I know I said my next post would be about the fun times that encompassed being 6 months pregnant and driving the AlCan Highway this past August with all of our belongings….. but I lied. (Sorry.) That’ll be another post for another day. For reals. Promise. And you can trust me. Because I’m a doctor.
But I digress. So to all of my 3 readers out there (Hi, mom), we have exciting news to share. But first, I need to get this off my plate:
1. No, I’m not pregnant. Thank God, cause that would be stupid hard with a 2 month-old at home.
2. No, we’re not moving back to Oklahoma. (I mean, why would we not want to melt in the summertime and worry about scorpions and ticks as late as November? Crazy, right!)
When we first started perusing our dream of living in Alaska, we didn’t know where we would end up. We just had ideas and dreams of where we possibly wanted to be or not be. A lot of it depended on where the hubby got a job but also we knew the types of places we could or couldn’t handle for our family.
For instance, a few places we may enjoy visiting but probably couldn’t live in:
Barrow; Currently, I’m not up for living somewhere where, for 7 – 10 weeks out of the year, the sun literally doesn’t rise…. But maybe if I were a vampire! And for the record, vampire I am not… yet.
Talkeetna; Too remote. Although I wouldn’t mind having a cat for Mayor.
Hope; Cute, very tiny hippy-ish town. Keyword, tiny! Is there even a gas station there?
Whittier; Population 220. Has a ferry port in it. Popular cruise ship destination. But the easiest way to get in and out of it involves paying a fee to go through a controlled tunnel….no thanks.
Seward; we had a possibility of living here…. but I had to decline it. It’s right by the water and a fun place to visit. I’m told you can eat all of the fish you could ever want from there. But from what I could see when we visited, fishing was about the only thing there was to do there. And the restaurants were extra expensive!
A few places we think we could live, although this is a non-comprehensive list;
Anchorage; the biggest city in Alaska, although by some city comparisons it is very small. (Population maybe 300,000 now?) We would/could only live on the very edges or the least populated area….because we really aren’t fans of huge crowds.
Wasilla; a lot of people in a small-ish place but also has a good number of businesses and many of the houses are spread out. For those Tulsa people reading this, it kind of reminds me of Owasso. Think: decent sized area, lots and lots of businesses, business number out of proportion to population.
Palmer; small town with the smallest Fred Meyer in the whole nation! But it’s close to Wasilla which has plenty of stores and shops. The houses tend to be cheaper here than Anchorage — likely because of the long commute to Anchorage — but it still keeps its quaint small town feel, which I love. And it has a Starbucks… but there are no donut shops here. No. Donut. Shops. Can you even imagine?!
Fairbanks; Very far north! Second largest city in Alaska at a little over 31,000 people. But it has its pretty areas and the people we met there when we visited were just super friendly. Although it gets very, very cold in the wintertime and you have to plug your car in to keep the battery from dying.
Juneau. Let’s talk about Juneau.
Isn’t it beautiful? You’ll have to thank my hubby for these lovely iPhone pictures. No, really. Do thank him.
Juneau has no roads in or out of it. In fact, it has about 40 miles of roads within the area. But it’s not an island. It’s just surrounded by so many big, beautiful mountains (and glaciers) that it’s not possible to reach it by road. (Although that’s up for an apparent VERY HEATED debate…. google it.) This means you get to Juneau by boat (ferry) or by plane. Oh yeah, and it’s Alaska’s capital city.
Are you ready for this? Buckle up. Because it’s gonna be a bumpy ride. Our big news is that you’re going to be hearing a lot more about Juneau….. because hubby was offered a job there and we are moving in less than 2 weeks! Soon we will be saying bye bye, sweet, beautiful, warm and welcoming Palmer, Alaska… I will surely miss you.
Know any good moving companies?
(P.S. Just kidding about the whole “doctor” thing.)