Many preparations....

We originally planned to take the Alaska Marine Highway, but now that we're definitely driving in the new motor-home, we have changed our mind for a number of reasons.  I have made it my priority to make sure that our move goes as smoothly as possible.  And there are many aspects of our move that share equal importance as we plan our travel.

1)  Naturally, I have to out-process my current assignment as a Soldier assigned to Fort Wainwright, AK.  While out-processing is mostly contained in the last ten working days before my "Final Out," I have to start planning it now.  For example, yesterday, I scheduled the movers to come to my house, load up my goods and ship them to Texas.  Today, I gave a 30-day notice to housing so they'll be ready to clear my residence and get it ready for the next tenant.  And so on.  The list of things I need to do for the Army is so vast that they provide a checklist to make sure I don't miss anything.

2)  Before the movers come to pack up our belongings, we need to be ready to move out.  We've really been doing this all summer beginning with the first garage sale of the season several months ago.  But things have really swung into overdrive lately.  Jenny's gone through all the kids clothing (and especially our baby gear), getting rid of what we don't need, either selling it to Once Upon a Child or giving it to friends or to charity.  We're working to collect and consolidate all the toys, finding out what we don't need or no longer want.  This process is so extensive, partly because we've lived here so long and we are determined to mitigate items in our shipment to Texas that are no longer relevant to our family's needs.

2b) As a sub-note here:  A friend of ours is ready to pickup our piano and just need to coordinate the delivery, but we are still trying to sell our minivan.  We have a 2009 Blue Grand Caravan with just shy of 60,000 miles.  A full set of Blizzaks are included that were only used for about 3/4 of last winter, but it is NOT winterized.  We are asking $14,000.  If someone in Alaska would like to buy it, the van is currently on the Lemon Lot on Fort Wainwright, but I could probably drive it to Anchorage, if necessary, in a couple of weeks.

Our 2009 Dodge Grand Caravan

3)  Of course, we have to say good-bye to our many friends we've met while we've been up here.  Rebekah has a sleepover this weekend, in conjunction with her birthday.  I have two more trips to Anchorage, in which I hope to see many of the friends I have there and in Mat-Su Valley.  We've been to picnics and social gatherings with lots of hugs, tears and memories.

4)  It's been my chief responsibility to plan the great concourse of a trip we will be embarking on beginning September 20, after the Army clears us from Fort Wainwright.  The Army gives us twelve travel days in order to travel from Fairbanks, AK to Killeen, TX.  That's based on 350 miles per day and 4,000-something miles between here and there.  As you will see in the upcoming months, we plan on taking an indirect route, first visiting family in California, stopping by a few local playgrounds along the way, and going places for the educational benefit of our children.  According to my current calendar and calculations, it will take us thirty days to accomplish this adventure.

As you can see, we have been planning this journey to a strange an exotic place called Texas.  But in the words of our family's theme song, no matter where our journey takes us, so long as we are together and with the Lord, "This Is Home...."

Susitna Valley, the Kenai and beyond....

It's been more than a week now since we purchased our motor-home and now we've completed our first adventure with it.  On Thursday last week, I met my friend at the Fairbanks DMV where we transferred the title to my name.  He hand-wrote a receipt on a sheet of paper he'd ripped in half and Jenny, the kids and I headed up a windy one-lane, dirt road to his home outside town that evening to pick up the vehicle.  What may have taken thirty minutes to rearrange cars and be on our way took the rest of the evening as we shared pizza, fellowship and the kids ended up roasting marshmallows and making smores, leaving their home after 11pm and arriving at ours after midnight.

The kids roasted marshmallows at a friend's house.  We will all miss our good friends we've made while in Alaska.

Day 1:  Friday morning, July 29th at about eleven, I surprised everyone, announcing that we would be leaving that day around  one or 2pm.  We had never made a very clear definition as to exactly when or where we would be taking the RV on its "test run" and we had invitations to two different picnics at two different lakes, one with our church in North Pole and one from Joe Miller in Wasilla.  I'll speak more on him later, but suffice it to say that we eventually chose to attend the more distant lake's picnic.  Upon the announcement, Jenny started cleaning inside our new home-on-wheels and made a list of everything we needed to pack.

As it turned out, we wound up eating Taco Bell in the Fred Meyer parking lot at 7pm before leaving town, finally pulling out the Milepost and calling the Inn in Trapper Creek to make reservations.  Yes, that was much farther than we should have gone starting so late, but it's always been our favorite stop on the Parks Highway so it was the location of our first night in the motor-home, arriving at one in the morning. 

I plugged in the electric and had no idea about the plumbing, so I left it to learn later.  We took our bathroom breaks in the store.  They'd given us the access codes when we made our reservations.  As it turned out, I plugged the electric in the 110-watt plug and the battery ran out of power in the middle of the night.  We eventually had to shut it down and hope to do better on Day 2.

Daniel requires assistance dismounting his pony at the 2011 Fireweed Festival in Trapper Creek.

Day 2:  The next morning, we woke up and went into the office.  (The office had been closed when we arrived so late the night before.)  I promptly got a cappuccino and the cashier asked me if we were going to the Fireweed Festival, which was one day only, which just happened to be today.  We didn't have to be in Wasilla for Joe's picnic until 4pm, so we walked with the kids half a mile down the road to the Fireweed Festival, where the kids enjoyed a playground and pony rides and Jenny enjoyed the belly dancers.  After leaving the festival, we hiked back to the RV, where we filled up with gas and propane, leaving Trapper Creek around 2:30 for the picnic in Wasilla.


At the picnic, we enjoyed seeing a lot of friends that we normally only get to talk to online.  It's always nice to get to know these people face-to-face, even if the time is short and the occurrence is only occasional.  The kids enjoyed swimming in the lake, Ben and Daniel got to play baseball with Joe Miller and I got to fulfill my role as Joe's photographer one more time.  (Incidentally, it turned out the church picnic at Chena Lake had been cancelled due to rain.) 

Harmony Shields, a family friend, holds Jonathan at the Restoring Liberty picnic in Wasilla.

After the picnic, we drove on the additional forty-five miles to Anchorage where we stayed at Centennial Park, where we'd camped a couple of years ago.

Day 3:  The next day was the only urban day on our trip.  The location for RV parking in the Milepost is not exactly correct, so it took a little while to park in downtown Anchorage.  We stopped at a few gift shops, looking for things to help us remember our home in the North, finishing our stop at the downtown market, when it started raining.  I took Kimberly, Daniel and Ben to get the RV, picking up Jenny, Rebekah and Jonathan along the side of the road.

Since it was raining, we decided to go see a movie.  It just happened that Kung Fu Panda 2 was playing at the Bear's Tooth.  For those of you who don't know, the Bear's Tooth is a movie theater that serves pizza and fresh-brewed beer (and root beer), the same as the more commonly-known Moose's Tooth in Midtown Anchorage.  While we were waiting for the movie to start, I took Ben, Kimi and Daniel to REI to look at a few things.  Not buying anything, we left and as we waited for the light to change, I heard someone yell, "Hey, Snethen!!"  Startled, I turned and saw friends from Journey Church in Fairbanks, Frank and Harmony Tomaszewski in their car.  I directed them to where I'd parked our motor-home and they stopped by to see us, our first visitors in our new RV.

Frank and Harmony Tomaszewski were the first visitors to the Snethen Seven motor-home.

After the movie, we stopped where Frank and Harmony told us they had parked their fifth-wheel, the Golden Nugget RV Park on DeBarr.  While we were there, Frank taught me a little about managing the plumbing and basic RV maintenance while Harmony and Jenny watched kids and socialized.  Their family (also with five children) had just spent eleven days in the Kenai peninsula fishing.  They had a full-size freezer plugged inside their RV and several ice chests full of salmon, halibut and more.

Day 4:  At some point on Day 3, we booked a wildlife-watching cruise departing Seward at noon, so as early as we were able to leave Anchorage, we drove down the Seward Highway for about two and a half hours to the All-American town on the water's edge, barely able to park and literally run onto the boat before it left the harbor.  The cruise was amazing!  We stopped on Fox Island to eat salmon, prime rib and Alaskan king crab while the four older kids were all named Junior Rangers in Kenai Fjords National Park.  On our return, the boat wandered around Resurrection Bay and the Gulf of Alaska, encircling Hive Island and Rugged Island.  We saw otter, puffins and stellar sea lions but no whales.

Fox Island is home every year to the International Rock-Skipping Contest.  Ben is practicing his skipping arm while waiting for the boat to signal its departure.

After we left the boat, we drove down the road to Exit Glacier, a small glacier projecting from the Harding Ice Field which covers a large portion of the Kenai Peninsula.  The four older kids all hiked with me to the edge of the glacier while Jenny and Jonathan stayed behind to nurse and take a nap.

A small chasm separated the trail from Exit Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park.

Staying a little longer in the parking lot to eat, we returned to the Seward Highway, stopping at a small RV park in the mountains.  We had enough space there for the kids to play ball, Daniel to ride his new tricycle and we even had enough time for everyone to get a bath or a shower.  A short path through the woods crossed the train track and led to Kenai Lake.

Rebekah, Benjamin, Kimberly and Daniel line up on the shore of Kenai Lake.

Day 5:  We hated to leave the beautiful campground, but since I had to back at work on Friday the 5th, we reluctantly left in the late morning, after waving to the Alaska Railroad passenger train as it sped south.  We stopped only briefly in the beautiful setting of Moose Pass.  The Kenai Peninsula is a beautiful and enchanting place to visit!  On a whim, we stopped in Whittier for a rain-soaked lunch (fortunately indoors) of fresh seafood and later ran a few errands in Anchorage before beginning the journey home.  That night, we stopped in Trapper Creek, this time with a lot more knowledge in hooking up the motor-home.

Kimberly stands in the rain next to a whale statue in Whittier.

Day 6:  On our drive home, we stopped in Denali National Park, hiked at the Savage River and picked blueberries before the kids were named Junior Rangers in a second park in three days.  Finally, we returned home after our long trip down to Seward and back.

The kids spot a caribou near the Savage River trail in Denali National Park.

For more pictures of our journey, please see my Facebook page: