the bottom dropped out

I spoke way too soon about the joys of traveling. I arrived in Anchorage and everything was starting to look up. A friend offered to pick me up at the airport and drive me home which saved me a bundle of money in taxi fare since we live way "out in the boonies". I boarded the flight to Fairbanks with no worries. An hour later we pull up to the house; this is about the time that everything started to go all wrong. I gathered my luggage, carry-on, and purse and sifted through them attempting to find my key to the house. My cell phone slipped out of my back pocket unknowingly and laid to rest in the floorboard of her truck.

She begins pulling away as I wave her off and jog up to the door to unlock it. Key won't fit. After struggling, I finally get it to go in the hole, but it won't turn. Keep in mind that I've become acclamated to TN's 90 degree weather which is easily 65 degrees warmer than where I was standing at that moment. All I had on was a thin long sleeved shirt and jeans (oh, and those dang boots I mentioned earlier). This is the point where I began to get flustered. I mean, all a girl wants is a warm bath and bed. I began pleading with the door- "Pleasssseeeee let me in!" After about twenty minutes of struggling, it finally decided to budge and I walked in the door. Unfortunately, this was just the first hurdle.

My struggles were not over. They were only beginning. As, I dropped my bags  right inside the door I heard an automated woman's voice saying "battery low" followed by an excrutiatingly loud, long siren alerting me that the fire detector was not working properly. Every thirty seconds, I got another warning. I decided this could wait a few minutes because I had to get to the heater and get it turned on because the temperature inside my house was below freezing. Standing water in my kitchen was frozen solid. I walked to the thermometer thing-a-ma-bobby and turned it on. Hearing it kick on was music to my ears. I then found a bar stool size chair, slid it over to the fire detector, climbed up and yanked it out of the ceiling. Then I realized that wasn't going to fix anything and I began to dissmantle it just for a little peace and quiet.

In the meantime, I had realized that I did not have a phone. I skyped my friend asking her to look for it and she told me that she did indeed have it. I told her I'd be right over to get it. She lives about 10 minutes away, on post. Driving after flying for an entire day was not something that was on my list of things I wanted to do. I hopped in the truck and tore off down the road.

Minutes later, it felt so good to have my phone in hand and know that my worries were over, I'd finally get to get some shut eye. I walked into our cabin, only to find that it hadn't warmed up a bit. Our heater was spitting out cold air. Great. Perfect. Shoot me.

I finally fell asleep that night wrapped up in a goose down sleeping bag and five other blankets I found around the house. Alaska has a way of reminding me that I better have my act together! I won't go into detail about the following day because not much got any better. No one could come look at the heater. I still hadn't had a shower. I was in a bad, bad place.

Luckily, I have some amazing friends who allowed me to get their spare key and go to their house to shower and thaw out. What a day! I finally was able to clean out the fire place downstairs and start up a fire in order to help heat the house until someone could look at it. I welcomed Captain J home that night with this sign and a smile on my face:

I'm so glad he's back! Be sure to come back tomorrow for the second edition of (Mil)ing It Over. We'll be talking about PCSing. :) See ya then!