Leaving On A Jet Plane

By now many of you have heard the news. Our Alaska adventure is coming to an end.

I have accepted a position with a start-up company in Chicago, Illinois and we will be reporting there to begin our Illinois adventure 06 JUL 2015. Needless to say, this is going to be quite the shift from Dillingham to Chicago.

Boy, will it ever be a shift.

You really don't know what quiet is until you hit Dillingham. You just think you know what quiet is. When you get up at 5 a.m. and the only sound anywhere in the town is the gentle thrum of the diesel generators, then you will know what quiet is.

I am not likely to see many moose, elk, reindeer, foxes, or porcupines there either. There are a lot of things I am going to miss about Dillingham, but too many people and too much noise are not among them.

Fly Like an Eagle

So we were moving some things to our permanent home yesterday morning. I had my arms full and decided to test the laws of physics and gravity. Yep, they are still laws for a reason. 

I was almost down the flight of stairs when I missed one or three and took the remaining ones in a quite rapid fashion. Still, I took an opening to slow or stop my momentum and reached out just one-tenth of a second too late... and bounced off the walkway. However, I am happy to report that I stuck the landing!  It was olympic caliber, so long as by "olympic caliber" you mean "flat on my back, on a hill, with my legs still trying to obey the law of gravity by pulling me down the hill upside down". 

You would not believe how difficult it is to sit up, while going uphill. But I digress. 

Every cloud has a silver lining, except in this case it would appear my lining was solid 24K gold. The good news is my back has not felt this good in years. Had I known all the chiropractic care I paid for over the years could be bettered by throwing myself down a flight of stairs... well, I would have done it years ago. The bad news is the payment for this good fortune was ripping a good bit of skin off my hand right where the thumb connects to the rest of the hand. 

Remember earlier when I said I reached out? Yes, I tried to grab ahold of the edge of the walkway. The wooden edge. The dull as 10 pounds of wet leather until you frantically grab it to stop yourself from falling edge. Then it becomes more keen than any razor blade and takes the hide right off. 

So, no more back pain, but sharp pain from losing the first layer of skin from your palm/thumb. Hmmm... seems to be a fair trade to me.

On Shipping

Ok, so about half of our stuff we shipped via the US Post Office shortly before we boarded the plane showed up yesterday. Based on our experiences I have a few suggestions for those who may be thinking about moving to Dillingham :

1. A new motto for the Postal Service : Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow will stop us from beating the holy living hell out of your possessions.

2. No matter how much padding you think you have protecting your items, double it.

3. Double it again.

4. No, seriously. Double it again.

5. Make sure the shipping container is light as a feather, but at least 10 times the tensile strength of titanium. I am pretty sure titanium would just be seen as a temptation to the Postal Service.

6. Lower your expectations of when you think your things will arrive. Now lower them again. Now cut them in half.

7. Cut them in half again.

8. Can your expectations still be measured? Then they are way too high.

9. Never, ever ship anything which has the slightest possibility of breaking. Again, this is a temptation to the postal service. Only ship blocks of sturdy metals like steel, iron, or titanium.

10. Realize that no matter what you do, steps 2 through 10 will never, ever be enough to ensure your items arrive unmolested.

11. Be prepared to mortgage your house (or take out a second) to receive the above "service". I say cut out the middleman and just beat the holy living hell out of your own crap and take all the fun out of it for the Post Office before you ship it.

UPDATE : I should note the above does not mean to include the staff at the Post Office in Dillingham. They are all consummate professionals, and are a true credit to the Postal Service. It is the handlers in transit between Iowa and Dillingham who should be ashamed of themselves.

So You Want to Move to Dillingham...

If you are from either coast, East or West, my best advice is simple : don't. You cannot do it. You cannot and will not work here. In our brief time here it has become crystal clear people from the coasts can't cut it here. People from Midwestern states, well... we fit right in. We already lived in Alaska we just didn't realize it.

Substitute fish for cows and Dillingham really could be just about any rural community in Iowa. So if you think I am wrong about you not being able to cut it, then move to remote Iowa town of about 3K people, with third-world levels of Internet access. If you can hack it for a year without going bat guano insane, then come on up! If not, well... you're welcome for saving you a ton of grief.

Ok, now on to more practical matters. Looking to rent? Then you had better start looking in February. If you wait until August to start looking you are going to So Outta Luck it won't be funny. Just don't expect any four-star hotels to stay in, either. People don't move here for the aesthetic beauty of the town; they move here because they have a job to do (guilty!) or they want to partake of some of the best hunting and fishing on the planet (will be guilty next year!). Apartments and rentals open and close with astonishing speed. Think way ahead is the order of the day, unless you know someone in the community with a lot of pull.

Renting not your style? Ok, then expect any decent house to sell starting at $200,000 and going up from there. If you are in the city limits of Dillingham, expect to pay 1.3% of the total value of your home per year in property taxes. Just remember, the actual city limits go out about 10 miles beyond the city limits. Once you cross that magical line, there are no property taxes. None. I am sure there has to be a county government of some sort, but it's not readily apparent. Land is scarce, too. With all the Preserves, Sanctuaries, State and Federal parks and lands surrounding Dillingham... good luck finding a spot of land big enough to construct on.

If none of the above has scared you off, then just wait until you buy groceries for the first time. A good rule of thumb is most items will be double and some triple what you are paying in the Midwest. Ironically, some items like corn (sometimes) sell for what we were paying back in Iowa. I am still not kidding about it being fresher. Everything we have purchased for produce is at the very pinnacle of freshness and much tastier, juicer, and better quality than anything we ever bought in Iowa. I still maintain people in the Midwest are the dumping ground for end-of-freshness produce.

Then there is the practically non-existent internet. They are running behind schedule to get the fiber laid in the town, so the practical reality is a 128K/sec. connection will run you about $70/month. Oh, did I mention the download limits? On that connection you get 2 GB per month and then you hit overage charges. Yeah, so no Netflix streaming here. One, the connection isn't fast enough and two, a one hour HD program would blow through your monthly data limit.

That's pretty much the extent of the downside to reality. If you can tolerate or even thrive under those conditions, then you can hack it here. The internet thing is really starting to get on my nerves, but only because I know of places out in the boonies of Mexico that are getting 1.5Mb/sec. DSL right now. I fail to see how Dillingham should be more remote than Mexico.

So, yes. The outdoors is the crown jewel of this area. If you love to camp, hike, fish, hunt or just be an Idiot Out Wandering Around, this is the perfect place to live. The bears in this area aren't all that aggressive, but if you surprise one, well the fur is going to fly. I am hearing the greater actual danger is moose, especially when you are talking a cow and her youngin's. If you stray too far from civilization, it's best to have a weapon or bear spray on you, however.

How you get to the really great hunting and fishing spots is sometimes by car, sometimes by plane. If you want to get around Dillingham you will need to ship in your car by barge. About the cheapest that will happen is $3K, and that's if you have something small like a Focus or a Civic. If you have a duelie pickup... well, $6K isn't exactly outrageous or unheard of. The other thing to keep in mind is that it could take a while to get here. On the order of a couple of months while the shipping companies try to fill up the barge coming here. Keep in mind the spring is when there are great many barge runs, and they taper off as winter approaches. Plan ahead, as always.

That's what we have learned so far. I am very sure there is much more we do not know, but will learn soon. As always, we will keep you posted.