CAPTAIN’S LOG - AFTERWARD
North Star Date: 12/11/2012
Location or Route: Casper, WY.
Travel Miles: 2825 Total
11:11 AM (28F/-2C, Fair/Windy/Blue Skies – Smiling at Me)
Willie Nelson would have made for some good road music.
Ruth and I have now been home for a few days and have remained busy with family, unloading and unpacking, cleaning and reclaiming rooms, shopping for miscellaneous household goods, furnishings and cleaning materials, and in making minor home repairs - most particularly as associated with water systems such as the: RO filter system, water softener, leaky shut-off valves under sinks, etc.
Houses do not like being “shut-off” and going vacant for any great length of time. After putting our house through such discomfort for significant stretches of the past three years, we think we actually heard a relieved sigh emanate deeply from within the home as we sent water coursing through its veins, but it is possible we were just picking up the sound of various water leaks.
Our unseasonably warmer weather, and resultant lack of snow accumulation, allowed me to gas up the mower and cut the wild-growth which had taken over our back-yard auxiliary parking area. Once we finish unloading the camper and trailer, we can park them there out of the way.
The “mow” job had only been completed for about two hours before the first 1-2” of snow fell behind a cold front on Saturday. Hope I don’t have to chain-up to get in and out of it; I HATE chaining up!
In preparation for our “Beginning of the World Party” with our family and a few close friends on the afternoon and evening of Friday, December 22, 2012, at 4:11 PM - exactly one day and 12 hours after the end of the world, I had to remove leaves, debris and snow from the patio.
Because snow had fallen on the leaves blown in to the protected area, I couldn’t decide whether it would be best to use a leaf rake or a snow shovel, so I took an old rake and an old shovel, and I combined the two into a tool I am calling a “Shrake!”
I am still working out the bugs on this new contraption, for example – I don’t know whether to push or pull it, but if it turns out as I expect I might have some additional income in retirement. Can you just imagine how many men would pay top dollar for this thing for the simple reason that it combines both fall and winter chores. And perhaps more importantly, it justifiable puts off fall chores until after hunting season is over! So we got that going for us - which is good.
On Saturday we finished unloading Ruth’s little yellow angel – the Jeep Cherokee. It felt like those comedic videos where they lapse the photography as you watch an entire NFL football team crawl out of a small car. From behind the front seats we removed: two rocker-recliners - not including their removable backs which were in the trailer - five over-stuffed pieces of mid-sized luggage, several plastic shoe boxes of miscellaneous contents, several outer-wear clothing items, a variety of other small and pliable items from the nooks and crannies, and the entire Oakland Raiders football team.
In quiet moments, usually my morning wake-up hours, I put together the trip expense report. It’s never inexpensive to move across country, but we have always tried to save money where we could, especially when we’ve had the physical and logistical capabilities to do the work ourselves. For example, we moved ourselves into our Fairbanks home three years ago, including self-delivery of three new appliances up flights of outside deck-stairs using a two-wheel dolly, and we did so when the temperature was -33F! Our trip expense report follows:
• Total Trip Expense (Fuel, Lodging, Food, Misc.) - $3519, not including the costs of the pre-prepared foods made by Ruth in Fairbanks, some of which had to be thrown out due to freezing, and some of which we are still eating, or which are being eaten by excited children and grandchildren, most specifically Ruth’s cookies and those mixed nuts!
• Total Fuel (Gas, Diesel, Propane) - $2035.70 (most expensive gasoline - $5.57/gal, diesel - $5.64/gal both in Fort Nelson.
• Gas Usage (the Little Yellow Angel) – 148.4 gallons (resulting in 18.98 MPG average, including warm up periods and jump-starting assistance. Go Jeep!)
• Diesel Usage (the omnipotent Dodge Cummins Turbo Diesel) – 278.69 gallons (resulting in 10.10 MPG average, including warm up periods and ineffective overnight operations that one night. It’s not bad mileage considering the overall weight of the outfit was 20,000 lbs!)
• Propane Usage (The Little Furnace That Could and Finally Did) – 7.93 gallons (resulting in 1.59 NPG {nights per gallon})
• Total Lodging (RV Park, Plug-in, Hotel) - $653.55
• RV Park and/or Plug-in - $139.75 (resulting in $27.95/night average for 5 nights)
• Hotel with or without Plug-in - $513.80 (resulting in $128.45/night average for 4 nights)
• Total Food (Restaurant and Groceries, not counting pre-prepared in Fairbanks foods; did we mention self-prepared foods save LOTS of money?) - $300.04
• Dining Out - $252.48 (resulting in $42.02/double meal average for 6 double meals of a trip total of 30 double meals at three meals/day for 10 days)
• Groceries - $47.56 (for one evening double meal, plus fresh produce, bread and dairy for trip remainder)
• Firearms: Shipping/Insurance/Border Fees - $94.69
It’s not unrealistic to say this trip could have cost five or six times what it did had we flown out and shipped our goods and vehicles. It would have also cost a lot more had we eaten every meal at a restaurant, or stayed each night in a hotel. And to our great advantage, we have learned that minor difficulties provide splendid material for humorous writing! Without the seed of reality to generate ideas, we’d never have been able to make up such stories.
Ruth is the greatest partner a man could ever have. You could never find one better if you searched the whole world-wide-web over; and I don’t care how good you are with Google Search! Of course I may be a bit biased.
This trip could have been very unpleasant, were it not for the way Ruth and I work together and how we each do our own part and then we do some more of something else. This is not a trip to be taken lightly. Having said that, it is not a trip to avoid.
Life is nothing if not a sequence of opportunities to try out stuff. Pick at a bit of this, swallow a bunch of that. Try something on for size and then maybe set it aside. Try on something else, perhaps to wear forever.
We are all individuals and what is good for one does not necessarily work for another. Don’t worry about that other guy not fitting into your paradigm; he has his own life to live and his own choices to make and it is not up to us do tell him what those should be. I think that is what one remarkable man meant when he said, “Judge not, that ye be not judged”.
Let the provision of God’s awesome Universe open up your own opportunities to experience life and to “become”. You too could make this trip, or perhaps you’d like to try something different! Garth Brooks said it quite right when he sang, “Life is not tried, it is only survived, if you’re standing outside the fire.” Incidentally, Garth Brooks makes for some real good road music.
