After spending six months pretending we were on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, the adjustment back to cabin life has been a bit of shell shock. Frozen water pipes and batteries didn’t help to ease us back into the woods with grace, but rather encouraged tantrums and big-baby-fits by all. We’ve since gotten the water to thaw and flow enough to trigger the on-demand-hot-water-heater we adore, giving us a trickle of a shower…even if it is in the dark.
With four dead batteries running 400 bucks each, we’re back to flashlights and kerosene these days while we await a couple of paychecks and recuperate from the $7 per gallon fuel on the return trip through Canada. Life on the road is expensive. Multiply it times five kids, three dogs, two cats, six months and a fuel guzzling diesel, you’ve got one mighty spendy trip. Who needs retirement, anyway?
And so a flashlight dangles from a nail just above the shower wall, a magnetic flashlight shines across my cook top and a lantern sits upon the counter waiting for the Alaska midnight sun to fade beyond the volcano dotted skyline before being lit.
It’s just before one a.m. and since a gaggle of giggling teenagers are sleeping in a tent on my back forty, I’m awake and on guard. Cooked by flashlight, I’m devouring a mushroom/egg breakfast burrito in the dark while typing away on my laptop with exactly 13 minutes remaining before I fade into the dark, just me at the distant giggle of girls in the woods.
It’s good to be here, though, despite the trials of adjustment. And as life gets back to normal and our spoiled selves get back in tune with the difference between want and need, I’m sure we’ll remember why we came out here to the woods. I’m sure of it…any day now. Six minutes of battery life….goodnight.
