How to puke, crawl, slide and meow for 3000 miles aka: The Moncurs move to Alaska

Part 3 0f 3 Dec 15, 2008

Cast of Characters:


Little Kitty


Champ in our beloved back yard summer 2007

Big Kitty on the front porch

Sorry part 3 has taken so long to write. We are trying to get settled into our 3 room suite, get JaDee back to work, buy a second car, drag kids to numerous houses and find time for laundry, and figure out how to find Target even though we can see it from the highway. Here is something to think about. Route 1 here in the AK is not an interstate. It is a big 3 lanes each way numerous exit HWY but not an interstate. Why? Find out at the end of this post.

Back to the saga. JaDee woke up Monday Dec 15, and got the car to ship yard and called a car service back to the hotel. I, in the meantime: fed 3 kids, faxed his Department of Defense ID, packed all of our stuff into 10 suitcases and 6 backpacks, walked the dog and fished 2 cats out from under the hide-a-bed.

When it came time to load us up in the airport shuttle it took the biggest van they had. We got our first curious stare and the observation of “wow that must be some trip you are going on.” WE ARE MOVING TO ALASKA AND WILL HAVE NOTHING UNTIL JANUARY !!!! I really wanted a sign so people would not think I was insane to be travelling with this much stuff.

In the airport JaDee had to take the pets to one line and I got the special case baggage line. That was partly because of all the bags we had and partly because of our ammunition we were carrying for JaDee's guns that the movers would not take. Carter chased Olivia and Ethan was nervous with the crowds and the unfamiliarity of all of this and stuck with me. It was a total team Moncur effort. It to 2 hours to check us in. At one point my blood sugar plummeted and I almost passed out but Carter came to the rescue and ran to the newsstand and bought a 3 musketeers and a juice for me.

A shout out to Carter who helped watch luggage, animals, took Livvy potty, hauled any one of our 3 luggage carts where it needed to go, bought food, took Ethan to the boys room, ran messages back and forth between JaDee and I, played with both kids in the empty section of the baggage check, held tickets, helped with shoes on and off at security, shared his ice cream, and as a seasoned traveler in his early years helped Ethan feel better when he was worried about crowds, getting lost or stolen, and missing our flight. Needless to say Carter was an Enormous help. We could not have done this without him.

The flight was very uneventful. Olivia watched a show on the laptop, the boys played Game boy and read. Ethan got his pretzels and was disappointed that they did not serve peanuts. Olivia flapped her arms like a bird at take off and asked “When does the airplane flap its wings?”

Then we landed and had 10 suitcases and 3 animals to retrieve, and a car to rent and load. The first thing we heard after we piled the luggage around me was the most pitiful yowling you could even imagine. Oh just thinking about it breaks my heart all over again. Our “Big Kitty” was desperate. Her eyes were rolling her mouth was slack. She had torn her carpet lining the bottom of her crate to shreds. There was nothing I could do. I was afraid she would bolt.

After JaDee took Ethan to get the rental car (pray for a suburban here) I was Bag Lady Supreme (and again wishing for a sign to answer all curious onlookers stares) with my 10 suitcases…etc piled around me. I sat on the floor next to Big Kitty and opened her crate. She slinked out and crawled into the tiniest ball possible on my lap. She stopped yowling and started purring. I could have cried. Here is my tough snotty kitty needing me. She who brings dead snakes to my porch and mice carcasses daily under the van needed me. She only likes most of the time anyway, but I was oddly comforted to know that yes she knew me and took comfort in my presence.

And then Olivia slipped and split her chin open on the slick marble floor. I had a desperate cat and an injured daughter. I shoved Big Kitty in Champ’s crate with him. We have long suspected these two of having a love affair so I hoped he would help Kitty feel at home with another part of her family. Oddly it worked long enough for me to diagnose no stitches necessary, and get Olivia asleep on my lap. Carter got kitty out for me and she too fell asleep.

So here I was Olivia across my lap. Kitty on top of Olivia. 3 carts of luggage and 3 animal crates. Champ was very thirsty but without a big dish for water we did the next best thing. Carter took him to the boys’ bathroom and he drank a toilet bowl dry. And peed in a corner for good measure. I know. We were desperate.

All the while we are wondering what the heck happened to JaDee and Ethan. Were we stuck in a Focus? Were they out of cars? Was this really Alaska or had we accidently got on a plane to Jersey? Really at this point anything was possible. I do know that never before had I felt so alone nor so solely responsible for all of these little bodies, both 2 and 4 legged. There was NOTHING I could think of that would help. I for the first time EVER was somewhere where I knew no one. Even when we lived in Delaware we were in my Grandparents old ward and I had a list of phone numbers before I got there.

I sat piled up with warm sleeping bodies, and wondered, “What have I done?” And I prayed. Instantly I felt that we would be OK. And we were.

Turns out we got a minivan but the doors were frozen shut and Ethan and JaDee had to warm up the car before the sliding doors would open.

We loaded the sleeping Olivia, freaked out animals, tired and fed up boys (this whole ordeal was another 2 hours from the time we retrieved our luggage), and navigated our way through a frost covered frozen city to find our hotel.

And we were foodless. $100 dollars later at the local Fred Meyer grocery we had soup, litter and boxes for the poor cats who had been holding it for 12 hours, water, food, milk, and on the drive home both Olivia and Ethan were out for the count with nothing but Seattle airport ice cream and a package of pretzels in their little bellies. I was so tired I let the guilt wash over me as I hid the tears from JaDee.

But that desperate prayer in the airport brought enough comfort to know I needed a good night sleep and let tomorrow come.

And there you have it. Our modern pioneer journey to the wild frontier. And the final puking was done this morning by Ethan so we should be done with that. The kitties have adjusted quite nicely to being indoor cats. They love hiding under the bed form Livs and sleeping on us at night. Champ and JaDee resumed their 5 mile runs and found a great trail system by the university that has fresh moose tracks every morning and a chance to run off the leash.

Carter and Ethan are troopers about taking Champ out, and doing our chores in the morning. They have learned how to operate a coin washing machine and are on first name basis with everyone at breakfast. Ethan would like his own hotel waffle maker when we move to our new house. Olivia loves to look at houses with our agent, Gale. She thinks he is part of the deal as we have seen him every day for a solid week and he bought her a gumball.

We have a Christmas dinner invite with our new friends from the ward we visited last Sunday (and had to turn 2 others down) and are headed to the Tuia’s tomorrow are. We each got a new game for tonight and played Trouble, Bendominos, and Connect Four tonight for Christmas Eve. Sherie and Alex gave us this awesome game called Snorta before we left and it has become a family favorite. I am just a little competitive with JaDee over it and the boys laugh at us.



Love you all and miss you TONS!

Oh, the answer to the question at the beginging is: there are no states for Alaska to "interstate" with...therefore no interstates...no blue signs...just Route 1.