Heading to Alaska – Our New Adventure

Well, this post was supposed to be titled “Living out of a box truck” but it seems as though the Lord had different plans for us. This blog post will set the stage for many blog posts to come which will share our adventure and what we have been up to. Eventually the series will have updates for what we are doing on the homestead, but we aren’t quite there, yet. So, cozy up with a nice mug of tea and enjoy the crazy story of what has transpired over the past few weeks.

And just a heads up: the way I talk in this post will be more casual than my usual posts where I share recipes, homemaking tips, and such. If you are reading these adventure posts, I’m just going to assume you are a friend or family member. So I want to speak to you as if we were sitting across the table from one another and I was catching you up on my life. And if you happen to be a random person who just stumbled upon my blog, enjoy this side of me and know a lot of my other posts come across at least a tad more professional than this one will! 

Where the adventure began

The story really starts a few years ago, back in September of 2021. My husband, Andrew, and I had traveled up to the great state of Alaska to visit his family. I was five-ish months pregnant with our little boy and we wanted to take one more trip, just the two of us. When we arrived, we were in awe. We had both lived here for many years, (he for 19 years, and I for almost 10), and it had only been a little over a year since we moved to Tennessee. However, we were both so shocked at how fresh and clean the air smelled, and how free we felt. Neither of us are city people so living just over 30 minutes from Nashville was stressful to say the least. 

We spent a large portion of our trip just driving around and soaking up the beauty we had somehow forgotten about. Many conversations were had about how to make it work and when we arrived back home, we started the search for land. We soon found a slice of land we wanted but when we called about it, we were told it already had an offer on it. He did then recommend another (and better) slice of land that we hadn’t seen on the website even though we combed the whole site for weeks and never saw it. We put in an offer lower than the asking price and signed the paperwork that same night. 

We knew it would be a few years until we could move but we had our own little slice of paradise in the middle of the last frontier. 

The original plan

Now, fast forward to November/December of 2022. We had a wonderful church family, awesome friends, Andrew was a part owner of a small business and was making good money, and we started to wonder if we were supposed to stay in Tennessee longer and maybe not even move to Alaska at all. We looked at land in the surrounding areas, but nothing was even close to our budget, and if it was it was so far away Andrew wouldn’t be able to still work at the business he was a part of. 

Starting on January 1st our church was doing 21 days of prayer. We decided we would use that time to ask others to pray over us and would ask for eyes to see what we were supposed to do. About halfway through the 21 days, the land that was the closest to where we were, and almost within our price range sold, some red flags appeared in the business, and about five other things that showed we were not to stay in Tennessee long term. After this we started making plans to move up. We bought a box truck in February and spent the next few months turning the interior into a livable RV. And I’m talking working toilet, insulated walls, solar powered electric, and the list goes on. (When I say we did it, I mean Andrew did just about all the work, and I helped with stylistic ideas.)

He even built us this adorable couch!

The plan was for us to live in the truck and save money until around March 2024 when we would drive across the country, with our final destination being our land. The truck would have been our home while we built our cabin and worked the land. The reason we were waiting until the following year was because there were things on the truck we still wanted to finish up and it needed a few repairs to prepare it for the long trek across country and through Canada.

Because the summer is shorter in Alaska, we wanted to be up there early in the year so we could have the entire season to build on our land before the snow returned. Not to mention, we wanted to bulk up our savings just a bit more so we could do more on our land as soon as we arrived without stressing about every cost. 

We went along with this plan and were able to rent a small slice of land from some dear friends of ours from church who had almost 13 acres. We lived in our truck, I hung laundry out on the line, and we settled into our tiny home life. Clark was able to be a wild child and play in the dirt and chase our cat around all day. It seemed all too good to be true, and sure enough, this seemingly perfect situation suddenly came to a halt. 

The problem

Andrew’s business partners suddenly informed us they were done with the business. There were no new jobs on the books, and they wanted to move on and be done instead of trying to further advertise. They longed for the reliability of a paycheck and not having to be their own boss. The jobs that were left would have taken less than a month to finish up, more realistically about two weeks.

It was sudden and unexpected. We knew things had been a bit tight but that had happened on and off over the year and a half they had been in business. We also knew it wouldn’t last forever but thought it would end differently when it did come to a close.

Our new options

We sat down, scrambling to come up with options that would allow us to stick with our plan. Because Andrew was a part owner, he was making salary and was getting a percentage of the business profits. No other job he could find (and trust me, we looked) would pay as well. That left us with a few different options.

Should he find a job where he is making less, and I continue to stay home with Clark and work on the blog? This would mean less per month would be used for getting the truck ready and less would be making it into our savings each month. The result of this decision would be us not making it up to Alaska for an extra few months, possibly another year. 

Another option was us both getting jobs and finding a day care or nanny for Clark. Yes, we would be able to set aside more money each month due to the two paychecks, but Clark is our legacy. We strongly believe in making sacrifices to ensure we can give him the best life possible. We didn’t want him to be raised for the majority of the day by someone else, so this wasn’t a good option from the start. 

Something we did discuss was us both working part time, maybe three days or so a week, so whoever wasn’t working that day could stay with Clark. Very few places offer any benefits when you are working part time and some even paid less for part time employees. That also meant Andrew would either be watching Clark and the house or going to work, then after the workday was over, he would work on the truck repairs. This left only one day for us to rest and seemed like a way for both of us to get burned out with a constantly changing schedule and very little time as a family.

We also considered selling the truck and just flying up to Alaska. Sure, we would be in the same boat with having to find jobs, but at least we would be closer to our land and possibly able to work on it over the weekends. We didn’t like the idea of selling the truck Andrew had put so much time into turning into our home. Another thing to consider was what would happen if it didn’t sell. Would we fly down to finish fixing it up and then sell it? Would we fix it and drive it up like our original plan?

At the end of the day our heads were swimming as we tried to decide on the best course of action for our family. We are Christians so we did pray (a lot), we sought counsel, we also asked several of our friends and our Bible study groups to lift us up in prayer as we made our decision. This was done while we were crunching numbers, doing research, and applying to jobs.

The decision

Andrew was talking with a friend of ours who asked what was keeping us from selling the truck and trying to get to Alaska sooner. We still didn’t like the idea of getting rid of it, but it seemed like that’s what the Lord was telling us to do. (Stay tuned for a future blog post for the details behind this). 

We set our plan in motion that very evening. We made a plan then slept on it to see if it still made sense and felt right after a good night’s sleep. At this point Andrew was no longer working his business and we knew we wouldn’t have any more money coming in other than a bit from the blog and his final paycheck until we got up to Alaska. 

We booked our flight up to Alaska for the 10th, which was just over a week away. We spent that time packing, tying up loose ends, getting the truck ready to store, and saying goodbye to dear friends and family. It was a whirlwind of a week, but we felt so at peace with the decision we were making. It was a time that usually would have been a cause of great stress, and instead it was filled with joy and certainty. We were so happy knowing we were going to be back home and one step closer to the dream we had been working towards.

The current situation

I am writing this as I look out the window at the trees gently swaying in the breeze, a staggeringly beautiful backdrop of mountains behind them. This is our third morning here and it just keeps getting better by the day. (And for those of you wondering, yes, I already have a hook up for farm fresh eggs and goats’ milk).

Andrew has several job opportunities he is looking into, and the next step is to find a vehicle. The truck is currently listed on craigslist and a few other places, but if it doesn’t sell, we will eventually go down and finish fixing it up and making it as beautiful as we can. To be honest, I’m not sure of the next step after that and we are stepping out in blind faith to see what we are supposed to do next in regards to the truck. For those who aren’t believers I’m sure that sounds crazy, but when you see the calling of the Lord in your life its rather hard to ignore.

I will continue to work on the blog and pour into Clark. My goal is to have this space grow to a point that it will eventually be a significant portion of our income and will get us to our land even sooner. Thats why your support means so much to me! Things as simple as commenting on blog posts, joining my email list, sharing Instagram reels, and clicking on and purchasing through links. Every little bit helps and its never lost on us.

If you have read this far, thank you so much for following along on our adventure. Feel free to ask questions down in the comments section or reach out over on Instagram. Stay tuned for more updates!