All,

I know this is off topic, but since I consider some of you friends I thought I'd mention:

I finished school and am moving to Alaska Thurday to look at job offers. I'm driving the 4000 miles from my home in Ohio to Wasilla. Wish me luck. I'm sure I'll need it.

Brett

Good luck and be safe.

quote:

Originally posted by Brett Adam Barringer:
All,

I know this is off topic, but since I consider some of you friends I thought I'd mention:

I finished school and am moving to Alaska Thurday to look at job offers. I'm driving the 4000 miles from my home in Ohio to Wasilla. Wish me luck. I'm sure I'll need it.

Brett

Tough time of year to drive. You definitely need four wheel drive with studs all around and chains wouldn't be a bad idea. Some sections through Canada this time of year can be dificult depending on weather. Make sure you have survival gear on board in the way of an expedition quality sleeping bag. Good luck!!

Good luck.

Oh, and tell Sarah I said "Hi."

Be careful on the night driving ... Moose like the road at night ...

Good luck.

Have a safe trip, take your time, it's a long drive.

Brett,

What kind of jobs are youlooking at?

Bwana Bunduki,

I'm a chiropractor.

Brett

Good luck. Looks like a very interesting and adventurous trip

Good Luck Brett. We just did Watson Lake, Yukon to Whitehorse. 5 hrs easy drive. Saw a couple of moose and one caribou. Above freezing in Whitehorse today. Just drive during daylight hours and you will be fineWe are driving back Friday. 3 days is enough for me in the bright lights of the big city.
See you in Watson Lake.

Watson Lake

Brett,

Good job on your education!!!

You are definately making a lifestyle move. I grind it out here in Central Florida and can't wait to go somewhere. You Will just have to walk out your front door!

Best of Everthing.

Jeff

Thanks all. I finished my conference in Chicago today and will start the drive up tomorrow.

Brett

Brett hope your trip is going well.
Waiting for you in Watson Lake, Yukon.
We will be here all weekend...
Cheers
Watson Lake

Watson Lake,

I am already in Wasilla, Alaska. I apologize for not contacting you earlier. I was blessed with incredibly beautiful weather. I drove the trip from Chicago in 5 days. The first leg was Chicago to Grand Forks, ND. The second leg was GF, ND to Lloydminster, SK. The third leg was Lloyd, SK to Fort Nelson, BC. The fourth leg was FN, BC to Destruction Bay, YT. The fifth leg was yesterday from DB, YT to Wasilla, AK. On the fourth day I was in Watson Lake by 12:40, so I decided to continue on to Whitehorse. I made it to Whitehorse with light to spare and went to Destruction Bay. I was blessed with perfect weather and amazingly clear roads for the most part. I woke early every day and was finished before dark. I pushed every day as far as day light would allow, but I didn't push driving at night as advised. I didn't need chains the whole way, but I could see why you would need them if the weather didn't cooperate. Some of the road grades going up and down mountains in BC are horrendous! My favorite parts of the drive where the first half from Fort Nelson to Watson Lake, the Kluane Lake area in the Yukon Territory, and the Mat-Su valley area East of Palmer and Wasilla. The mountains are amazing in all three of these places. I've been lucky enough to travel quite a bit and see some beautiful places, but these were some of the most beautiful I've seen yet! Thank you again for your hospitality and I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to meet you on this trip. I look forward to meeting you some day. Thank you to all for the advice. Gas wasn't an issue the whole way. The most I ever went between fill ups was 250 miles. I saw a wolf, a lynx, a red fox, an elk, 3 mule deer, 4 caribou, 5 moose, 2 herds of pronghorn, 50-75 bison, and 75+ whitetails on the trip. I have lots of pictures and will post them when I get a chance. Thanks again.

Brett

Brett,
Glad you made it OK.
Let us know where you end up..Wasilla or Anchorage.
Watson Lake

I'm leaning towards the docs in Wasilla, but I still have to meet with the docs in Anchorage this coming week. I like Wasilla a lot. I think I would much rather live and work in Wasilla.

Brett

Hey Bret,

welcome to AK. Glad you made it safely. If it works for you, I would stay in the valley. I think you will like it a lot more than working in los anchorage. This city sucks.

Good luck.

Joel,

Thanks. That's the plan for sure, but I need to go where the practice that fits me best is located. But I'm hoping pretty hard that Wasilla will work and I think it probably will.

Brett

Brett,
It was good meeting you at the sportsman show this weekend. Good luck with your new job and home.

Thank you. It was a pleasure to meet you too.

Brett

quote:

Originally posted by Brett Adam Barringer:
Thank you. It was a pleasure to meet you too.

Brett

So did you decide where you are settling yet?

I'm working on buying a practice in Anchorage. I'm in the process of looking for an apartment. The deal may take 4 or more weeks to close, so I'm in Purgatory for the moment. I'd rather live in the valley, but this practice was the best fit for me and a great opportunity. I may buy a house toward Eagle River next year if everything is working out. We'll see. Maybe I'll like living in Anchorage.

Brett

Brett,

I've meant to say this to you but after living in Alaska and being fortunate enough to travel around the state quite a bit during my 20 odd years there. I'd rather live in Anchorage than in the valley. In Wassila, Palmer, Eagle whatever you just are not far enough away from the population center of Alaska. The best hunting and fishing is still a plane ride away really no matter where you are in Southcentral so you might as well have easy access to shopping, restaurants, entertainment etc.

I know that I'll get grief for this from folks making due by living in the Valley but I'm sticking with my opinion. If your on the road system you have to put up with other people and perhaps lots of people. To me that is not what Alaska is all about.

Mark

I would tend to agree with Mark on that one.

Fairbanks is Alaska within 10 minuites.

Valdez is Alaska

SE is Alaska most of the time when the ferries and cruise ships are not in port.

Tok is Alaska

Palmer and Wasilla want to be Alaska, but every weekend they get invaded by everyone that is escaping Anchorage for Alaska.

Anchorage was Alaska in the 1960s when dad lived there, but it wasn't Alaska in the late 1990s and early 2000's when I lived if Sitka and Barrow, and it less like the rest of Alaska today. But within an hour on the road or a 15 minuites in the airplane you can get back to Alaska.

I like Anchorage, but it's a wierd place and it takes spending a lot of time there to figure it out. It has big city appeal, and a lot going for it culturally and shopping wise. It's also got big city crime, traffic, and drama. As Alaskan's trio of "cities" go I like Fairbanks a lot more, and Juneau a lot less. But Anchorage has a lot of neat and interesting things that make it fun. And it's a hell of a lot easier place to live than Fairbanks or Juneau and has both of them beat on weather too.

When I was a kid growing up in Riverton Wyoming, we though Jackson Hole was in Wyoming, but now it's in Hollywood. Anchorage is a growing dynamic, I don't know much bigger it will get, but it will only get worse.

Thank you for the advice. I kind of know what you mean. I've been lucky enough to travel around Alaska quite a bit before moving here. There's lots of Alaska and most of it isn't accessible, so as you said it really doesn't matter where you start from as long as you get to it. I figure Anchorage is about as centrally located in the state as you can get, so a good place to start on an adventure. Besides it’s not a bad place to be when you're a young single guy.

Brett

Being single in Alaska is feast or fammine.

In Barrow there were only 8 single white men between 25 and 40. Between the schools, clinic, and whatever else, there were probably 50 single non-eskimo women in town.

In Sitka it seemed like it was the other way, single women were like gold.

This was in the 1999 to 2001 period.

I am sure that whole demographic has changed.

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
Brett,

I've meant to say this to you but after living in Alaska and being fortunate enough to travel around the state quite a bit during my 20 odd years there. I'd rather live in Anchorage than in the valley. In Wassila, Palmer, Eagle whatever you just are not far enough away from the population center of Alaska. The best hunting and fishing is still a plane ride away really no matter where you are in Southcentral so you might as well have easy access to shopping, restaurants, entertainment etc.

I know that I'll get grief for this from folks making due by living in the Valley but I'm sticking with my opinion. If your on the road system you have to put up with other people and perhaps lots of people. To me that is not what Alaska is all about.

Mark

I have to mostly agree with Mark. We have both lived in Alaska off the road system in the Bristol Bay region. I feel fortunate to have experienced that when I could still afford to put 100 gallons of gas in a Wooldridge for a long weekend trip into the river or lake system. I couldn’t afford that now at >$5.00/gallon prices.

I had great trepidation about leaving the bush and moving to Anchorage. We considered the Valley, Eagle River, and even Girdwood. We spent a long weekend with a realtor in 2000 looking at houses in those areas while still living in Dillingham.

The first day I returned to the B&B after looking at 10 homes on the lower South hillside of Anchorage feeling depressed. The homes were all nice, all on over an acre of land, but each seemed to have a 6 foot dog-eared picket fence around them that you peered over to see your neighbor’s kid’s swing set. I know I couldn’t do that.

We determined (and I’m glad we did) the commute from the other communities into Anchorage, including Eagle River was just too far to be reasonable in the long run.

We ended up lucking out big-time by buying a home on the East hillside in a community called Stuckagain Heights. I had never seen or heard of this community in all the times I traveled to Anchorage from the bush. There was no reason to. You have to drive 3 ½ miles through a park to then climb the hillside to the community. It does not have a subdivision feel in that most of the homes were owner built and all are different.

My back lot line borders BLM land under control of Fort Richardson and I can literally hike out my back door over a ridge and be in 700 square miles of Chugach State Park.

It’s the best of both worlds!! Brett, feel free to PM me a number and we can chat.

Jim

hey , are you a good cractopractor ????????? Now you can really start to spend the big bucks ,,,,, A beaver on floats , an air boat,, a Max with tracks , and if you are a real glutton for punishment -------------------------------------------------Some horses Gonna have to get a 450 Ford or a Top Kick ect to drag all that stuff around .... If you are a good chiropractor , you should move to Glennallen ................. The one there ---------------------- last winter .. The dentist there has pretty well goter made ... He is a huntin , fishin machine and a great guy ....... Nice thing about living out in the bush ,, you don,t have to mobilize for a day or 2 just to go huntin ....

Yeah, pretty much what gumboot said. As the old saying goes - "They say you can see Alaska from Anchorage". To be honest, the interior's pretty darn good but be forewarned about having to handle the extreme cold & short days. We just deal with it. A smaller town & less competition from other chiropractors too.
Bear in Ol' Fairtown

Brett,
By the way what kinda doc are you?

"hey , are you a good cractopractor ????????? "

I'd like to think so, but I suppose I'm biased.

Dirk,

I'm a chiropractor.

Brett

Well Brett,

I am a Chiro also PM sent.

I appreciate everyone's help in my trasition form Ohio to here and getting aclimatized here. Financing was approved today for the practice I'm buying in Anchorage. Now to finalize the paper work and get rolling. Hopefully the deal will close next week or the begining of the week after. Wish me luck. Thanks again all.

Brett

Great Brett, I'll be checking in with you later.