Why Alaska? and Memories from the Road

When I left Adak, Alaska in April '77, I wasn't sorry to be headed back to the States.

What I didn't know at the time is that Alaska has a way of getting under the skin. The military has a saying ... wait, the military has lots of sayings. Okay, they have a particular saying about serving in Alaska: "Once you visit Alaska, you never go all the way back."

The longer I stayed in Missouri, the more I wanted to head back north.

My wife and I got engaged in '78, and I tried mightily to convince her that we should move to Alaska. But that was pre-internet, and the only things she knew about the Last Frontier were those she'd seen on TV, or in magazines. I had my pictures from Adak, but Adak is rather stark. I found it strangely beautiful, as do most who got stationed there, but it's not for everyone. And those pictures didn't sway her opinion at all.

Still, I never gave up the strong desire to return.

Then the church in St. Louis, in which we served as music ministers, opened a sister church in Anchorage. My heart leapt in my chest, so to speak, but another couple was asked to move there to establish and pastor the church.

After 30 years, during which I'd prayed many times for a way to come back, I finally did the smart thing: I laid my desire at God's feet. In other words, I gave up trying to figure out how to make it happen, and turned it all over to Him.

A couple months later, the senior pastor announced that a) the church in Anchorage would start a Bible school to train up pastors and leaders from around Alaska, to start other churches, and b) he and his family were moving there.

The four of us, including our daughters who were 14 and 8 at the time, all got the same message at the same time: "We've been left behind, and we're going!"

About three weeks later, we had a new truck, a trailer on which to pull my wife's car, had given nearly everything away, and were ready to go.

* * * * *

We drove to Alaska from St. Charles, Missouri in late September of '03, arriving in Anchorage on October 2. There were many interesting sights along the way, as anyone who's ever made the trek will attest.

Just some snippets of things that come back to me:

• Younger Daughter, having been told we'd drive through mountains on the trip, asked "Is that a mountain?" at every small rise on the roadside. For five days, until we reached the Canadian Rockies. When she finally saw real mountains, her face took on an "Ooooohhh" expression that lasted for hours.
• Older Daughter handing us CDs from her collection. The trip took seven days, and that collection got mighty old by the time we reached Anchorage ... but we'd have gone nuts without 'em.
• Not every place we stopped was, let's say, wholesome. There were a couple of places where we wouldn't let the girls use the bathroom. But there was always another place, a little farther down the road.
• Travelling after Labor Day, through Canada, confirmed what we'd been told: two out of three hotels, restaurants and gas stations were closed for the season (meaning until the following May). In fact, the advice we'd received was "never pass a gas station, because you don't know where the next one is. The hotel rooms go quickly, so get off the road by 5pm, because all the rooms will be booked by 6:00. Then you can find something to eat."
• We hadn't made any advance reservations. I bought a Rand-McNally atlas of North America, and planned our stops based on how far I thought we could drive between 7am and 5pm daily.
• Not all the hotels were particularly attractive, either, but we only walked away from one that was too run-down to even consider. I should point out, however, that some of the hotels were spectacular; I don't mean to imply otherwise. And we had no problems getting a room each night, because of the advice we'd been given.
• Gas prices in Canada were all over the place - high, low, and everything in-between. As soon as we crossed the North Dakota border into Manitoba, my wife and I decided that "whatever it costs, it costs. Let Visa figure out the exchange rate, and just keep on truckin'."
• The Canadian people were very friendly. Everyone wanted to know where we were headed, since my truck was pulling our other car on a dolly, and it was stuffed to the gills - literally - with bedding and clothes.
• In British Columbia, we were delayed several times including once by a herd of grazing buffalo, by a small herd of horses running loose in the Yukon, and more than once by various elk and other critters walking along the highway.
• The best meal we ate on the whole trip was at Buckshot Betty's in Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory (about 16 miles from the Alaska line). The gal at the reception desk was the cook, too, and MAN she could cook! Betty's has cabins for overnight travelers, and that was the last time we slept in what could be called a single-family residence until we bought our house last year.
• We'd heard that many in Alaska were less than thrilled about the growing population, but the most pointed reminder of that was about an hour north of Anchorage, on the last leg of the trip. There were three large, round hay bales on the side of the highway, with a banner painted in red letters: "Welcome to Alaska - NOW GO HOME."

But we stayed, anyway. And more than 14 years later, we're still here.