Snow on the trees.

Snow on the trees., a photo by Hotmetal251 on Flickr.

Start of Sunset

DSC_0046, a photo by Hotmetal251 on Flickr.

Guess I have not been keeping up with this blog as much as I should. I just have not had the camera to be able to post good pictures. Now that that has been fixed hopefully will get more content on here.

So far have been to the following places:
Entire Kodiak island (visited all remote villages while I was there.
Fairbanks and North Pole (Yes the North Pole exists)
Bethel (just out of the way)
Nome (have some cool pictures I will get up here)

So far we have at least 2 feet of snow on the ground at the house. More pictures to come.

Trip to Iliamna, AK

So today was the first puddle jumper trip for me. Had to perform an inspection at a lodge in Ilimna. The fun is just getting there.

Started out in Anchorage this morning about 9am. Flew to Lake Clark Air's Hub Terminal in Port Alsworth. Here we switched planes and continued on to Iliamna Airport. Once in Iliamna Got a ride out to the Lodge to do the inspection. Then back to do it all over again.

Second Leg

Overall

Flying in the Valley

On way to Port Alsworth

Plane from Anchorage

So Port Alsworth is a gravel field.

On way to Port Alsworth coming home

On way to Port Alsworth coming home

Plane that is going to take back to Anchorage

Great swing set

Sun got in way

Lake Clark Air Hub

Prop does strange things

Mountains

Plane to and from Iliamna

Mountains

Air force Base

Quick hike at Arctic Valley

A day at Whittier

 This was a day that we went to Whittier to check out the tunnel to get there. It was raining really hard that day and some of the pictures did not come out.

 

Entrance to tunnel.

In Tunnel heading out.

Cruise ship waiting at dock.

Iceberg on way back from tunnel.

Byron Glacier

Update

Well sorry this has not been updated as much as I was hoping. I found it very hard to get pictures and updates done from my mini iPad and it was next to impossible with the phone. So just a quick update. We finally have everything we own in our new house in Alaska. We just had our household goods delivered yesterday and I finally had a chance to get a real computer up and running again. I will get the pictures transferred and posted here soon. Stick around I have pictures from the rest of the drive up, a day in Whittier and I will be going to Fairbanks soon. Thanks

Day two of drive

So started out in Santa Rosa, CA, decided to take one of the good short cuts. Drove about 60 or so miles of twisty windy mountain roads to get to the 5. Finally got there and filled up truck, 61 gallons. California sucks for gas prices. Then back on road with Roz driving. I was having fun taking pictures of Shasta when a vibration started. Call the crew chief we got a vibration. Started at about 70, but slowly had to go slower and slower. Found a rest area to stop and check the tire, all looked ok (not great but plan was to get them all changed after we got there) except right front. It had a large bluge in the tread. So started looking for tire places close, Les Schwab has always been good to me in the past. Gave them a call and no answer. Website says that they are open sundays, guess we are just going for a drive. As soon as we started down the road you could feel the bump each time it went around. Got there and found them closed but had a emergancy number. Well lets check out the other two places in town. First one did not exist, second one was closed just like every other place in town. Called the emergancy number and then back to Les Schwab to wait. Four new tires and another big bill and we are back on the road again. Made it to Springfield, OR today.

Truck getting new tires.

The start of the day. 80 miles of two lane roads.

More pictures to come.

On the road....

House packed and shipped.

Car cleaned and shipped.

Truck and trailer, fixed, packed and shipped. Oh no wait we are driving the truck.

Left the house in San Diego this morning, only forgot a couple things in the closet (a couple of coat's). Managed to avoid LA traffic and put little more then 600 miles behind us. First stop is a friends in Santa Rosa, CA. Dropping Izabel off to stay with her while we finish the drive. Then going to fly Izabel up after we get in the house. 

So far every thing is going good, could be getting better milage but with everything we have doing ok. Trailer still pulls great and truck is doing great. Traffic sucks and people still don't know how to drive. Almost pinned a guy between the trailer and a concrete wall because he didn't know how to merge. 

Tomorrow we are going to see how far up the coast we can get, might just be another 600 or 700 miles.

Which way do we go, just drive north. 

Trailer Maintenance

The Well had some unexpected maintenance on the trailer. Need to fire the guy in charge of PMS. He ha blown off everything since the last time it was used. Some times it sucks being so anal. Checked lights, they all work except one marker light. Greased the wheel bearings (miss the greaseless ones on the other trailer). Made sure all wheels rotate smoothly. Checked brakes and found only the rear wheels worked. Decided to put the battery on the charger to make sure it was good and still only rears work. Hooked it up to truck to make sure it was not just how the runaway brakes worked. Nope still don't work, crawled under and found that a wire was loose. Fixed it and got one side working. Then found the same wire on other side was also loose. Figure that something got both sides. So now all four brakes work. Pumped up tires to max and realized that they were old and not good. Played the computer says we have but we already sold with Pep Boys to get four new tires. In the middle of this I took all four tires off and got ready to get new ones installed. 

Then called and made sure they had them and sure enough that was when was told that yes they had them but that they were sold. So we will see if they came in as promised today. 

Oh yea almost forgot that had to replace the roof vent. Sun had destroyed the old one on the point it was not there.

So have to do something with the trailer more then every couple years. 

Well Pep Boys called and tires did not make truck yesterday, so they claim they will be here tomorrow, hope so running out of days.

A busy weekend in Alaska...but it payed off.

So spent the weekend in Anchorage getting a flavor of my new job and looking for new housing. Really turned out to be a great weekend, lots of work, but it payed off in the end.
I got to spend the day with Carl seeing what it is like to be a Boiler Inspector. Pretty low stress job for what I see, just a whole lot of driving. Roz spent the Friday looking at all the houses that we thought we might like. She did a great job getting it narrowed down to just a few. Saturday we finished looking at a few places and then had dinner with Carl and Carol at a great place in town. Was nice to meet some great people talk about what it is like up there. Sunday we took a second look at the two houses we had narrowed it down to.









So on the flight up there got a couple of pictures from the airplane coming into cooks inlet.










Here is the Moose that Roz kept saying that she wanted to see before we left. He was at the entrance to Kincaid Park in Anchorage. I got real lucky that this guy just happened to be here for lunch. Didn't know where I was going to find one before we left.
 
 





This was some of the mountains leaving Cooks Inlet on the way out.

   

The captain when we were leaving Seattle got permission to do a fly by of Mt Rainer. Got a few good shots from the phone and my 2 inches of widow that I had.





Finished up with putting an offer on a house about 30 miles northeast of Anchorage. Its going to be a little drive for me but it is everything that we were looking for. Found out to that they have accepted our offer with a little modification and we are started down the road to owning not one but two houses. Pictures will follow once we get up there in a couple weeks. If you know of anyone that needs a house in San Diego please let us know, we can work something out.

Well they come and pack us out next week, got an appointment to drop off the car to have the Navy ship it, and have sold the other car to our neighbors. Things are slowly coming together.

As boys become men the Toys just get bigger and bigger.

Started packing the trailer today with the toys and machine shop. Here are some pictures.

 

Things coming together.....Slowly.......

     It is amazing how things just fall into place. We acutually got the pickup dates we asked for from the moving company. Between June and August they never will give you the dates you ask for. We are to busy moving people to pick up your stuff. They say that they are going to take 3 days to pack the house, never seen it take that long. Just still hope we can get it to where we are within the weight limit. This is going to be the first time we are going to actually purge the house of stuff before we move. Last move we moved so much stuff that should have been left in NY, but still left stuff in NY becausse it would not fit. So we will have to see how it goes this time. 

     Today was also the day we met with our realtor. We got all the paper work done to put the house on the market. We decided on a price that will bring us some good profit. Hopefully it is also a good prince to get some competition for offers. There is not really very much for sale in this area and it shoud not take to long to get it closed. Would really love someone to come in with a cash offer. 

     We also have tickets booked for a trip to Anchorage and have been working with a realtor there. He is going to show us some house and hopefully we can put an offer down before we leave. This is where its going to be diffucult, we might end up not having a place to live for a little while waiting for the bank to finish the paper work. Roz might have to make the phone calls since I do not think I am going to have the patience for this. At least I should be working to help take my mind of things. We also have a couple of military bases close at hand. 

     Had to take the leap of faith into this move of job and move of location. Looked to be the best option at the time and really sounds like a cool job. Everything Happens for a Reason, just wish it would tell you why when you have to make the decission. 

On another topic, that truck in the picture would make a really good model radio controlled truck, hum maybe I need another project.

So who put Alaska all the way up there?

   Just doing a little research in how to get the truck and car up to Alaska. The picture is of what Google says is the best way, to bad they did not take into account the bridge out in Vancouver. Looks to be about 3700 miles any way you put it. We have been across the country multiple times now but never really been this far at once. Should be an interesting trip. 

   Have been looking at shipping the Z4 up there. Of course the big question is can it be done with out any damage. One company I looked at gave me a quote of about $7000 to pick up here and deliver there. We found out that since I am retiring the Navy will ship a car for us. They actually use the same company that I was looking at. Might be a way to save some money but might also get me a car with some damage. Could not be any more then the lady who hit me before Christmas. That is another story I am not going to repeat.

   So why didn't I pick Washington as a location for my last duty station. Would have been much closer for the move. Looks like we will take about 7 to 9 days to get up there. Going to have to do some planning on hotels before hand. There really is not much when you get up into Canada. This will be one  of the few times that both of us get to be together in the car. Izabell will be staying at a friends house and then flying up to meet us. Figured that was going to be the best way.

Start

  This adventure began a few weeks ago, I was in the process of looking for a job following my retirement from the Navy. We were hoping to stay here in San Diego. Things were just not working out well. Roz and I believe that everything happens for a reason, so HSB was the first to act following a hiring conference that I went to. They were looking for a inspector for the Alaska territory. Discussed this with Roz and the offer was right where we figured we needed. Guess it is off to Anchorage for a new adventure. Being that we are used to just up and moving really is just like being in the Navy.

  This blog will hopefully give us a place to post pictures and write about the transition to living an working in Alaska. My new position will have me traveling to some of the most remote place in Alaska at all times of the year.