8.9.22 (Tuesday)

Woke up this morning to the phone ringing..it was Judy just checking on us.  The family is so excited for us that we’ve been able to make this dream of ours come true.  Their main concern is the fact that we are so remote.  Oh well…

Also had a message yesterday from Andee at the Alaska Railroad.  We had scheduled and paid for some heavy freight to come up the tracks on the Tundra truck several weeks ago.  She finally got confirmation that it would be coming this morning.  And sure enough, it did!  Bernie called when it drove by his house and we grabbed the four-wheeler and headed down the trail to the tracks.  Not only did they bring the pallets with a couple of backup generators and the air compressor, they also brought a large wooden box that Kevin had put together with a variety of antiques and treasures that we thought might be cool and useful.  Surprise!  They also brought one of the other pallets that we had asked Moore’s to hold off sending up the tracks—a large Lister generator!  We were really hoping they wouldn’t send that up here until after the snow flies.  We are told that it’s much easier to move heavy stuff with snow machines and sleds, rather than four-wheelers and trailers.  It weights 400+ lbs and it’s just going to have to sit down by the tracks until we can figure out a way to get it up here.

(Side note:  Typically, if you want heavy stuff to come up on the Tundra truck, you have to get it down to the depot in Anchorage and they will send it up randomly when they have a full load.  Because we lived in Talkeetna, and Moore’s hardware is one of the pick up spots for the Tundra truck, they allowed us to pallet up some of our stuff, store it there for a short time, then they worked out the schedule to get it up to us.)

While we were making trips up to the barn with the generators, etc. we saw a large coyote at the top/back of the property.  He was NOT scared of us and looked pretty well-fed.  Will have to keep an eye out and not let Sam out on her own for sure!

So today Kevin walked me through how to start a fire in the wood cookstove, in the Blaze King (after he got up on the roof and cleaned the kreosote out of the stove pipe!), how to empty the new camp potty and how to start up the diesel generator.  I feel so much more comfortable with this stuff now!

Tomorrow we head into town on the trail for a trial run to get rid of some of the clothes we’ve uncovered, hit the bank, grocery store, hardware store, etc.

Here we go!

Bernie came by.  He is headed out the trail to go hunting with some other neighbors on Prince William Sound.  Won’t be back until Sunday or so.  We were scheduled to ride the trail out tomorrow so that Kevin could catch the passenger train out of Talkeetna to Fairbanks, then get a charter to Venetie for work.  His boss just called—trouble getting the charter so it may not be until next week before he gets back to work.  I’m sure grateful to have him here, but I also realize we will need the money come this winter.  We’ll work it out….