Deciding to Leave Alaska

Katherine turned 18 and graduated from high school in May 2007. As she became an adult, the years of shared custody came to an end.  She was accepted to the University of Hawaii and took off across the Pacific in the fall.

May 2007

Dave was working as the Juneau Airport Manager and Ray was in school.  There was a lot going on with my mother in Reno and I was feeling so far away from my siblings.  We were finished with most of the major work at the cabin.  Travel times and airfares from Juneau to anywhere seemed horrible!  We were trying to honor the school year more as Ray got older but man, we felt squeezed and trapped by dates and connections and expenses.  Of course, the true travel hardy types in Juneau just planned ahead and bought tickets a year in advance and off they went to Mexico for Christmas vacation but somehow, I never figured that one out.  How do you know what you want to do in a year?

We had lived in the townhouse for 10 years.  We started to decide things bit by bit.  Let's sell this place and live in a building with more windows.  No matter where we live, we need more light.  A shop would be nice...

We thought about buying a different house in Juneau.  Maybe we could live in Haines where we could get in to the cabin more easily.  Maybe down south.  Somewhere in the West.  Somewhere different.  It would just be nice to be somewhere less isolated.  Somewhere with roads. 

We decided to move to Reno.  (We didn't, as it turned out.)

But we looked.  We put the Juneau townhouse and the float plane up for sale.  We starting looking online for a place in Reno with some land around it. We talked a lot about what each of us wanted.  Dave got so good at the internet shopping that he got a new name, Research.  Got a realtor.  Went down there and made a low ball offer on the place we liked best.  Rejected.  Came home with an Xbox for Ray.  Someone was happy. 

We really weren't disappointed.  The townhouse wasn't selling.  Summer started and we spent time at the lake.  We had Charlie's really nice airplane.  We built a table together.  Not a bad life all in all.  Something would work out.

July 2008