On May 14th 2022 we met up with Mom and Dad AKA Grandpa and Grandma Klink in Fillmore, Utah.
Because we're so rushed to get everything ready for Alaska, there just isn't time to take the kids and get passports and have them arrive in time. Especially because we would need to coordinate all of this with their other mother. We simply lacked the time. At this point we have about two weeks until we have to be out of this house.
I will be honest, the thought of how we would move all five of us the dog and the cat in the pickle and the U-Haul is not a fun one. For the sake of everyone's sanity, Mom and Dad agreed to take the boys to California for about a week and a half while Tim and I make the move.
This way they get to spend time with our family and friends in California before we move them so far north.
In preparation for this, the boys each got a disposable camera, (you can see Kevin's in his hand), a sketch book, crayons, pencils, color pencils and a more chocolate than might be wise. Thankfully the candy was gone by this point.
It was hard to leave the boys. And I'd be lying if I said my eyes didn't start to water as they loaded into Dad's fancy truck. Tim stood with his arm around me as we watched them drive off, telling me it was okay, and that they were going to have so much fun.
"We'll talk to them everyday," Tim whispered. "And it'll be worth it once were in Alaska."
After a quick bathroom break, we were on our way home to get the U-Haul loaded.
We would have to wait a few days, before we could go. Tim still didn't have his passport card. But the website had updated and said that we should have the card by Tuesday.
That gave us three days to pack and get the last few things, like the cats rabbis vaccination, ready to go.
Should be easy right?
As you can see, Snot is not a fan of shots and car rides. Which, considering the drive is close to 50 hours . . . . is a little concerning.
But we were just going to have to figure that out.
When I say that no amount of previous moving experience or mental preparation could have prepared us for the nightmare that the next three days would present, I'd still be understating things.
We got a 20 foot trailer, we were leaving the bulk of our furniture behind, as well as all the beds, and various other pieces of household accoutrement based on the fact that our new home would be fully furnished. Honestly, we really thought there would be enough room in that trailer.
It's alarming how far from correct we really were.
Tim noticed it first as we started to stage things in the front room for loading.
We were going to run out of room.
We talked about things to leave behind. We decide that the lockers we had gotten before we moved from the last house would have to stay. And that was unfortunate, but we hadn't had them that long. Then we started looking into the house and pulling out the things we knew we couldn't leave behind. Photos of the boys as baby's, my grandfather's rain lamp, and the two huge tomes of family history my grandmother and her father had put together, to name a few.
Then we started looking at things that we knew could replace, even if we didn't want to.
Like my desk.
I was lucky enough to find an old 50's era typewriter desk. It was sold wood, had a ton of draws and could even lock if I pushed the middle drawer all the way closed. The best thing was that the typewriter section, which was spring-loaded and hiding in the left cupboard, fit my sewing machine perfectly.
Like it was made for it. I could be writing one minute and then pull my Brother out and get to work.
But it was huge. And we were really limited on space. So I let it go. I miss it, everyday, but desks are replicable. And there was more important things that needed to make it on the truck.
We spent the next three and a half days making some of the hardest decisions we've ever had to make. We put things up for sell and parted with things that we had big plans for.
Tim, who is a Tetris master, stuffed, piled, arranged, and puzzle fit until there was nothing left to do but face the fact that we were going to have to start seriously triaging our belongings. We grabbed stickers and started slapping them on everything. Pink for things we were going to put into storage. Red for things that we had packed but simply wouldn't make the final cut. We pulled out whole boxes and decided by the tag on them that they wouldn't make it.
A nearly horrific mistake on my part when I box marked "Craft Crap" that was still sealed, almost stayed that way. On a lark I opened it up, just to make sure there wasn't anything in there that I needed.
Oh boy. Let me tell you, that would have been the worst mistake.
Inside this box, labeled as crap, was the Angel Bunny I got as a baby and the matching rattles. along with all of my clothing patterns from the 70's, and the Sailor Moon Transformation locket my parents got me for Easter the year I turned 15. Some of that I could never replace. And I would have been bereft to find it gone.
(An Angel Bunny from 1985)
By the morning of the fourth day, a full day behind schedule, we were tired, we were exhausted, and we very desperately wanted to be on the road. We have a very old, very dear Colt 1911 that served in both world wars. It's still operational, and we've fired it a few times. (How could you pass up the opportunity to fire a 100 year old gun?!)
The catch is, handguns are way restricted in Canada. We had to jump through a ton of legal hoops just to get permission to bring the gun across the country to Alaska.
One of those hoops was a timeline. We were only given the week to get from one end of Canada to the other. It was a special form that we printed and had to bring with us to the boarder. If we got pulled over in Canada after that form expired they could confiscate the gun and we could face fines or worse.
It was Tuesday and we were already behind schedule.
So we put what we could in the truck, left so very, very much behind, and finally got going.
Here Tim is backing the trailer up to the Pickle so we can finally get going.
It was Tuesday afternoon and we were so far behind schedule.
It had rained all day and now the sun was out and it was super hot and muggy, we just needed to get out.
But it's done.
We are finally on our way!!!
Me and Tim setting out from Utah, snacks ready to go, putting Salt Lake City in our rearview.