started to freeze, the other kids had to share the fun with Chris. Being the person he is, there was no way he wouldn’t join in. He even had to request his axe so he could try to make iceberg islands. They goofed off for nearly an hour before other things called them away.
The big bloodsuckers are already out.
The thing that surprises me (though it shouldn’t) is how early the mosquitoes are out. A friend calls them “snow mosquitoes” and says that even though they are huge most of them don’t even bite. I wear my heavy sweatshirt to make it harder for the ones that do. Yes they are big. They are also less bothersome than the tiny ones that come later in the season. This year I’m getting a bug net to put on my hat. Last year I breathed too many of them.
So we’re still in a holding pattern. Winter is done. Spring is here, but not yet building season. We have a lot of the pieces, we just need to get them put together. Here’s hoping that we can start moving forward soon.
The above is a screenshot from this morning. I have already said how much I distrust my weather app. I don’t think it was really that cold, but it was not far off at the time. The Toyo was struggling to keep the interior temperature above 40° so we turned on the propane heater to boost it. The dog refused to get out from under the blankets.
As crazy as this morning’s temp might be, just take a look at the forecast for the next few days. We are supposed to climb into the 40s and maybe melt off some of the snow that fell last weekend.
Oh, oops. I didn’t write about last weekend’s snowstorm. It was ridiculous! On Thursday morning the roads were clear and dry, the sun was shining, and then the clouds rolled in. Thursday night started snowing. And snowing. And more snow. I had to sweep 4″ off the outhouse seat at 4am, and another 2″ every time I went out all day Friday and Saturday. I think we got a total of 18″ overall, almost doubling the total for the season in just two days.
Snowy roads are no surprise.
Sunday I got to work, but the van got stuck in the parking lot at the shop. I didn’t go anywhere that day. I did chain up for the first time in my life just to move the van 20 feet. That felt like a win!
The week got progressively better. I ended up driving a rented 4wd van to make sure I could get people where they had to be. It was a little rough, but worked out okay. Now that the week is done everyone is breathing a sigh of relief because that means the season is over. Today, April 10, the last guests checked out and Basecamp is closed for the summer. Now the only people up here are employees. We were given the opportunity to spend a night in the igloos and I decided to take them up on the offer.
The view from my room for the night. Here’s the inside. It’s cozy! (I wish I had a quilt.)
Tonight I plan to relax. I’m going to have a nice dinner. I’ll get to use the sauna and maybe even see the aurora. Will I be able to get photos of it? Probably not with my phone camera, but my brain camera is ready to max out it’s memory. Tomorrow I will start working on my plans for summer. The seasons are changing and I want to take full advantage of the good weather when it gets here.
Okay, so this isn’t actually where I live. It’s the cabin across the creek. My post title is ridiculously clickbaity, but my sense of humor is hiding in the back giggling like mad. The best part is that the title is my reality.
This is the RV I have lived in since July. We are totally off grid. Our wash water was brought in from the creek until the creek froze. Our drinking water is brought in using 5-gallon jugs like you would use on your water cooler at work. Our electricity comes from a generator. Our heat comes from an oil heater. Our cooking is done on the propane stove that comes with the RV. I have access to laundry and shower facilities at the shop where I park the van I drive for work. We use an outhouse as necessary. It has been an adventure and I love it. I have learned a lot from this experience.
Needs are important. So are comforts. You have to make sure that all the basic necessities are in place. Once that is taken care of, the little things are what make life more enjoyable. Sometimes a comfort is something as simple as a fluffy blanket or a new pillow. Keep it simple, but enjoy it.
Energy is vital for life. When it is so readily available you can easily take it for granted. We have to pay attention to our energy use in order to continue to have it available. If we want heat we need to have oil and electricity. If we want electricity we have to have gasoline. If we forget to pay attention we will run into trouble.
Simple is best. You can complicate the heck out of everything, but why? It’s good to let all the extra stuff fall by the wayside. If it drains your time and energy, let it go. Live simply for a while and see what you miss enough to bring it back into your life.
Cast Iron is good for everything…almost. We have a couple of cast iron skillets that we use daily now. We also acquired a pair of enameled cast iron dutch ovens that get plenty of use. We fry things, simmer things, stew things, and bake things. Pancakes, hashbrowns, eggs, steaks, soups, stew, pot roast, grilled cheese, pizza, and even layer cakes have come out of the cast iron that we use.
You can use less water than you think. You probably use more water than you realize. Check your water bill. Divide that by days of the month. How much do you use daily? We use 10-15 gallons of water per week for cooking, cleaning, and drinking. Laundry and shower are extra, but I’m not hauling that so I can’t count it. I laughed at a dishwasher commercial that bragged about using just 4 gallons per load. I use 1-2 gallons to wash dishes and I do it about two times a week.
There is a visceral excitement in finding success against nature. This isn’t quite Australia, but make no mistake. The Arctic is constantly looking for ways to kill you if you are stupid. The weather is no joke. There are animals that will eat you. The moose can be more dangerous than the bears. (Don’t try to pet them or take selfies beside them.) I am by no means as self sufficient as some of the people who live in the far middle of nowhere, but with my beginner skills I am still proud that I have done as well as I have this winter.
I asked my son what he thought he learned from the last 9 months of living off grid, and I think what he said sums it up perfectly. “You have to learn to do shit for yourself.”
Today everyone has been encouraged to become specialists. You go to college to learn your selected career and let a lot of other skills fall by the wayside. You end up paying others to apply their specialties when things go wrong. There are memes about how nobody knows how to change a tire, change their oil, fix a leaky faucet, even change out a light bulb. People don’t know how to use basic tools anymore unless it’s part of their job. Well let me tell you, a lot of these things aren’t so difficult. Knowing some of them will save you a lot of money.
We learned (my son mostly) how to troubleshoot a generator. If we had to take it into the shop for service it would take 6 weeks and cost $200 for repair. We know this because we had trouble with one that we couldn’t figure out. That was a big incentive to learn all the things to check. Professor Google and YouTube University can teach you almost everything you need to learn. Any trouble you have, someone else has run into before and someone has made a video about. Even if it isn’t exactly for the item you are working on you should be able to learn something that applies. Learn. There is no better teacher than necessity. Now he will wake up because he hears that the generator is about to quit. He’ll have his pants on and be reaching for boots before it shuts off, then be out with the backup generator to swap it out. The dead one ends up inside to warm up and be worked over. The generator tool kit comes out to take it apart and clear the ice wherever it may be. Knowing how to do this takes the worry out of the situation and certainly builds confidence.
You don’t have to live off grid in an RV through an Alaskan winter to learn things from life. You can learn things from everyday life. All you have to do is pause every now and then and ask yourself what you’ve been through and what you did right or what you could have done different to have a better outcome. Life is a journey of constant discovery. As long as you remember that you will never be bored with it. The day you stop learning things is the day you start dying.
How much snow do we have? More than we did last week. You always stop for these pedestrians.
I think we have gotten 8″ of snow in the last few days. This is by not any scientific measurement, it’s based on how much snow I sweep off a certain seat every time I go out. It has become habit to grab the broom as well as TP every time I go out the door. Yes, I confess. I do regret not putting a roof out there. Even a tarp would help, but… whatever. I do have a wonderful view if it is warm enough to take time to look around. Sunrise is especially pretty.
I haven’t written in a few days because I have things I want to say about current events and how I think it might affect my plans for the future. I’ve been thinking about energy a lot. Also about being prepared for challenging times. The winter weather that hit nearly the entire country in February took many people by surprise while I’m gaining experience in how to handle that type of weather. I’m thinking about redundancy and alternatives and how I can set them up so I won’t be taken by surprise if the current systems are disrupted.
I’ve been thinking, but I don’t know how best to share my thoughts. I want it to be a discussion with other interested people. I want people with experience to be able to advise those without. I probably want more than I will ever achieve on my little blog, so I guess I’ll just have to figure out where to start small. So instead of the deep thoughts I will share a couple of stories.
Yesterday was warm by February in Alaska standards. The temp was about 20° so we took advantage of that by shoveling some of the snow away from the truck and off our paths. Not that it did a lot of good, but there’s less than there would have been.
Clay has a new squeaky toy. We bought it so he won’t get so bored when we’re gone and won’t look for trouble. There have been too many incidents of getting into things that should not be touched! He made the mistake of bringing it outside to play. He lost track of it and the other dogs got to it and brought it into the cabin across the creek. Hopefully it will come home soon now that the kids know where it came from.
The funniest story is when Chris came in completely covered in snow. I guess he was by the generator, near the trees that are heavy with excess snow. He says an odd noise got him to look up just as a branch let go of a load. A raven happened to fly away from the branch right about then. Apparently they have a twisted sense of humor and find ways to tease.
As for me, I got to join friends on a trip to the hot springs. It’s a really nice day trip. We left home at almost 5, picked up some snacks in town, filled the tank in the car, then headed out of town. Due to all the snow the road was more of an adventure than usual, but we had the ice road trucker driving the Prius. So yeah, it was an adventure. He’s got no worries tackling an actual paved road in a bit of snow when he drives the haul road on a regular basis.
Yes a Prius can handle a snowy road.
The hot springs were almost too hot with the weather so warm. They are best enjoyed when it’s -30°. Some of us were ready to get out much sooner than others. But the soak did me good. The minerals in the water really do something to your joints. One of these days I’ll manage to schedule a massage to go with the hot springs trip.
Now another week is coming, and with it another month. There’s only a few more weeks to the season at my job. By April I need to be ready to see what I can get started on for my cabin. I’ll have the free time and hopefully Chris will have a job to cover living expenses. I’m excited as I look forward to the next couple of months. This RV has worked well enough to keep out the weather this winter. I just don’t want to still be here in August.
So I guess that covers where we are for now. I hope everyone got through the bad weather well enough. I hope you are all making plans for how to make the next time go easier. And I hope you go into spring with plans to improve your life.
I’m staying home sick this week. I’m 99.999% sure it’s a normal cold, the likes of which I have worked through hundreds of times before, but we are in strange times. That normal head cold might actually be the plague that wants to kill people!
Pardon the sarcasm. Yeah. We’re in strange times. I’m not driving a 40-footer full of random people these days. I drive people who are tired of being locked down in fear. They have braved the pandemic and the airport screening line in order to have an experience. They don’t need to see me going through Kleenex like crazy and worry about sharing an enclosed space with me. I went to get tested and will probably hear the results today. I’m not worried.
Looking up the frozen creek. The sun is somewhere that direction.
So about that title. I woke up this morning a bit colder than usual. The dog can’t decide whether or not to stay under the blankets and ends up dragging them off of me. So I pulled them up again and reached for my weather app. It says -41. I say what? Pull to refresh and it updates to -31. Okay. I went outside as one does when necessary, even though it might be that cold. As soon as I’m vertical gravity says hello. And yes, it’s extra cold. Cold enough that when I cleared my sinuses I think the wad was half frozen before I could spit. (Sorry, I guess it’s TMI day, but the experience was strange.)
I installed a new weather app with NOAA in the name and that one says it’s -13. That doesn’t seem right either. I know it’s colder than that. Or at least I think I do. I’m not sure what to trust anymore.
I guess I need to get a thermometer to put up outside. Maybe I’ll tack it to a tree and have real time temps that I can trust.
