Welcome to Adulthood! - Alaska-style

Thank you all for the sweet emails and notes you sent me for my birthday yesterday! I didn't get to read most of them until today, but they meant so much to me. :)

Let me tell you about my "adventure" yesterday! :D


The morning of my 21st birthday dawned bright and clear.

On our way out we saw these two moose again. They like to hang around Kingdom Air Corps.

Jonathan and I had to leave our cabin at 6AM that morning, to be in town at 7:30 for Hazardous-Material training (fun, fun, fun). I was a little disappointed that we'd be spending the morning sitting through that, but afterwards we planned to do our big grocery shopping trip and though that seemed a little intimidating, it also sounded like fun to spend some time somewhere other than home and work. :)

When we arrived at the office, Jonathan made me wait in the car while he retrieved my present. When he reappeared he was holding a big potted plant! I'd asked for one flower on my birthday and he surprised me with a beautiful house plant! (Do I have a good guy or what?)

So, the morning started out very well! After that, it kind of started going downhill, when we realized that, if Jonathan wanted to get in on any flying for Lake Clark Air this year, he had to fly out to Port Alsworth immediately after Haz-Mat was done....and I had to stay in Anchorage. You see, they started training for their new pilots yesterday, which they only do once a year, and since we hadn't known about this beforehand, we'd left all of our clothes and luggage at the ranch, not to mention our grocery shopping yet to be done.

I'll admit that there were tears on my part when we realized what had to happen; I was scared to navigate Anchorage in our manual-transmission truck (which I'd only driven once), do a big shopping trip, and make the long drive back up to the ranch to pack up all alone. I think Jonathan was scared to leave me with all of that, but we both knew there wasn't any way around it. So, he left, and I stayed.

My first challenge was to remember everything Jonathan had taught me about driving a manual...and then do it. I'll sheepishly admit that I may have stalled out 4-5 times trying to back it out...before realizing that I'd left the parking brake on.

After that, things went a little smoother. I made it safely to Costco and I didn't have to stop on any hills - a favorable answer to my fervent prayers.

Later, things got a little hairy. Traffic picked up and I got lost a few times, wandering around Anchorage. Then, to add insult to injury, I spilled my full cup of Coke all over the floor of the truck, just before heading back home to the ranch.

King Ranch. I think that will always be a little piece of home to me. The people there, Dwayne and Carolyn King, Russ, Dan, Carol, Jared, Lucy and Titus..and others too, they were all so good to us. As soon as we arrived they began treating us like family.

Let me give you an example. At about 9PM last night, I came rolling into King Ranch. I proceeded to begin unloading the truck, juggling different categories of stuff to be packed and reloaded. It only took about 10 minutes before someone came along asking to help.

And once they discovered that it was my birthday...the party was on! Seriously, at 10:30PM they called together everyone who was still awake, scrounged up popcorn and some leftover ice cream, even a present and a signed card! They sang me "Happy Birthday" in whispers because the 20-month-old was in bed. They lugged the sweet tea down for me because I've made a name for myself with it.

I don't think I've ever been so touched.

And so, what began as a wonderful morning, what happened to be a rather miserable afternoon, ended up being my most memorable birthday of all!