February

I once lamented to a friend how much I hate February: it's the shortest month, and yet the longest; it's deep winter blues; it's uncomfortable, what with Valentine's and all that, the skin tightened from winter's dry, and the body craving the sun.  I've long held a prejudice against this month, and it is only this year that I actually took the time to think back on February and where this deep seated resentment comes from.

February, for me, is a month that has brought fundamental shifts to my life. It is a month of change, but so deep that I don't see it manifest until much later, and these changes are seismic and cataclysmic in their trajectory.

My first heartbreak happened on Valentine's day when, after a rather tumultuous week and one of my first true acts of teen rebellion with me facing the consequences, I got a phone call telling me that we were through and later that day a box of my stuff on the porch.  The sight of that teddy bear perched on top still makes me sad (and a bit relieved in hindsight) for fifteen-year-old me. It crushed me, but my mother made me pull myself together, go to school, to Saturday school (not as exciting as The Breakfast Club) and then to the Valentine's dance later that day. I remember my father, in trying to impart some wisdom, tell me that "these things happen in life," and my response was "yeah, but I expected better--I didn't think he'd be a coward and break up over the phone." Perhaps this was one of those moments when I look back and realize that people so rarely do what we expect them to or want them to. And, like most first loves, I am so glad this heartbreak occurred, that it began to build something in me that made me tougher, perhaps a bit crueler, with an odd mix of reckless caution and cynicism.

I made it a mission to break hearts, not have mine broken again.

The year I graduated high school, my graduation gift from my parents was a trip to Alaska with my father--in February, no less. And I fell in love with the wildness, with the mountains, with the vastness and my smallness. It would set me on a path to seek this, to make it mine.  Colorado gave me mountains and the remote, tiny life, and it was wonderful. Fifteen years later, I found my way back to Alaska, and each day I am overwhelmed by this place.

Later that month of that year, Scott entered my life.

There are other Februaries, too, that have left their indelible marks on my life.

These are wonderful things, truly, but they created deep changes and moved my life in ways that were not easy or comfortable. Deep in winter, they begin to put down their roots.

And now, in February again, I am faced with a new trajectory that takes me back into an office job, in a field I never dreamed I would work in, doing work that I honestly am not sure I even understand how or what to do. And that's okay. As I have in the past, I face this head on, inviting it even as I fear it, and shivering with the cold dark that marks these days. 

A new year in the space future

As I write, I have bursts of great productivity, and then I have moments where the words...just...don't...come.  Intertwined with this is the self defeating idea that I simply have nothing of value to add to world of the written word. My ideas are worthless, my sentence structures wretched and simplistic, and ultimately, everything is unoriginal. I am not a special snowflake; I am, in fact, a hack. *sob*

And this insinuates itself deep within me and debilitates me and my writing. It's a long, hard battle to overcome this and keep writing through it. I mope, I stare at the screen, I drink, and I let it sit, thinking perhaps the ideas just need to marinate a bit more. It is not productive. It hobbles the creativity.  As a result, I don't sleep because I'm obsessed over how little I have to offer anyone.

And then, something happens, and I break free from this funk, and I write--like can't get anything else done because there are so many words demanding my attention. They drag me out of bed in the middle of the night, and I sit hunched over a dimmed computer screen until five or six in the morning. I drag my notebooks around and jot down random notes and sometimes pages of writing that I have to drag back to the computer to tweak as it goes into the system. And these are gloriously exhausting days.

These are the triumphant days (and nights). I feel proud of what I write, even if I delete it--and that's hard watching days and hours of work simply go away, disappear into the ethers, or get cut and pulled into a separate "this is okay and I'm not ready to throw it away" document. This is a trick I developed in grad school when I had phrases and sections that I loved but that my advisor felt perhaps did not do credit to the overall project. As a result, I have a document with phrases of quotes from Through the Looking Glass and lines similar to "Flaming globes of Sigmund!" among others. Seriously, I wake up some days and I have no idea what the phrases mean (Scott can attest to this as he has asked a few times only to receive a blank look, as if to say, "Don't you see it? Don't you get it?"--note: he does not see it nor get it).

And so, this brings me to my point. 2013 and 2014 were rough, but in all of that, they set me on a course that I have slowly followed, persevering and eking out words here and there. At the end of 2014, I could say that I had followed through on one of my resolutions. I only hope someday others can see what was dreamed of in the low days of 2013 and fought long and hard for in 2014.

Here's to 2015 and all that it may bring!

Denali

Scott's parents won the Denali road lottery, and we were able to join them. Unfortunately, due to an illness, they were unable to accompany us into the park, but Scott and I went, left Asher with his parents in the RV (because lizards roll like that), and we drove through the park in the Jeep.

Normally, to get 90 miles into the park as we did, you have to do so by bus. However, on certain days at the end of the summer season and only by lottery, people are allowed to drive their cars into the park. It was intermittently rainy, sunny, warm, and cold. I took photos for two men who were paying last respects to a friend who had passed and scattered his ashes under a spectacular view of Denali. We waited in the rain for the clouds to part to get the photo--Scott and I enjoying our lunch just waiting for the shot. National Geographic photographers, I have much more respect for the work you do and the patience you have.

It was magic. Enjoy some of the photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great Migration: ALASKA!

We made it. We made it! WE MADE IT!

Day 5 and we've landed, road weary, wobbly, and so happy to be here.

We left Tok at 8:30AM, allowing ourselves those few extra hours for sleep since we didn't have as far to haul this day. We woke to a rather wet tent, dripping with condensation from our warm bodies and breath in sharp contrast to the cold air outside. And it was cold.

As we left the RV park, we stopped to settle the fee for the night. The woman was still sweeping and vacuuming but paused to take my money and ask the polite questions we had grown accustomed to on the trip: Where are you headed? What do you do? Are you military? etc.  Except this time, I was obviously being sized up and found a bit wanting when I replied that we were simply moving for new adventures. After an awkward moment, the woman nodded, and said, "I'm sure you'll do fine."  This did not bolster my confidence.

We grabbed coffee from a gas station with, oddly enough, an espresso machine behind the counter. It was enough to get us going and hold us over until Glenallen, where we loaded up on Americanos from a very nice barista. If you are ever in Glenallen, make a point to stop at the little yellow espresso stand.

We drove through the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park area, through the tundra ("land of little sticks") and down into Palmer, eventually landing in Wasilla.

It's been a long, long, beautiful trip.  Here's to what comes next!

Clearly someone(s) did not clear the bump

See these dips and rises? Permafrost

Glacier

Look at these amazing colors

These roads...

So flipping close

Somebody hates this last leg of the trip

Great migration: Day 4

It's stupidly early and the flash is ridiculously bright, but we are still in good spirits.

As we left the campsite in Watson Lake at a very early 6:30AM, which means we were up around 5:45 or 6:00, we saw a female black bear and her cub standing on the side of the road. At the sound of our engine, the female sent the cub scrambling back up the hill behind them and into the trees while she watched attentively. Once we were safely away, she and the cub crossed the road, headed right into the campsite we had vacated. It was quite polite of them to wait for us to be away.

We didn't do coffee in the hopes that we might find a coffeeshop, but no such luck. We were on the road for a while, terribly tired and keeping each other awake. We were finally able to stop in Teslin because we needed fuel and decided this was the stop for coffee and breakfast--a surprisingly delicious breakfast at that. See, here's where things get kind of crazy: We fueled up the moving truck and then pulled around for breakfast, completely forgetting to pay for fuel. It was only when we were paying for breakfast did we realize that we needed to settle for the earlier purchase, to which the cashier (politely) replied, "Oh, I wondered whose that was!"  No hassle at all, just a happy cashier that we paid the bill. It was also at this stop that we realized that in our tired stupor, we drove off without the lock for the moving truck. Every stop meant we were checking up on the truck to be sure it hadn't popped open on the rough roads.  

It should be noted that I tried to buy post cards here, but the only ones I could find were horrifying: a moose and her calf being attacked by all manner of predators--wolves, bear, eagles. A bear fighting an eagle. The others were no better (and so unrealistic).

A very large (like crazy, trophy sized) moose also ambled along the road for a while with us, and I made Scott stop so I could snap a photo. Unfortunately, it's not he best since he was over the hill and we were a ways away before we finally came to a full stop.  I am sorry for the quality and the fact that you cannot see the rack on this beast.

Besides the bull moose and the bears, our animal sightings included fox, beavers, and swans. We did not, however, and much to my disappointment, see grizzlies, as the milepost book said we might on the White River. I was practically standing in my seat trying to spot these bears, and every time we stopped for breaks, we were on the lookout both for safety and curiosity.

We also had a run-in with the CMP. We were pulled over for speeding (and we were definitely speeding in the moving truck) and the guy was so very polite and nice and let us go with only an informal warning and a cheery, "You've got a lot of stuff behind you that you want to get there in one piece. Drive safely now!" 

We stopped in Whitehorse for a few hours to regroup, drink a lot of coffee and check out Yukon Brewing. We had hoped that this was a pub, but that wasn't the case, so we bought some beer, talked to the locals a bit about the trip and about Canadian beer laws, and made sandwiches in the truck to take on the road. By the by, we make banging sandwiches and on-the-go road food when we road trip.  We also acquired some Dare maple cookies, which happen to be some of the best cookies out there and that we've found only in Canada.

Day 4 was the longest day we've had as we pushed on through to Tok. The roads were terrible, and in the photos you see where we lose the paved roads for just graded, gravel ones. The permafrost causes too much damage to keep the roads paved as it freezes and melts, and this is especially true as the average temperatures continue to rise with climate change and warming. There is actually some fascinating research being done to try to figure out how much the permafrost moves the ground around and the extent of the damage that this causes to the road. The NY Times has an interesting article about the history of the highway and these current issues it faces, and you can read that here. You can see the experiments and engineering near Beaver Creek.

We were stopped at the border for a bit longer than expected, not because there were any issues, but because the people working were fascinated by the car wrap Scott had done. They had a number of questions and even called over the others in the back to look at it and commend him for his creativity. Well done, Scott!

From the Yukon Territory, we crossed back into the 49th State to land in Tok, Alaska in the latter part of the day. The RV park's office had already closed, so we went ahead and set up the tent, made the necessary phone calls and texts to let the families know we were alive and well, and had not been eaten by bears.  We had to get creative to get into the restrooms to be able to shower since these were code protected. Scott managed to drive a guy crazy enough by just pushing the buttons that the guy opened the door and gave him the passcode. Persistence and a little aggravation paid off and we were able to get clean after a few days on the road.  We made a quick dinner of ramen, finished off with some lovely suds courtesy of Yukon Brewing.  At 11:00PM, we settled down in the tent, the light still quite twilight rather than full dark, to the sounds of creatures howling in the far distance.

And now, for the photo album:

Clearly, this lizard does not do mornings. A bit bleary.

The Yukon River

Headed in the right direction (just head north...for a long way).
This does not mean we are in Alaska yet, though.

Feeling a bit clingy on this day.

This is around where we were pulled over.

Non-road road.

These are ridiculous temperatures.

This is Alaska.