Unpacking, unpacking, unpacking!

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

We’re in Alaska! We are in a village called Tok about 2 hours into Alaska. The roads weren’t as bad as we expected based on what we’d heard but they weren’t all that great either. There wasn’t as much gravel as we expected, but the traveling was still slow due to a lot of dips, bumps and pot holes. Rodney said Oksana was bouncing up and down like popcorn, he said his kidneys were crushed, the back of the trailer bottomed out more than once in the dips and dives, and Ellie didn’t want to get back in the truck after one particularly jarring section. Oksana said that the trailer tires must not be filled with air, they must be filled with prayers! Rodney had initially talked of pressing on until we got to camp, but he caved in pretty quickly after a couple more hours of driving after the high of crossing the border. That went so smoothly it was obscene! We were there less than 5 minutes between two vehicles! I didn’t want to say anything before we got back in the US but we actually had 10x the amount of ammunition with us than we were actually supposed to have. The guy at the Canadian border was VERY gracious! From here we head southwest to get to camp tomorrow.

Speaking of Ellie, the dogs have traveled better than expected. Granted, our expectations were pretty low. Any time before this trip Ellie has always thrown up any time we took her in the car. We give her Bonine (a 24 hr medicine like Dramamine) and that seems to do the trick as far as the throwing up goes. It doesn’t stop the whining and climbing all over Rodney, but at least she’s not throwing up on him! Eider LOVES to ride! He’s a born traveler! Half the time he’s sound asleep on his back with his legs sticking straight up in the air on the road. Dufus!

We went through some beautiful country again today. That upper part of the Yukon is GORGEOUS! Kluane Lake was stunningly blue! I’ll have to see if I got some pictures. At one point Andrei said, “We’re like in the middle of nowhere!” Like we hadn’t been for days already! It is nice and cool up here. I actually wore a fleece for a few minutes yesterday and a few hours today! Yeah!!!!! I’m still on the prednisone though so I’m probably running a little warmer than even I usually run. Sergei commented at one point, “This is nice. I haven’t sweated yet today!” I’m not sure I agree though. At one point there was a horrible smell in the car and it turned out that Sergei had taken off his shoes. I thought something had died in there! Ah well! Rodney gets him and his stink tomorrow! Tomorrow is the end of the trail! Yeah!

Thursday, August 20, 2009

We’re here! We arrived at about 12:30 Alaska time. What a blessing to be out of a car! Now it is time to unpack, unpack, unpack! The closer we got to Victory, the more agitated Andrei became. Just after we got here, he asked for some medication to help with his anxiety. Moments later we ran into Liz Weaver, a gal from the Bath, NY area who is up here with a work crew for 2 weeks. Andrei knows her from Bible Quizzing in NY! He was SO excited to see her that it really helped dispel his anxiety! They chatted for quite a while. Had we not been delayed in our journey, Liz would not have been here yet. God’s timing is ALWAYS perfect!

After lunch we went back to unpack and Rod VanDaam brought two of his kids (Robert and Tasha) by to meet the kids. That also helped the kids a lot to meet other kids that they will be going to school with. The kids had a number of opportunities through the afternoon/evening to meet some of the other kids in the area. It seems to have been a great introduction to Victory. It has been a busy day of greetings and unloading! Sorry for no pictures yet! I PROMISE I will do it tomorrow! Today’s scenery, especially coming into the Matsu valley was even more stunning than before! Simply amazing! I’m about ready to drop though so I’m going to try to keep this short. One more note though before I sign off. We were thinking we’d need to go shopping tomorrow but the fridge was FULL! So were the shelves! I think we’ll be able to relax a little bit tomorrow and just try to find ourselves!