Our Last Month

August 1

This is the first day of our last month here in Alaska.

The weird thing is that I came up here in 1984 at the end of August, and here 34 years later, I am leaving at the end of August, pretty much on or close to the same day.  How weird is that?

I remember it well.  My friend who brought me up here took me to the Alaska State Fair when I got here, and I remember being on the ferris wheel looking at the mountains and her asking me, "Can you believe you're really in Alaska?"

At the time, I didn't think Alaska would be my home for 34 years.

It's a long time to be here, but not long enough.  

The longer I stayed here, the more lucky I felt to be here.  Alaska is one of those places that feels "exclusive", a very special unique place that makes me feel special and privileged just to be here (and feel sorry for the ones who don't live here), and I think most Alaska "lifers" feel the same way.  There's a special kind of sadness when people have to move away, I think because most people don't have family up here, so there's sort of like a different kind of Alaskan bond that people have with each other here.

Yesterday was my "commissary day", so I took some pictures of my routine stores that I will miss after I leave.  One of them is the Natural Pantry.

I go here every other Tuesday without fail.  We don't have a "Whole Foods" store up here, but even if we did, I would still rather go to the Natural Pantry.  This is where I go for all my whole grains, and my coconut powder (for my coffee), and some of my organic produce.  They sell a lot of things here that you can't find in a normal grocery store.  I also eat lunch here almost every time.  It smells so good when you walk in there.  What I like is that they have charts with all the foods on their buffet that tells if it contains anything that's a common allergen.  For instance, I usually get the soup, and if they have "dairy" checked on the list, I know not to get the soup.

When we were in South Bend a couple weeks ago, we went to a few different stores wondering who would sell whole wheat berries.  I was looking for a store with a selection as big as the Natural Pantry's, where they have a big long aisle full of every grain you can imagine, and some you never heard of.  

Usually, I am getting soft white wheat berries and hard white wheat berries.

You would think they wouldn't be very hard to find in South Bend, but I couldn't find them anywhere.  I was really disappointed with Whole Foods.  They brag about their selection of bulk grains, but for wheat berries, they only had hard red, which is the kind I use the least. I don't know where I'm going to go now for my soft white wheat berries, which is the one that use the most.  If I can't find them in Shipshewana, I probably won't find them anywhere, which means I'll probably have to order them from Amazon.

I will really miss the Natural Pantry.

I had some extra time so I went downtown to visit the quilt store.

There are several quilt stores in the Anchorage area, but this is the one that has mostly Alaskan fabrics and patterns, which I have been looking for and stocking up on to take with me.  I was really thrilled to see that they finally had some fabric with puffins on it.  I've been looking for puffin fabric for a long time.  Last year they said they ran out and didn't know when they would get more, so I was glad they had some this time.

There is a quilt shop just two miles away from my house that I will probably visit one last time. Now that I'm looking for Alaskan things to take with me, I'm beginning to feel like a visiting tourist here.

Another place I will miss is the commissary on JBER.

I know it's only a grocery store, but I will miss it for several reasons.  For one thing, we save money by shopping there.  But also, they have items there that I have gotten accustomed to buying from there.  I had my standard routine "staples" grocery list custom made for that store.  Plus, for me, there's just something about shopping with all those military people in uniform.  I always liked shopping on base and seeing the uniforms; somehow it made me feel safe.  Plus, you're not gonna see your typical "WalMart clientele" here, and the chances of your purse getting stolen is slim to none.  Also, it's a place where I felt "special" and "privileged" to go to because not everyone can go there.

And since Chuck retired as chief, we have the added bonus privilege of parking in this spot:

Moving to South Bend will take all of this away.

There aren't even any military facilities anywhere near there, which makes me feel sad.

We will have to go visit Ft. McCoy in Wisconsin whenever we go through there.

I bet Ft. McCoy never gets any moose.  Yesterday after I got through the base gate, I saw a mama moose and her half grown baby strolling through the grounds.  I don't know how they got through the gate without a military I.D.

(I will miss the moose.)

So, aside from me feeling sorry for myself, we have a lot of things to do yet before we leave. With so much to do, it gets frustrating sitting around waiting for things to happen.

We ordered the new windows that we had to get fixed, so we are still waiting for those.  After we get the new ones installed, then we have to wait for the appraiser to come.  More waiting.

Sometimes I wish we could just go; the longer we stick around the harder it gets to leave.

In the meantime, I got a storage unit set up for Stephanie so we can start putting stuff in there that we are leaving for her.

And pretty soon I will be scheduling an appt with the vet, so we can get the kitties certified to cross the border.  Yeah, that's gonna be a meowing good time......!

Too bad we can't take this one along.

We will miss him.

And we have been discussing when we should have the movers come and pack our stuff.

Right now we think it will be August 24 (on Justin's birthday), so we can leave on the 28th or 29th.

Right around the anniversary of my arrival date 34 short years ago.