I Can Take Care of it for Him

It's been a busy few days. I've been helping Kirk out. A tree fell on his cabin - again! I feel so bad for him. The first one fell in January. There was a terrible windstorm and it blew a tree over. It didn't do any damage when it fell but when we were getting it off the cabin it put a hole in the overhang. This one was caused by the floods in July. The ground got saturated and it weakened the soil. We had another windstorm a couple of weeks ago and it blew this tree over. Unfortunately this one landed on the stove pipe and shoved it through the roof. The tree was so tall that it snapped at the eve of the roof and part of it fell on the other side of the cabin. It damaged part of the overhang on the other side of the cabin. At this point, Kirk is going to need a new roof next summer. When you're having to do three different patches it's just not worth it. He was planning to put a metal roof on, but he was just going to put that over the existing roof. Now he'll need to replace the existing roof as well.

He's also been trying to get his solar power system installed. I helped a couple of weeks ago with that. The installer was supposed to come by Friday to finish it. Well, the tree and hole in the roof took priority. The stove pipe the tree took out was to his wood stove so it is useless now. Luckily Kirk had a drip oil stove installed, it just wasn't finished being hooked up. So Friday he focused on finishing that while I focused on the roof. I cut all the branches off the tree and cleaned off the roof around the hole. Then I patched the hole on the inside, added insulation, then patched it on the roof. Far from perfect but it'll get him through until spring. While I did this Kirk was successful in getting the oil stove going.

We went back on Saturday so he could meet his installer. I offered to go out and help with his heating oil. He has a 300 gallon tank for the oil. However, the closet you can get a car to the house is within a tenth of a mile. You have to cross a foot bridge over a slough. So you can't drive a truck over to the holding tank at the cabin and fill it. You have to hand pump it out of barrels into 5 gallon jugs, haul them the tenth of the mile to the cabin, climb up on a ladder and pour it into the holding tank. It took me the better part of 3 hours to haul 175 gallons for him. My right knee is so bruised from climbing up and down the ladder. But you know what? I don't care. I'm just glad that I was able to help him out. I can't even imagine doing this all alone. Kirk is not one to ask for help but he did and I'm glad he did. No reason he has to do this all on his own.

He and I had an interesting conversation going out to the cabin on Friday. As I mentioned before this is the second tree that has fallen on the cabin. It was also flooded pretty badly in July. It washed out the foot bridge over the slough. Several sections of the road were pretty washed out. His fence was also taken out by the flood. Kirk asked me how many signs does one need to know that this isn't right? I started to laugh because I was kind of thinking the same thing. But, in reality, this is all just random things that have happened. They aren't part of a greater conspiracy to send him a message.

Thinking about my life, there are times where I thought I was being given signs like that. Many people will take signs like this and then make a change. But the real question is, are you wanting to make a change and these "signs" are a convenient excuse to make the change? I told Kirk he needed to ask himself does he really want this? He told me about a book that he just finished reading about a family who homesteaded up here and all the adversity they went through. He said that what he's going through is nothing compared to what they were. He said if they could do it he could. I said no doubt he could do it but the question is does he want to do it? His life has changed a lot since he bought the cabin and the reasons he bought it are no longer there. I'm being vague here because I"m not going to share his personal business on my blog. Anyway, he's in a different place in life now. Does the cabin still fit in with what he wants? What his goals and desires are? This is what he needs to ask himself. The "signs" don't mean anything, it's all about what he wants.

If I were to believe in the signs, I think I'd either have never left Seattle or I'd have moved back there. I'm still trying to find a job (although I do have an interview coming up). My condo is in foreclosure and I'm getting ready to file bankruptcy. Are these signs? I guess if I wanted them to be they could. But I want to live here, end of story. So they aren't signs. Just stuff I'm going through. I'm happy living here. I love it here. I'm home. If I were to leave, where would I be going? Why would I go there? We tend to put so much focus on a job that that's what drives decision making for many. Well, not for me. A job isn't going to rule my life. My happiness is going to be what rules my life. A job can help with that but it doesn't need to define it.

If you made it through all that brain dump, thanks for your tenacity! ;-) The pics are obviously of the tree on the cabin. Kirk is working up on the Slope now and is out of town this week. He's back for two days then off to CO for training, right back up to the Slope. This week I'm going to go out and see if I can get the tree off the cabin for him. With as little time he's going to have to himself the last thing he needs is to spend time dealing with that. I can take care of it for him.

Great news, HOCKEY SEASON STARTED!!! I'm so freaking excited!! There was a tournament last weekend. We had tickets to all the games but due to the tree, we missed three of them. We did make it to the last game and watched UAF play. They've been doing good so far this season but they were having an off night. Oh well. It was good to be at a game again. And there are games this Friday and Saturday! Yahoo!!

Hopefully I'll See Them Again Soon

It's been a while since I've last posted. I've surprisingly been busy with the driving gig. There's been a lot going on lately but it's all good. Talk about being thrown into the thick of things tho. My first trip it snowed like crazy the night before, our first real snow of the winter. The roads were HORRIBLE the morning I left. Talk about stressed!! It took twice the amount of time to get to Nenana then it usually does. Very slow going. I was on bad roads for almost 200 miles then all of a sudden, they cleared up and they were fine the rest of the way to Anchorage. I was stressed that night thinking about the drive back the next day. When we got to the point that I was expecting the roads to get bad, they were much better than I expected. After only 50 miles they roads were perfectly clear and it was smooth sailing coming in. Nice!

My second trip I took a group of kids to Kenia, about 550 miles south of Fairbanks. It snowed a bit the night before we left but nothing like the week before. The roads were good and didn't really slow us down at all. It still took about 11 hrs to go the 550 miles. Luckily we were there two nights so I was able to rest up before heading back. I did get to see a huge grizzly bear and two moose on the way. The bear was awesome, very close to the road. Unfortunately it was in a place where we couldn't stop.

The day before we left Kenai to come back, it snowed all day, abut 4 inches. Then the snow turned to rain and when I woke up the snow was gone but it was raining pretty good. I drove through a pretty bad rain storm, there was a landslide which put a tree in my lane at one point. After the rain I went through a pretty bad snow storm, almost whiteout conditions at one point. That didn't last too long thankfully. By the time I got to Anchorage it was just windy, so windy that they were diverting flights from Anchorage to Fairbanks! Just over 100 miles north of Anchorage it was back into the snow for over 100 miles. It was beautiful falling but wreaked havoc with the roads. They were pretty slick to say the least. After 100 miles they cleared up and we flew the rest of the way to Fairbanks.

My next thing was just a local day here, driving a group around town and then 60 miles out to Chena Hot Springs and back. It had rained the day before so the snow was gone but it cooled off a lot and the roads were solid ice. Fun fun fun!

Welcome to winter driving in Alaska. This is what I signed up for. I do have another trip this week taking a wresting team to Anchorage. I'll be there three nights with some downtime in Anchorage so that won't be too bad. This should be the last trip south. I'm ready for it. I'm ready for a break. I'm ready to be home, in my own bed for a while again. It's all good, just wearing me out a bit.

I've had some very strange feelings driving lately. Being a charter driver, just driving groups from point A to point B is very different from being a tour driver. Being a tour driver, you have more credibility with people. They know you are educated to be talking about the sights, history and such. When you are a charter driver, people look at you differently. It's like they assume that you aren't that educated, that you are doing this because it's all you can do. Maybe I'm just making that all up in my mind but those are the feelings I've been grappling with lately. I feel like I need to give my resume to people so they know I'm not just some yahoo. I've made a point of telling people I have an MBA. I want them to know that I'm choosing to do this instead of having to do this. But why does it even matter? What does it matter what people think of me? I generally don't care what people think of me, how they think of me but for some reason I've been struggling with this. And I don't like this struggle. It doesn't matter. I just need to get more comfortable with that.

Anyway.....ugh, sorry.

I'm loving living at the cabin. The snow we've recently gotten is so beautiful. It is so beautiful at the cabin. Peaceful, tranquil. The pics are of my cabin and the road to the cabin. The snowshoe hare that lives by me has turned almost all while. He's awesome to see. Yesterday I was driving to town to have dinner at a friend's place and I saw two foxes. They were so cool! I love foxes. They are cool creatures to watch. They are so graceful looking, humble. I'm bummed because I didn't have my camera withe me. I turned around and went home and got it but by the time I got back to where I had seen them they were gone. Hopefully I'll see them again.

I suppose that's it for today. Nothing much else to tell.