We met a couple last Saturday who just moved up here from Texas the day before. He was a truck driver who delivered along the border and they had lived in the area between Austin and San Antonio for 35 years. He grew up in Chicago but she had lived in Texas all her life. He decided it was time to retire and moved to Alaska for "a simpler life". Their first shock was that it was daylight after midnight. They must not have researched their move well. My wife told them we were mourning the loss and daylight and it was no longer light at 4 AM. The couple's first purchase was dark shades for the bedroom windows. I don't know what thy were seeking in a simpler life, but I am sure they could have found a simpler life in Texas. Since they didn't do a lot of research, I wonder if they realize that it gets quite cold and VERY dark here in winter. I once worked with a woman who moved to Alaska from northern Ohio along Lake Erie, and when we told her it got cold, she replied that she had lived in northern Ohio where they had the worst winters in the U.S. She lived 100 yards from the workplace and by December she was wearing a parka, snow pants and boots to travel that 100 yards, while those of us who had been here longer were in jackets and shoes. Needless to say, she left the following spring. I hope the same does not happen to this older couple.
wow!...i guess some people watch those Alaska shows..i have too...and just seeing all that frigid cold...then mosquitoes big as butterflies....not for me...my wood chopping days are over!
It appears these people watched too many of those Alaska shows on TV. It seems they bought a cabin sight unseen and drove up here in a motorhome after selling all their stuff in Texas. They have minimal heat--I think a wood stove--and no hot water or kitchen appliances. The wife is cooking all their meals in a crock pot. I don't know why they are not using the motor home for their meals. I think they are using it for baths/showers. They are definitely not prepared for winter, and that is just two months away. Snow starts intermittently here in September (usually) and snow is generally on the ground from October until April. I predict these folks will be back in Texas before December is over. Wife says the guy grew up in Chicago, so he thinks he knows what winter is like. Guess what? Winter is different here.
That is kind of too bad. There have been enough tv shows to show a little of what Alaska is like. But even in Chicago, the windy city, you need a heat source and appliances. Like I was saying about my barnhouse, it is minimally set up but some one has to stoke the stove-- sometimes through the night and to do that, you have to have enough wood put up. A week or two of roughing it alone might give them insight. Maybe they can put the place up quickly now. It may or may not sell depending on where they advertise. If it sells, good and they can move to Iowa, if it doesn't they can still live simply and be cool and refreshed.
I'm kind of laughing here, but I've know people "of means" who just don't think some things through. That's kind of scary. I cannot imagine the stories of tragedy that make the rounds up there. I gotta think that wanting to help up there is a double-edged sword, kind of like deciding whether or not to take the risk when someone's drowning.
Holy cow. And as for the RV... it will be no match for an Alaskan winter. Most RVs are thin-walled boxes, even the high-dollar ones. I hope they can handle it if they decide to drive back across Canada in December. Do you know whether they are experience RVers? Yikes.
I gather they were looking for a simple life in the manner in which a lot of people might view frontier life in the 1800s as the simple life, not realizing how damned hard they had to work in order to stay alive for their simple life. It's simple in the sense that you don't have to spend too much time figuring out what to do after you've finished supper. You've either got more work to do or you're exhausted and ready for bed.
They live about 5 miles away, but they have begun to cling on people who have offered to show them the way. It may be that they are parasites or they got inot some kind of trouble in Texas and are running from it. I always say the those moving to Alaska are either running to something or from something. We'll wait and see which of those these people are
I don't know how experienced they are with the RV, but one of my friends in past years came up here in October from San Diego in an RV, and he couldn't find a house that suited him at that time of year because most folks here are buttoned down for winter by that time, so he and his family (wife and two sons) decided to overwinter in the RV. He described buying the best sleeping bags he could find, but would wake up every morning frozen to the outside walls of the RV, and emptying the black and grey tanks after they had frozen was ho real adventure. The water in the water tank would also freeze...and this was in an "RV camp" with facilities for these things. I cannot imagine doing that on a homestead.
Yeah, you don't really want to take the risk of having strangers move in with you because of dumb decisions they made. I think I already told the story of the nurse from New Jersey who moved up.
It turns out these folks from Texas thought they could move up here in July and still get a garden in and harvested. Little did they realize that they had already missed half of our 90-day growing season, so other than lettuce, spinach and radishes, they are pretty much out of luck. I hope they have the means to feed themselves through the 9-month winter.
At this time in our lives I don't think I'd want to make such drastic climate change. Plus I don't know what the altitude is there but I'm sure its pretty much above sea level. With COPD I'd have a hard time breathing, I'm sure. So far I'm ok down here, but of course that can go south; pun intended, quick.
It sounds like they are living in a delusion. I guess my trip at age 10 to Alaska in the summertime, gave me an idea of what it could be like in the winter.