Car Trouble

One of our checklist items is "Make sure your vehicle is in good working condition." For a 5,000 mile drive...yeah, that's a must. Unfortunately, we can't check that box just yet, since a tree fell on our SUV over the weekend.

The PCS-wife had the car parked at the home of somebody with a lot of timber, which he made available to anyone who wanted to chop some down. Unfortunately, one tree cutter didn't make the proper calculations, and...wham. It took out our hood, the air pipe in the engine, the windshield, and part of the frame. Nobody's hurt, except the car.

Fortunately, it shouldn't take long to fix, and we should have the car back well before we take off. (Our 4th of July plans may be cramped, though.) Aren't we lucky that this happened NOW, and not the day before we were leaving?

Custom Action Figure

Not really relevant to PCSing. I just wanted to upload a picture of a custom toy I made recently. Enjoy!

Recommended Reading: The Milepost

We just bought our 2008 Milepost. It's a fantastic travel guide that tells you EVERYTHING about all the major highways running between Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. The Milepost is considered an essential for anyone who does any driving on those routes. It labels major landmarks, towns, turnoffs, hotels...basically, if it's on the highway, the book mentions it.

Incidentally, we got ours at Wal-Mart for about 2/3 of the cover price. Even better, they seem to sell for about that on eBay, so we hope to make our money back by reselling it next year.

Sorry for Not Posting

We've been busy since getting back from Virginia. Not too busy, mind you, but having a two-year old while planning a cross-continental move sure drains one's energy.

So where have we been? We both came home late on the 4th...really, I came in around 12:30 a.m. on the 5th since I missed a connecting flight in Minneapolis. I reported back to work the next day after a merciless 4 hours of sleep. I was given my two weeks' R&R after that, which surprised me since I was assigned to a non-combat deployment.

I didn't complain. The PCS Wife and I took advantage of the free time and got some stuff done. Among other things, we:

• Hiked for 7 hours up and across Mount Baldy in Eagle River, AK;
• Bought the bulk of our camping equipment;
  
• Began sorting our excess stuff to sell/give away;
• Took a trip to Seward, AK, which included a cruise through Kenai Fjords;
• Finally saw the new Indiana Jones movie;
  
• ...I don't know what else. It seemed like a long two weeks.

I'm back at work now for a total of some 15-odd work days. Between the 4-day Independence Day holiday and my 3-days of household goods pickup, I don't have much time left at work. These remaining four (FOUR) weeks are going to fly by.

Come to think of it, I'm not sorry for not posting... :)

We're on our way home!

We're on our way back to Alaska today. I still can't believe we're moving 6.5 weeks later. It's been a crazy four months, and the next few months will be pretty busy too.

Never a dull moment!