Tag Archives: lifestyle

Alaska, Cold Weather Life, Off-grid living, Stories

It’s been snowing some more.

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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.

Sunset glow
Alaska, Cold Weather Life, Off-grid living

Not sure if I trust my weather app anymore.

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.

At least it won’t throw ads at me.

Alaska, Cold Weather Life, Off-grid living

Here’s a few things you’ll never see back in Portland!

This is what I woke up to. I made sure to not crop out the time. Don’t worry. We’re comfortable this time around. Both the Toyo and the propane heater are working to keep the indoor temps cozy. The thermometer in my end of the RV reads 45, but it’s mounted on an exterior wall so that might skew it colder. My blankets are enough to make it comfortable. Clay dog agrees.

This is what I woke up to yesterday morning. I had to sweep it off so I could head in to work. No ice to scrape. Nothing melted because it was -15 when I went to bed and -8 when I woke up. All the snow is dust and blows off easily.

Driving into town I was able to safely cruise at highway speed. Normal, dry pavement speed limit speed is safe in these conditions. It’s almost surprising because at night my headlights reflect off the shiny layer of ice on the road surface, but if you aren’t stupid it isn’t really slick. Don’t let your wheels touch the deeper snow on the shoulder though, it’ll suck you in.

Honestly, the only problem with fresh snow is the visibility. Traffic in the right lane clears it out, but if someone passes on the left it stirs up a cloud that takes a while to settle. That cloud will drift across the median too and you can’t see what other vehicles are doing until it clears.

Traffic delay!

As much as Portland loves their dogs, I doubt this will ever show up in Portland. Actually, I would love to see this. Let me have a team and one of the carts they use for summer training. Let me go flying down the bike path. I wouldn’t need to fear the homeless campers because I’d have 8 dogs with me and all they want is to run. Nah, on the other hand I’d have to watch out for paw injuries from broken glass and needles. No need to put my imaginary dogs through that. Better to stay here where it’s cold enough that running doesn’t make them overheat, and you never have to dig ice splinters out of a paw.

So it is cold and snowy up here. That’s a given. I’m enjoying every bit of it. We’ve had a few rough patches. This morning we’re listening to the generator with suspicion because it doesn’t sound quite right. The backup generator is staged and ready to go if we need to swap it out and let the other one warm up. It’s possible that moisture is in the fuel again which means ice in the carburetor. This is why we have two of them. We have learned a lot in the last few months.

February means we’re in the second half of winter. Things start thawing out in March. We could almost start a countdown. As cold as it is right now I know this winter wasn’t as cold as it could have been and I’m thankful for that. Last year had lows in the -40s to -50s during January. I would hate to have dealt with that in an RV. I’m looking forward to building my cabin so I can have good insulation again.

I hope you are all enjoying the last of winter wherever you are. Go do something fun. Find a reason to appreciate your warm house. Your backyard might not be below zero, but winter weather has a way of making indoors feel extra cozy. Revel in it and recharge to be ready for when the world comes back to life.

Alaska, Cold Weather Life, Inspiration, Off-grid living, Stories

Pondering the future.

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The coffee is extra strong this morning. I might have allowed it to burble on the stove a little bit longer than I should have, but it has a nice kick. I’m sitting here, almost ready to head in to work and I’m trying to make plans. I knew that hibernation would wear off eventually.

First off, I want my cabin. I really, really want a proper cabin. It would be so much easier to heat than this RV. We would have more room to work in the kitchen. We could have better spaces to relax or hang out and not be in each other’s way. That has to wait. My loose plan is to wait for March when things melt to get the sawmill working and get the lumber cut so that when the season ends my shuttle job I can put in the time to build.

Then there is the garden. I want a garden. I’m pretty sure I can grow potatoes and cabbage, carrots and beets. I just don’t know how much protection I will need to install so that critters won’t trample or eat my garden. I put a question in to a group about that. We’ll see if I get anything useful.

I still don’t know what I’ll do for work in summer. Or if Chris will work and I can live off of his paycheck for a few months. I haven’t decided if I’ll drive for Basecamp for a second season or not. Some of this resists planning. It’s too far away and has too many variables.

I used to make lists and plans all the time. I find it really helps when your brain is too busy. Having things written down helps me focus. I’ve been getting better at letting go and winging it, but I would like an outline.

I know what I want to do out in the real world. I’m pondering a couple of ideas for content on the blog. I want your feedback.

What do you want to know about life in Alaska? Do you want to know about living off-grid? How do we keep warm? Cost of living? What it’s like driving? Ask me questions!

I have just finished reading through my posts for the last year. More recently I have been telling stories, but last January I posted a series detailing my camping list. I want to revisit that and compare camping to my current lifestyle. That could be an interesting ten articles.

Please, tell me what you think. I love sharing what it’s like up here and I would love to share the adventure with you the way you want to hear about it.

Inspiration, Stories

A new year… now what?

So we hit the end of one calendar and have started on the next. Days and weeks and months flow by and people act as if the numbers make it different from what came before.

Do the numbers make the difference? Do they really?

I would make the argument that numbers are nothing but markers. It doesn’t matter what page you turn to if the book is blank. The numbers just help you label when things happen. We are what will make the changes.

What made 2020 good or bad has nothing to do with the year itself, but how we responded to events. I lost my dad and we couldn’t gather for a funeral. I moved to another state and still don’t have my cabin built. The job I was hired for and quit my stable job to start went away as covid-19 cancelled that entire season. Wildfires threatened my Oregon home and forced my family to evacuate. I had to spend a few nights without heat as the temp dropped as low as -31°. All of these things make it sound like 2020 was a disaster for me, but it wasn’t.

2020 might have been my best year yet. It was the year I took control of my life. I left a job that was destroying me and only my bank account regrets it. I have settled into an area that is beyond beautiful, even with the darkness and extreme conditions. My cabin might not be built, but that means I am living close to my helpers. If anything goes wrong I can call for assistance and they just have to cross the creek. We might have had to get through some harsh times, but on the other side we know that we survived and can do it again. The job I have now is proving to me that I really do like people. My family learned what is really important to them and what can be left behind. My oldest son is learning that he is stronger than he thought and takes great pride in his ability to keep the household functional in Oregon. My middle son is getting a bit bored here, but he knows how to keep our RV comfortable. And even though we miss my dad, we still were able to say goodbye in a memorable way.

So what is this new year going to bring? I don’t know. There will definitely be challenges. I still have a cabin to build. Chris and I both will have to find work again. Hopefully it will lead us closer to the lifestyle we want.

I can’t predict the events to come, but I plan to meet them with the intention of making the best of whatever comes my way. I’ll do my best to be ready for when things are bad. But in every disaster there is room made for growth. Change is inevitable. Adaptation is necessary. Optimism is not a flaw. You get what you look for. If you look for reasons to give up then that’s all you will find. Better to look for the good in life. Look for new opportunities. Look for new people. Make the most of your life no matter what comes your way.

Here’s one good thing we know is coming. My nephew and his wife just announced that the baby they are expecting in a few months will be a girl. Considering that my extended family has had only boys for the last 25 years, that’s pretty exciting. This is going to be a good year.

Alaska, Cold Weather Life, Inspiration, Stories

Photo bomb!

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The light is coming back. The last two days have had spectacular sunrises and sunsets. It stays light a little later than just a week ago and that’s perfect. Then there is the full moon. This morning the moon set as the sun was rising and I couldn’t decide which side of the sky was prettier.

I was running errands this morning, in full professional scavenger hunt mode. My boss sent me a list and I was checking it off. At one point I had to go back to the shop for something and as I pulled in I caught a glimpse of the moon setting huge and beautiful. So I parked the van and walked over to where I had the best angle. I had my phone on camera mode and was zooming in and framing my shot just right when I suddenly realized that there were fuzzy ears in the foreground. I was so focused on the moon that I hadn’t seen the moose.

How’s this for a photo bomber?

The shot I got wasn’t perfect. There was another moose about 20 feet to the right, but I didn’t get them both in a single frame. But I got a story.

How many times does this happen to people? You are so focused on the things in the distance that you forget to see what is close by. All those big things you are heading for are great. Keep aiming high! But don’t forget to look for the little things close by too. Smell the roses. See the moose. Enjoy the moment.

Alaska, Cold Weather Life, Off-grid living, Stories

Checking in from the darkness.

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I’d join him if I could. He’d love the extra body heat.

It’s very close to the solstice and the temperature has been dipping lower more frequently. This weekend was the second in a row that hovered around -17° for most of the time. Oddly enough, it wasn’t as hard as last weekend.

I had zero plans for my weekend. I literally stayed in a cocoon in my bed as I explored and built in a new world on minecraft. Then Saturday afternoon a friend texted me to let me know she would pick me up at 4. I had to think about it for a while. I wasn’t sure what day it was. Then I remembered that she had informed me that I WOULD be joining her on a girls night out with her friends. Okay. I said I’d be ready.

We went to a favorite Thai restaurant and talked and ate. I knew I would probably like her friends. She has good taste in people. And I know I need to make more connections. As much as I could be happy as a hermit, I still need to socialize. After we left the restaurant we ended up going to look at guns (Missi has found one worth saving up for) and I bought a smaller cast iron skillet. Then we had to park at the side of the road to watch the solstice fireworks. We didn’t even need to be downtown.

It’s cold outside and I’ve been typing this while I wait for the truck to warm up. But the time comes to head for work. Clay is happily tucked into the blankets. He isn’t fond of this weather. It’s snowing again, so I’ll be thankful for the empty Sunday morning highway. It isn’t quite hibernation, but it’s closer than I have been to it in many years. And it feels good.

Alaska, Off-grid living, Stories

Let’s call this a practice run.

That time when the sawmill almost worked… We got 5 boards before it broke again and the snow came.

So my cabin didn’t get built before the snow came. I have come to see that as a blessing in disguise. As much as it would be more comfortable to have the space Chris and I are spending the winter close to friends who can help. Any time something goes wrong they are just across the creek instead of a few miles away. Not everyone gets to cheat like this their first winter living off-grid.

Last June I put together a plan for my cabin and calculated what it would cost. While we got some things set in motion, access to the build site was limited by the rain making a mess of my driveway. My building help had a friend who had fewer limitations and needed a cabin as well. So much of August and September was spent about 50 miles north of Fairbanks working on Zach’s cabin.

Watch them build Zach’s cabin here: https://youtu.be/nir6FXSIVck

The video is about 30 minutes long. Lance recorded chunks of it as they worked. All of his kids were involved at some point; even the 3 year old got to be a gofer. Chris manned the saw. The trailer my dad built was used to haul materials.

This isn’t my cabin, but it might as well be a practice run. It’s nearly the same size and design as what I plan to build. Take time to watch the video and maybe subscribe. I’m sure Lance would love to have more people to share the view from his world. He gets some amazing scenery pics driving the highways of Alaska.

If we’re lucky I’ll get him to make some videos of my cabin build next spring.

Alaska, Inspiration, Stories

Are you trapped in your comfortable discomfort?

FB memories recently showed me this post from four years ago. It fit in with a conversation I had with a guest. It was a conversation that I found very upsetting. I have been letting the conversation and my reactions simmer in the back of my mind for a couple of days now, trying to make sense of it all.

It takes nearly an hour to bring people up to Basecamp from town. I have kind of a spiel that I’ve put together to tell guests a bit about history, local animals and plants, local economy and jobs, and the way that life can be different up here in interior Alaska. Each trip is different because of what catches the attention of a given guest. This couple focused on the dry cabin aspect and what that entails.

The husband asked about how much land costs and what restrictions there might be. How do you get started, etc. I explained some of my journey and why I left a good paying job that made me miserable, and tried to explain some of the things that have made this possible, especially the mindset. The wife told me how I should have done my job back driving bus and at one point very passionately told me that “not everyone can do what you have done! Some people are trapped!”

Some people are trapped. Trapped by circumstances. Trapped by the fact that they have children that they can’t bring themselves to pull out of a school where they are bullied and abused by the other kids. Because if they aren’t in school how will they be properly socialized? Trapped by income limits. Trapped by dysfunctional relationships? Trapped by their own ideas of how the world works and how you should submit to the system, even though it makes you so miserable you don’t want to drag yourself out of bed to do it another day, but you have to because what about the children?

I get it. As the old FB post above hints at I spent a long time feeling trapped. I had no idea how I could do anything different. I saw only the limitations surrounding me. I could not imagine any other way, but I was desperate for something different. My life at that time was doing its best to destroy me, and for a while it came close.

I looked for inspiration in many places. I listened to podcasts to learn about how to create a farm business, how to manage money and create wealth on a normal income. I heard about possibilities outside of the beaten path from people who had found their own version of success that fed their souls instead of destroying them. I dug in and kept trying to figure out what I really want in life. The post above is an early version. Now I summarize it by saying, “I want to live with the seasons and I want to be able to hibernate.” I’m still working out what that means, but I have a feeling that it will shift through the years as I have new experiences. Right now I just want to make enough money to live on and build my cabin. I have options that I never saw before. Life isn’t perfect, but it’s happier than it was 4 years ago.

To answer the idea that people are trapped, I just want to say this: yes, you are in a cage. It is made of expectations and debt, materialism and keeping up with the Joneses. You have been socialized by school to put up with abusive work environments just so you can have a paycheck to keep it all afloat and not disappoint your family and friends. But it is a flimsy cage. The bars are weak and spaced far apart. You can escape any time you choose. It all starts by deciding you want something better. Then you make a plan. You spend a couple of years dismantling your cage and one day you walk away from it. It only ever existed in your mind anyway.

If you look for reasons to not succeed you will always find them. If you look at people who succeeded despite all the reasons they shouldn’t, you will find them as well. Life is never completely comfortable. So you need to decide what kind of discomfort you can put up with in order to find the life you can be comfortable with.

I chose to leave a reliable $60k/yr income and a four bedroom, really nice home so that I can have the chance to live in an RV in the extreme cold, using an outhouse with no roof. The trade-off is that my soul feels free. I am happier than I have been in years, and I feel better day by day. I have a job I can go to without crying the entire commute.

Am I lucky? Maybe. But only because I found new choices and made myself step out and do something different. It was terrifying to buy the plane ticket to come visit Alaska for the first time. It was terrifying to actually purchase my property up here. It was scary to apply to seasonal jobs that paid half of my income rate at Trimet. But once it all started coming together I felt a peace with everything. Only my bank balance regrets leaving Trimet.

I don’t know if that guest realized that her words were like knives, twisting in some old wounds, but after pondering my reactions I came to two conclusions. One, I’m glad for it. I feel like some old pain has drained from me that wouldn’t have without this interaction. And Two, she wants something better in her life but she feels trapped. I tried to explain to her how I got here. I tried to encourage her to take tiny steps and see outside of whatever barriers she thinks are there. I truly believe that people can do whatever they set their minds to. I hope my words set hope in motion for her. In the meantime I hope that the beauty of this place helps heal the wounds in her soul.

Even at 2:30pm this sunset feeds my soul.

I’m happy here. This is not an easy place to live and I know it isn’t for everyone. My greatest hope is that with this blog telling my story I can inspire other people to find what makes them happy and take the steps to improve their lives. If anything I say or share does that for you then let me know. I want to see more people living well.

Alaska, Cold Weather Life, Off-grid living

Meet Plant

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My dear friend Missi doesn’t celebrate Christmas with things. The reasons are complicated and incomprehensible to some, but simply put she and her family prefer to focus on the reasons behind Christmas instead of the commercialized holiday. She knows that my family does like Christmas. More specifically, I like the lights and the music that put me in a cozy mood. My boys are a little bit cynical about it and put up with me.

With our surroundings and circumstances being so very different this year I was fully prepared to let the season slide by. I left my special ornaments in Oregon. I don’t need to make the generator work extra just for colored lights. There’s no room for a tree in the RV. It’s okay, expected, and perfectly alright for me to do nothing this year.

I was surprised when my dear friend showed up at my door on Friday night with this baby Norfolk Island Pine. They are my favorite plant to pet and I haven’t had one in years. She said she wanted to make sure I had something for the season. Even though she doesn’t celebrate she wanted to make sure I can. (And she says she doesn’t understand why she has been told that Hospitality is one of her spiritual gifts.)

My son immediately dubbed it Plant. Plant will keep Mr Coffee company now that Mr Coffee has been abandoned for the stovetop version. It will be hard to keep Plant alive in the variable environment of the RV, but we’re up for the challenge. We still don’t know how or if we will dress Plant up for the holiday, but this could be fun.

As a side note, we spent all the daylight on Saturday (11am to 3:30pm) rebuilding the stand for the heating oil barrel. The quick and dirty stand that was put together to get us warm was starting to fail. We dismantled it and made a much better one.

The original lasted a month before it started to lean. A crack as fuel was added made replacing this an easy choice.
Almost finished. Much stronger, but the light was fading fast. We finished it by headlamp.

Really, it only took about 2 hours of work, but we had to come inside multiple times to warm up our hands and the driver drill. Our tools didn’t like the -13 weather any more than we did. It’s done now and should last us a good long while. I keep saying we, but I have to give all credit to my son. I was just the gofer on this project, as much as that goes against my nature. He can be proud of his work and I’m proud of the man he has become.