After 4085 miles of driving plus 3 lovely days on the Alaska Marine Highway ferry, we have arrived!  The snow isn’t deep, and our little dry cabin is warming up at a reasonable pace.

Top priority tomorrow is to drive 20 minutes to get water.  Our 6-gallon aquatainers are completely empty (if we had left water in them, it would be frozen, like the dish soap, cooking oil, etc).  We have a little more than a gallon of water, which should be enough for drinking, dishes, tiny bit of cleaning, sponge bath, and brushing teeth until we get 20 plus gallons tomorrow.   The 20 gallons should last us 2 to 3 weeks, provided we go to town for showers and laundry.

The space between our Toyo fuel oil heater and the oven cooking our lasagna heated up to 70 pretty quickly.   The upstairs and corners of the downstairs are having trouble reaching 60.  (We reach the bedroom in our 12×16 cabin via the ladder-like stairs in the photo.)

C shoveled around the house and also a path to our outhouse.  This is the quickest we have settled in the Spring- we are getting good at this!  There is more to do, of course, but we are doing well.

Earlier today, after running errands, including spending $300 (yikes!) on groceries and household items, we stopped at Creamers Field in Fairbanks.   We saw about 16 Trumpeter Swans, and spent time trying to pick out the shorter-necked Cackling Geese from the large quantity of Canada Geese.

We are looking forward to 5 months here in Alaska,  continuing to explore and experience this beautiful state.