The New Neighbors

 

  It's been a long haul, but we've finally gotten the internet set up, so I can fill you in a little bit about the relocation to our new home. I don't have any pictures of it just yet, but perhaps on the next post, I'll get some. Anyway, as you might expect the move from Hoonah to Wasilla wasn't as smooth as we had hoped it would be. I imagine that it doesn't matter who you are, moving is going to involve the unexpected as well as the unwanted and the unpleasant. I have to say, it was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. While Jan and I were both in agreement that it was time to move on, nothing could really prepare us for what was ahead. Initially we had planned on moving to Lewiston Idaho. We'd been down there three times looking around. It was entirely different than Southeast Alaska. It's very dry; I think they get 12-16 inches of rain a year. It's wheat growing country. Not much in the way of big trees and certainly no large bodies of water in the immediate area, although the Clearwater and Snake Rivers flow through there, and I understand that the fishing is great. However, when the madness on the West Coast started in with the riots and looting and assorted other insanity, the available homes in the area dried up, and we started looking inside Alaska for a new place to live. The buyers of our house in Hoonah wanted to get started on the moving process by September 25th, so they wanted us out of the house by then. It didn't give me much time to get all the logistics set up. Living in Southeast Alaska isn't like living in a place where the roads connect to each other and actually go somewhere. We had to get in touch with World Wide Movers and try to get  a van to Hoonah before the 25th. I may as well have asked to win the grand prize from Publisher's Clearing House. I didn't see how it was going to happen. As it was, the ferry from Juneau to Hoonah was packed for that week and there wasn't going to be any room for a van, however, God intervened and a friend cancelled his trip and opened up a space on the ferry. I still had to scramble to find a place for all the boat lumber, fishing gear, assorted things that I hadn't done anything with yet in thirty years, but I planned to do something with, and miraculously I found a home for it all with the generous help of friends like Bob Hutton, Ian Johnson, Kevin Friday, Chris Budke and my daughter Jen. World Wide sent over a couple of Samoan fellows who really know their stuff and in a day and a half they had all of our worldly goods packed up in the van. Well, not all of them really. Shipping was going to cost $1.72 a pound, so it didn't make sense to take things like canned food or bottles of bleach, so we ended up leaving almost all our cleaning supplies and dry and frozen goods with friends and family. That was fine, I was glad to be able to help out some very deserving folks. What irks me is that in the rush to get out of the house, I forgot to load up my snow shovels, big snow scoop and ice chopper. Gee, who would ever think that I might need such things farther north than where I was in Alaska? I've since replaced one of the snow shovels, but I hate to have to buy things that I already had if only I'd remembered to get them from under the house. Whine, cry, complain. The ferry going back to Juneau didn't leave until October 5th, so the van sat in Hoonah from September 23 till then. Once it arrived in Juneau it had to sit for another two weeks or so until there was a ferry going to Skagway, so it didn't arrive here in Wasilla until about the third week in October. I was fortunate enough to save myself  a months worth of rental at a storage facility because my son-in-law's parents had an empty con-ex where we could store our stuff. The van arrived and two different Samoans started unloading it. When they got to the box that had my DVD player, speakers and CD player, it was soaking wet-so much so that water was pouring out of the box. I came to find out that the van had a fiberglass roof, and it leaked. Of course it didn't leak on any of the plastic totes, it had to be on the box with the electronics. The entertainment center soaked up water about twelve inches up also, and when we unloaded it, it had mold on the sides. All was not lost though. My son-in-law's parents have a heated hanger right on the property and the stuff was put inside and while it did suffer some damage, the TV still works and I can watch DVD's, but only in black and white.  We already replaced the entertainment center, and now we need to figure out what to do with the old one. When I put in a claim, World Wide was Johnnie on the spot accepting responsibility and they're supposed to be cutting me a check to replace what was damaged. Overall, I was pretty impressed with them, especially Gil, the manager in Juneau. We spent the better part of a month with my daughter Autumn and her husband Aaraon and it worked out great. At least for us. When we finally found a house we wanted and closed on it, Autumn put out a text to the members of her church and a bunch of people I've never even met showed up and moved our things from the con-ex to our new home in less than two hours. It was amazing. It just so happened that on the day of the move the temperature dropped to four below zero. I never heard a complaint from anyone though. We're still getting settled in. I need to get some plywood and build some bookshelves and some shelves for a pantry as well as a work bench. For the first time in my life I've got a garage- and it's heated too. I may not be all that excited about it being warm once I get the first gas bill. Another first is that we've got to pay property tax. Hoonah doesn't have property tax, and prior to living there, I always rented. We're learning about things like septic systems and wells and water softeners. Last Saturday we heard rushing water coming from under the living room and in a panic called the people who supply our water. We got passed on to an emergency plumber who said it was going to cost $300.00 an hour for him to come out. While I was on the phone to him the water sound stopped. When I said something to him, he explained that the water softener back washes every now and then and that was the sound we heard. Whew! The latest experience has been with the moose. A cow and two young ones dropped in to the neighbors across the street and ate whatever was left in their planter boxes and then wandered on over to our place where one of them started eating a newly planted tree out front. I yelled at them to make them leave and I guess they thought I was going to give them something so they came to my front porch. They finally left and went to my neighbor's back yard and browsed until they passed out of sight. On the plus side, at least they don't bark. OK, this has gone on long enough, so I'm going to stop here. Maybe the next post will feature a picture of our house. Until then, take care and God bless.