Travel to Alaska

I have been wanting to give you all an update of how we got to Alaska.  It was quite the journey that started with me coming up to Alaska in July by myself to Kiana for a culture camp.  It was a great experience that prepared me so much for the transition.  When I returned to Oregon I flew into Boise Idaho where my brother Sterling and his wife Lisa picked me up from the airport.  After we went back to Adrian and my parents drove me up to Anthony Lakes, Oregon where I met up with my family.  We go there every year, and it was great to see family, share my pictures, and to reunite.  I have never been away from Jonathan, Joshuah, and Miah for so long before!

We spent time with Jonathan's family and my family and had a great time.  It was great!  I hadn't seen family for such a long time, and it was fun to go hiking, 4-wheeling, swimming, picnics....etc!  Good memories.  We left for Corvallis on Wednesday July 31st.  As we headed over the desert in our Jeep pulling an empty trailer we quickly learned that our trip was going to be rough.  We finally rolled into Burns after 5 hours of driving.  Jonathan had changed the spark plugs and we thought that was the problem.  Unfortunately it wasn't, instead we limped on to Bend where we believed that we had found someone to fix our car.  (the catalytic converters)!  We ate some dinner and then attempted to search for a hotel, because all the campgrounds were full.  No luck.  All the hotels were full too!  So, we went and watched a movie!  At 1 a.m. we came out of the theater to Miah asking, "So, what parking lot are we sleeping in tonight!"  We chose a mall parking lot and tried to sleep.  At 8 a.m. we were ready to get our car fixed, only to find out that he couldn't and the only person who could, wouldn't be able to fix it until Monday!  So, we were stuck in Bend and decided to slowly drive up to Smith Rock to wait it out.  We knew of a campground that would be available.

August 2nd we finally headed out to Corvallis to return the trailer we borrowed from Thomsons.  We had a lovely dinner with them (last bacon we have had for a while!) and headed up to Seattle where we stayed the night at Jonathan's aunt and uncle's home in Bellevue.  We left there in the morning and headed for the Canadian boarder.  That wasn't the most enjoyable experience.  We were detained there for a couple of hours.  Looking back I think the reason was a combination of a power hunger/grumpy boarder agent and the fact that I have my finger prints on file (being a teacher).  It wasn't a very good beginning to our welcome into Canada!  No offense those who are from Canada!  Vancouver was odd to us...maybe we were still grumpy about our boarder crossing and tired from our late start to our journey!  Anyway, our first plan was to go through the Sea to Sky Highway out of Vancouver.  It was soooo beautiful!  I would recommend it to everyone, but not if you are on a tight schedule.  It was a whole day from Seattle to 100 Mile House (about 400 miles).  Oh, a whole day was like 12 hours of driving!  We knew we were in trouble, because we had to make it to Anchorage by August 9th at 6 a.m. for our flight to Kotzebue!  We decided to ask for help and my mom changed our flight to Saturday morning.  On August 3rd we traveled from 100 Mile House to Fort Nelson.  During that day of 566 miles we passed through the Rocky Mountains and an incredible thunderstorm!  At one point I had been driving for so long and was going to switch with Jonathan, the rain had slowed down and so we pulled over to swap.  We were feeling like we were out of most of the storm when we passed each other behind the Jeep to a huge flash of light and a BOOM!  We got back into our car sooooo fast!  The next morning we left to drive through some amazing areas where we saw so much wildlife.  We saw brown bears, (a mother and 3 cubs), stone sheep, bison, and a baby moose calf.  We traveled 786 miles to reach Whitehorse at 1 a.m.  We were sooooo tired and knew that we still had to travel 724 more miles to Anchorage by the next day for our flight out at 7 a.m.  Our pass through the boarder was completely the opposite and we flew through so fast with a smile on our faces!  We slowly made our way to Anchorage, tired ...no exhausted!  At one point I was driving and everyone else was asleep.  I was coming down a steep mountain pass where I could only go 30 miles per hour.  I had the music on and had my eyes peeled for wildlife.  I saw a movement on the side of the road and stopped to find a moose on the side of the road in the brush.  Jonathan woke up to see it and couldn't believe I could see it.  I definitely had a lot of help.  Also, I don't want it to sound like I drove most of the way...completely the opposite!  Jonathan drove the most!  He was amazing!

We pulled into Anchorage about 4 a.m. and went to 24 hour Walmart to buy a few items, and then headed over to drop off our car for storage.  We took a cab to the airport where we unpacked everything to distribute it among our 8 bags and 2 backpacks.  YIKES!  But the important thing is that we were successful and made our 7 a.m. flight.  We were spread out all over the plane, but I looked back to see Miah and Joshuah fall asleep as soon as we were in the air.  Miah was so tired she slept through the landing and everything.  We had made it into Kotzebue, exhausted and overwhelmed with what we were experiencing and seeing!

Looking back now on our trip through Canada I can't help but see the tender mercies that the Lord gave us.  We met so many nice and kind people that helped us.  We found clean cheap hotels that let us rest and feel safe.  We didn't hit any animals, or fall asleep while driving.  (Although we did get hit by a big rock into our windshield...that I still need to take care of!).  We were watched over, cared for and helped.  Thank you for all the prayers that got us where we are and all the help we received!  We will be honest, there were times that we doubted that we were doing the right thing.  You know when you have that feeling of....Uh, what did we get ourselves into?????  We are now learning that what we were really feeling was the realization of the experiences we were about to have and that they weren't going to be easy.  This has been a time of learning and growth for us.  Big Growth!

More stories to come!

The Wolfes