August 5, 2022

Well, we made it!  And, Lordy, what it took to get here…

A little back story….

When we moved to Alaska in 2015, our goal was to live remotely, specifically at our gold mining camp.  It didn’t matter that we had no claims, no idea what it really meant to live “remote”.  Oh, sure, we had some ideas…Kevin had even told me that he’d considered changing over to an Amish lifestyle after his divorce!  Live simply, un-assuming, disconnected from the real world for the most part. I embraced some of that simple life although I was a bid of a harder sell….I did take up canning again.  I sewed a bunch of our stuff.  We started to invest in oil lamps and any thing that we could use “off grid”.  We would sit around at night and play out different scenarios…What if the grid when down because of whatever reason?  What if there was no more gas?  Diesel?  Propane?  What if the freezers wouldn’t work because the grid was down?  What is the best way to preserve food?  What if we had to leave our house because bad guys showed up?  What really goes in a “bug out” bag?  You guessed it….We had the makings of conspiracy theory preppers!

By the time we realized that we “didn’t know what we didn’t know” about living remotely on a gold claim, we grudgingly settled into real life—construction jobs, substitute jobs at the local school district, whatever would pay what little bills we had.  We realized that we loved the freedom of not having any house payments, electrical payments, nothing really but our cell phones, food and gas.  We went on this way for a couple of years, then mom got sick with stage four cancer.  I went to Arkansas to help her out.  While I was down there six months, Kevin ended up mining for gold (we had leased a handful of claims by that time), and loved it.  After mom died, she left us a little money and we purchased a freeze dryer to continue to preserve food and canned anything we could get our hands on.  We also decided to invest in a fixer-upper that had been for sale in the area of Talkeetna for years.  It was three acres with a house, shop, and LOTS of potential for commercial business opportunity.  We were so excited!  Little by little, we fixed up the house (which included fixing MANY water line breaks because it had virtually sat empty for seven years, and chipping away at ¼ inch of ice on the inside of the windows!)

We had big plans for the shop and got a business license for “Homesteader’s Mercantile”.  We had lived close to an Amish community back in Missouri and had built relationships with some of the local store owners.  They were gracious enough to share their business contacts with us and supply chain relationships were created.  All we needed was the gentleman that we bought the place from (a man name Ron who generously allowed us to owner-finance since we had no credit) to come up with racking, shelving and some items for the store.  The rest we would get shipped up.  But that never happened.  Not quite sure why his part fell through the cracks, we never really found out.  All we knew was that we had to regroup quickly to recoup any losses we may have in the store.  So we switched gears, turned what would have been the front of the store into a bed and breakfast, and had our first customer close to Christmas, 2019. 

The air bnb was short-lived.  Then we were approached in the spring of 2020 by a dog groomer and a woman who did nails.  They were interested in renting some of that space in the front of the shop.  So once again, we regrouped and made that happen.  Any extra income helped, for sure!

Life went on and we constantly stressed about the house payment, other bills, balloon payment of $5000 due each November, it just never seemed to end, no matter how hard we worked!  We were blessed, though, when I was offered a job running the kitchen for the local high school—that kept us going during the school year.  And Kevin, although he had always worked construction locally, was offered a job in 2021 working at remote villages making excellent money.

So in April of 2022, on a whim, we threw the place up for sale on FSBO.com (no realtors involved, which we realized later was a HUGE mistake….)  The housing bubble was about to crash, the government was threatening to raise interest rates, and we knew our window of opportunity to sell was quickly shrinking.  Within two days we had our first showing and within three weeks we had an offer.  Here are the details…we bought the property for $275,000.  We put about $25,000 down and were holding at about $250,000 for several years, mainly paying the interest and a little toward the principal when the balloon payment was paid each fall.  We hadn’t counted on the significant property taxes ($4400/year) and we always seemed to be behind.  We didn’t really know what the property was worth because we’d never asked for an appraisal or any inspections when we bought it (I know, pretty dumb, right??).

Here's the caveat….

Unbeknownst to Kevin, I had been looking at properties online, specifically one that I’d fallen in love with, but it was extremely remote.  And to purchase that one and live there, would mean a drastic change in our current lifestyle, including our ability to work!  A girl can dream, though, right??

At the same time, unbeknownst to ME, Kevin had been looking at properties online, too.  Apparently, he’d found one HE was extremely interested in, but it was pretty remote.  So we were sitting around one night talking, and the subject came up.  He wanted to see the property I had been looking at, and so I asked the see the one he had been looking at…they were the same property! 

The only way to get there was by riding the Hurricane train (the last known whistle-stop train left in the United States) about 15 minutes out of Talkeetna, or by riding the trail.  This meant four-wheelers in the summer and snow machines in the winter.  What a lifestyle change!  And we had never been able to afford any fun toys like four-wheelers and snow machines.  It seemed all we ever did was work to pay bills.

We decided to contact the realtor who had the remote “Chase” property for sale.  It was listed for $249,000.  We arranged to see the property the next time the train was running that way.  Although we were both super excited to visit the property, secretly, we were each hoping that it just wouldn’t appeal to us.  Frankly, if it did, then a whole lot of things in our lives to were getting ready to drastically change…..

So, back to the Talkeetna property…..we decided to throw caution to the wind and list it for $599,000.  Why not?  We knew we would never get that for it, but even if we got a little over $500,000, that would allow us to pay off Ron, then buy the remote property that we both apparently wanted and be mortgage free!  But the details of living at that remote property loomed over us….

For starters, I would have to quit my job.  I had worked as a substitute at the school for five years, then got offered the lead job and had been doing that for two years.  I had worked hard to get that job, was good at it, and liked it!  I remember thinking, I’m only 58 years old, I’m too young to retire!  Kevin was making enough money working remote that any money I was bringing in was really insignificant in the big scheme of things, but I’d been working since I was 15 years old….what would I do with myself??  Although it would be nice to actually have more time to garden, sew, crochet, can….I got to thinking maybe we could actually make this work??

And what about the logistics of moving out there?  It’s not like you can box up your house, load it into the back of a moving truck, and drive to the new location!  How in the world would we make it all work??

Then I started to pray….I decided if this was truly God’s will, nothing or no one would get in the way.  With His help, we COULD make this happen. The challenge was that Kevin was in and out of town, gearing up for a big season away from home.  How in the world could I make this happen??  It was a bit overwhelming, to say the least. 

So we accepted the offer of $520,000 and the games began….I will not mention the names of the couple who made us the offer.  Let’s just suffice to say that they are a well-known couple in the area, with successful businesses and quite a reputation for ruthlessness, which we were not aware of when the process started.  We felt they were a good fit for our place and he seemed to be very excited to purchase it.  Her, not so much.  She started to lay down extreme requirements in order for them to close on all of the paperwork.  In her defense, when we bought the property, it had a TON of miscellaneous stuff on it.  Ron was an auctioneer and had used it for a landing place for a variety of things.  Some of those things we were able to repurpose.  Some went to the trash and some we were able to sell to enable the sale of the property.  It was a whirlwind, for sure!

Nonetheless, with all the drama and stress surrounding us, we were able to close the deal.  Tad, BobbiJo, and the kids had been traveling for about three weeks, but came home just in time to be able to help us put the rest of our life on the 1:00 train out of Talkeetna to get us home.  The kids were excited to ride the train and we had a LOT of stuff!—including a plant, Charli (the cat), Samantha (the ShitZu inherited from mom), and a variety of other oddities in addition to 40+ totes and trashbags full of quilts, etc.  Did I mention it was pouring down rain all day??

So we made it, the Ellis’ all went back on the 7:00p train to go home and we were finally left alone to let it all start sinking in…

We unpacked a few totes, threw a couple of grandma’s homemade quilts on top of the bed with our pillows and crashed for the night.  Kevin said he felt like he’d been drugged, that he hadn’t slept that well in a very long time!