Once a year I'm allowed to indulge my love for storytelling in NFPN News Notes. If you need to ask who allows me to do this, you may wish to stop reading about now.
In preparation for the upgrade in living conditions, I watched the movie "RV" with Robin Williams. I learned one thing from that movie that came in very handy, which I'll share later. Preparation also required packing in sufficient quantity to launch an expedition to climb Denali, although I wasn't planning to climb any mountains. Here's where selection of friends is key: all of my friends can pack a full-grown elephant into a doghouse, and they can put up with anything. As soon as people hear that, I get numerous requests for contact information so, to protect and preserve my friendships, I will refer to my Alaska adventure friend as "D" (no Googling!).
Although I have an inviolable rule to never check luggage at the airport, I laid out a third of the clothes in my closet. When D arrived, she glanced at the clothes and said that there was no way to get all of them into one carry-on bag.
"Sure, you can do it!" I said confidently, "I'll be right back."
Fifteen minutes later I returned to find all of the clothes in the suitcase with a small space left for last-minute items.
"Food is next," I said.
And thus D and I staggered onto the plane fully provisioned.
The people at the motor home rental agency were very nice and showed us how everything worked that already had printed instructions on them and were included in a manual.
I slept for about 2 hours the first night since I was not sufficiently exhausted for my body and mind to overlook the fact that darkness never arrived.
In the morning D began making French toast, my away-from-home favorite. It was then we discovered what the motor home folks had not told us. There were no matches to light the stove. I briefly contemplated what only the French half of French toast would taste like and then I remembered that I had seen the tenters up and stirring around while I was on my way to the shower. They graciously loaned us their only matchbox and I was soon cooking away while D went to the shower.
Suddenly, the smoke alarm went off. I moved everything off the stove, opened windows and the door, and tried to shut off the alarm. I couldn't get it to stop and as the sound began to pulverize my brain, I sensibly held my hands over my ears and jumped up and down. Someone knocked on the door and said, "I'm an electrician. Can I help?" It was the tenter who had loaned us the matches and he quickly took down the smoke alarm and removed the battery.
"They're very sensitiveyou may want to keep this in a drawer until you return the motor home." I thanked him profusely and reluctantly handed over the matchbox. "I have to leave now," he said, meaning "How will you survive after I'm gone?" but I assured him that we would be fine. (Note to self: Always camp by tenters.)
When D returned from the shower, I suggested that she might want to eat in a hurry while I backed slowly out of the campground since a lot of the campers may not have enjoyed waking up to a smoke alarm on the Fourth of July.
Speaking of the Fourth of July, it's the first Fourth I can remember that I didn't celebrate with sparklers. Fireworks are frowned upon in campgrounds, so D and I had to celebrate by singing songs, making accompanying fireworks sounds, and waving the little stars that someone had thoughtfully stuck in the cupcakes.
The next day we went on a guided ranger tour. I love guided ranger tours! We learned the names of all the local flora. "Bears gobble these soapberries," said the ranger so I sampled one to see if I could survive on a bear diet. Probably not. "Don't even touch this plantit's a death camas and eating just two of them could kill a small child."
Everyone looked at me expectantly.
"I'll only eat one," I said cheerfully.
Our next adventure took place on a 5-hour ferry ride, and it was on the ferry I discovered that D had not brought the binoculars.
"There was no room for them," she protested but I was still miffed.
"You could have taken out some of your clothes and fit them in," I said.
Coping with disappointment and hypothermia, I briefly fell asleep covered with a map and just missed seeing two whales cavorting. I did spot one whale later on, but most of the pictures of sea life show only their surroundings.
For entertainment, I guessed the occupations of fellow ferryers. "Are you a university professorteach nuclear physics?" I asked one. "I teach math," he said, laughing nervously and edging away.
A trip to Alaska would not be complete without bears and moose. We were at the beach in Valdez when someone mentioned that the bears come down every evening by the hatchery to catch fish.
"Let's go!" I said to D.
A big crowd had gathered to watch a young bear, so while D worked the camera, I found out from a young woman standing nearby that the mother bear and yearling had a den in the woods above the highway. The mother bear had not yet made an appearance and it was about then that I realized I was standing in the trajectory that the mother bear would take to reach the hatchery.
"Did you take track in high school?" I casually asked the young woman.
"As a matter of fact, I did," she said and I quickly edged away toward the motor home.
I'm sure there were plenty of other bears on the trip that we didn't see but they saw us. We had hiked partway up the Alyeska ski hill when a woman with her dog joined us. She encouraged us to continue down the other side and pointed out the entrance to the rain forest.
"What about bears?" I asked.
"I don't worry about them," she said. "The dog always finds them first."
Shortly after we parted company, the dog began barking furiously and our pace quickened considerably.
During the entire trip we had seen only one moose, a baby that had managed to safely cross four lanes of highway at the exact spot where I thoroughly tested out the brakes on the motor home, and four others who were in the rehab center because their mothers had met unfortunate demises. But, on the last day, while staying in a hotel, D came running to the room, shouting "there's a moose right outside." Sure enough, a mother and twins were browsing through the neighborhood.
All too soon our Alaska adventure came to an end. But I have wonderful memories and over 200 pictures!! And, what lesson did I learn from watching the "RV" movie? Never touch the black water outlet . . . and I never did!!!
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Be sure to check out the IFPS ToolKit released in June. Printed copies of the IFPS ToolKit are now available in the NFPN online store.
Anne Cornell, NFPN Board Chair, will be presenting a workshop on the IFPS ToolKit at the annual Family Preservation Institute Conference. Visit the conference Web site for more information and to register.