How to Summer in Alaska

The other evening my husband Mark and I were on a peaceful stroll when we came across this we shoot to kill sign. A not so subtle warning to trespassers.

I had just been thinking our walk was similar to our post-dinner walks in Boulder, where we came from. Mountain views, similar style homes and buildings, the smell of pine…but you wouldn’t see a sign like this in Boulder.

And if you did (but you wouldn’t, but if you did, only you wouldn’t) the sign probably wouldn’t be posted outside the doors of a Health and Wellness Center.

“That’s ironic,” Mark says.

For sure such a sign encourages you to ask questions. Like…

“Are we trespassing?” I ask Mark.

“No, this is a public thoroughfare,” Mark responds, looking around.

I look around too. I had been too busy yapping to notice before, but it was looking and certainly feeling like we were on a private compound. There was this health center flanked by multiple lodge style sleeping cabins. At the moment all of them were dark and it was very quiet, but I couldn’t say for sure that no one was inside. There were several trucks parked outside the cabins. I listened for the cock of a rifle.

“At least I think this is a public thouroughfare, “Mark says.

“Psst…dude, you might want to be sure,” the silhouette poster man says in a low whisper, “Oh, and also, nobody uses the word “thoroughfare” anymore because it’s dumb.”

 4 Classic Alaskan Accommodations

1: The Adventure Lodge

We had purposely wandered this way to check out what the accommodations were like at this lodge. We wanted to view options in case we had an overflow of guests at any given time. Our house only has three bedrooms, and a closet sized room I managed to squeeze a full mattress into.

Like many of the “adventure lodges” in the state, this one is geared to groups wanting to hunt or fish. Or see bears. There are guides and private planes to fly you to the best spots here on the Kenai Peninsula (also known as “Alaska’s Playground). The lodge is on a lake, and the decor is very practical and efficient with multiple beds in each room so you can fit everyone in.

Earlier I had seen on-line that as part of your vacation you can experience Cenegenics, which had sounded kind of random and I skimmed over it. Now seeing the building I was more curious about what Cenegenics was.

I looked it up. My quick takeaway, Cenegenics is a hormone optimization program designed to:

1. Reverse your biological age (I want that)
2. Protect you from age related decline (I want that too)

One middle-aged male endorser of the program says, “I feel like I’m a 21 year-old boy!”

Not bad. No wonder people are willing to risk a round of bullets in order to get in.

I wonder though, how many hunters are seeking a vacation package where they can shoot a bear and at the same time rebalance their hormones? Seems like a pretty niche market.

I also wonder how many people with a license to carry firearms are even willing to admit to an “imbalance” of any kind?

But, who knows, hunters more than anyone are forced to face the concept of mortality, and maybe that’s enough to motivate them to seek out ways to delay their own.

In any case, with or without the Cenegenics program add-on, this place looks like the perfect Alaskan adventure.

I like their highlight reel.

2. Cruises

Covid-19 restrictions will of course hurt the tourism industry here this year, especially cruise ships and the ports they visit (mostly the cute town’s in “The Inside Passage” of Alaska) The big cruiselines are hoping to start up in July. There are small ship cruises that plain to be operating again sooner, like Uncruise out of Seattle, and I need to mention Linbald Expeditions given I went with them to Antartica, my post on that https://pokingthebear.org/aboard-the-national-geographic-explorer-in-antarctica/

The 3-4 hour day cruises, however, are already running. We just did an afternoon cruise in Seward. Only one family per boat (there are bigger day cruise ships that fit 100 but are now only taking 50 people for social distance) I liked the small boat option, many times you’d look over to see porpoises right there swimming alongside you at the appropriate distance of 6-ft.

3.The RV/Camper

When it comes to traveling during an era of social distancing Alaska has several things going for it: wide open spaces, tons of individual family cabins for rent, and RV camp sites with views you’d pay a fortune for anywhere else. Every time I see another RV on the road, and I’m starting to see a lot, I have to admit RV road-tripping is a genius way to vacation right now.

Basically you’re sheltering in place while on the move.

And when I vacation, I like to be on the move. I feel it makes the vacation feel longer because the days don’t blend together. If we have one week, I like to switch locations at least once during that time.

Another thing that has happened since we have been here is Mark has become an avid birder. Yep. He is regularly armed with the bird book I bought him for his birthday and the binoculars I borrowed from my brother for that Antartica trip, and never returned. He has become an overnight expert on birds, making me jump every time by shouting out a bird name (and then humbly looking through the bird book to be sure he was right.)

Imagine all the birds he could spot if we roamed the country in an RV?

But, also, I now have this fantasy of an RV doubling as a guest house in our driveway.

I would say Airstream, but such coolness comes with a price tag. Apparently there is an airstream club that comes through Soldotna every year. And while I want to be a part of that club I fear I wouldn’t fit in. It would just be a matter of time before I’d be called out for my non-stylish Walgreens reading glasses and my preservatives forward diet, and eventually shunned by the cool kids for being less airstream, and more mainstream.

I figure we could always string bistro lights outside so that at least the airstream people wouldn’t feel too uncomfortable saying “hi” to us.

Actually, I have no idea if there is an Airstream RV type, I just know renovated airstreams are retro chic and regularly make it into aspirational lifestyle magazines. I have been going down the wormhole of RV makeovers. The more dramatic RV renos seem to look like a stationary tiny house, totally gutted and with regular house furniture. Makes for more dramatic “after” photos, but impractical if you plan to actually drive it.

And, I don’t want something too big so I’m thinking maybe the Minnie Winnie. Last photo of a Minnie Winnie reno.

https://winnebagolife.com/2019/12/winnebago-renovations-we-love

The Minnie Winnie is tighter on space and I’d have to accept Mark’s bird books could take a whole shelf, but I think it could work.

Maybe I’m just thinking Minnie Winnie because I’m more familiar with it, a couple of summer’s ago we took a trip to the Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. We had many games of Risk by lamplight.

If you had told me, at any point in my life until now, that I’d be looking into actually buying an RV of any kind I would have laughed in your face. Hard. But, now I can see Mark and myself as empty nester RVers one day.

I picture the two of us, years from now, quietly preparing breakfast in tandem while parked at a campground. Or in the driveway of our daughter’s boyfriend’s home.

“Mother, can you hand me the spatula?” Mark will ask me. And I will pass him our only spatula not knowing how or when I started letting him call me “mother.”

There is a knock on the RV door. I answer.

“Mark,” I call out, “We need to leave! It’s the roommate and he is tired of being blocked in every morning! He says it is time for us to move on!”

“What?” Mark calls back.

“We need to leave!”

“I can’t hear you!”

“Then turn off the fan!”

“The what?!”

“The fan!”

“The pan!?”

“The fan!”

“The what?!”

“Mark!!!”

4. The Guest cabin

I found this flyer in my car the other day. I had picked it up a few days ago this structure was just sitting on a corner in town with a “for sale” sign on it.

The log or wood cabin is a popular choice for guests visiting this state, and they are everywhere on Airbnb. But what if we had our very own cabin right here on our property for our friends and family. We could hook it up to our plumbing so it is an actual bedroom en suite.

“Stop calling it a guest cabin,” Mark tells me if only because I keep calling it that. “We need to refer to it as a utility shed.”

Apparently, having a shed on one’s property is okay. A cabin isn’t. It is considered a second home. I don’t know who would say anything though as judging by everyone else’s yard here in Alaska, anything goes, we see structures three times larger than the house itself. Shelter for big toys comes before shelter for family in the order of priorities.

“Yes, I meant this could be a shed, for your tools,” I agree, “and if you get tired while organizing your tools there will be a bathroom and shower so you can wash up, and a bed so you can nap.”

Now looking at its dimensions, I think it would take up too much property space. I don’t think we will get that many visitors for it to make sense as a permanent fixture, and I fear we’d just end up filling with junk. If we make a big purchase, I’m definitely leaning more towards the RV option.

Security Measures

As Mark and I head down our driveway I think back to that sign on the Wellness Center, the sign really isn’t a bad idea. It might work better than a “No Solicitors” sign which I had been meaning to get. Especially for anyone claiming that they aren’t technically solicitors.

Where we live now, there are only two people that come down our driveway, and that’s the guy with the snowplow and UPS which is why it is extra unnerving when we did have solicitors on one dark night this past winter.

I had just gotten out of the shower when I heard my daughter Tatum talking to someone at the front door. From the top of the stairs I saw her standing talking to two men. Who were they and why had my daughter opened the door for them? How many times do I have to tell her, unless it is the UPS man (delivering something like an Amazon box containing closet dividers) one NEVER opens the door for strangers!

I knew why she thought it was okay this time. The two men looked young and innocent. They were in their late teens, maybe early twenties. Or perhaps they were middle age and on the Cenegenics program. In any case, few things get me riled up more than strangers ringing my doorbell and especially at night, and especially when Mark isn’t here, and especially when we are living in a house that is this remote. I don’t like it, and I just don’t like it. I really don’t like it.

As I head down the stairs in my robe, the boys look up at me.

“Good evening Ma’am,” says one, “We were just talking to your daughter about her faith. Can I ask you…?” was the last thing I heard clearly before I started mumbling “no, sorry, no…” and softly closed the door. As if they wouldn’t notice that I just shut the door in their faces if I do it softly.

“Oh my god Mom, that was so rude!” Tatum says.

I’m sure those boys were harmless enough and of course they think they are doing the right thing, it’s just…no. I really don’t like it.

Rules of Gun Club

“We should put up one of those “Don’t expect a warning shot” signs on our front door,” I joke to Mark.

“Yes, and we should get a gun,” Mark not-jokes back.

Ugh the gun subject again.

“I forgot to tell you,” Mark continues, “tomorrow I’m going to join a gun club.”

Now, since we have been in Alaska, we only had one gun lesson, and it was a bust. What I had thought would be a chance to conquer my fears just made my fears even worse. https://pokingthebear.org/teaching-kids-about-guns-familys-first-lesson-in-firearms/

But, I guess join a gun club first, and learn how to handle a gun second. That’s apparently how we are doing it because the next night I joined Mark at the gun club’s membership orientation meeting.

Basically, the orientation was a laundry list of all the ways to get kicked out of the club.

Speaking from behind his covid protective mask, the owner/manager of the club lectured us military style.

Some rules he listed off I understood because they were in english, like, “Pick up after yourself! Yes that means your shell casings too! We’re not your mom, clean up after yourself or you’re gone!”

But other rules, I just had no idea what he was saying as they were too technical. They sounded important though.

What I heard was, “You blah blah blah, and you’re gone! And, if you blah blah blah? Oh, you are definitely gone!”

I didn’t hear him say, “If you blog about this club you’re gone!” So, I think we’re good on that.

I wonder if everyone could tell we didn’t belong. Well, me for sure, but also Mark. Certainly no one else was dressed in an oxford button down shirt, khakis, and penny loafers. Coincidentally this is what Mark wore on our very first date. And every day following.

“Xenia, Mark needs to change up his style!” My mom would often tell me until she gave up, “He needs to dress more hip hop!”

I think by “hip hop” my mom really just meant…not khakis.

When the owner/manager took Mark’s membership paperwork and payment, he was no longer so stern but quite friendly, more so than with the other new members, unless I’m totally imagining this. Seriously, I might be totally imagining that. But while he was chatting up Mark I felt like perhaps he appreciated the business casual attire, and he took it as a sign that Mark wouldn’t cause trouble. Or maybe he could tell Mark will be one of those members who pay the annual dues only to use the club once. Maybe twice. And that will very likely be the case.

What the manager/owner probably wouldn’t appreciate is that not only is Mark not a NRA member, which is strongly, and I mean strongly recommended at the gun club. He wouldn’t guess that our family is somewhat active in campaigning for stricter gun legislation.

I don’t know, we may be transforming in ways I can’t identify just yet, but that was all a part of this move to Alaska adventure package. I am not sure whether our “after” picture will be an improvement or not, but my guess is that it will at least make it on a list of ironic images.