One Norwegian Alaskan in Madison.



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...and the Slauson clan will be going to Chitina this Thursday for one of their infamous fishwheel expeditions, to return on Saturday. Said venture will involve driving 5 hours to pound nails into punky wood and will result in wiping fish slime off...everything. In other news, the oldest member of the Slauson family has been voted off the island and the middle Slauson child is suffering from a strong case of "oh god get me out of here". More news on the hour...


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I wish turning 19 came with some taboo being lifted. A good taboo to lift, I mean. Now I can buy tobacco, but that's crappy. Oh wait, I can drink in Canadia now!


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Ok, I was on the swim team for two years and never came down with anything unusual (read: black plague...or pregnancy) so how bad can pool water be?


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I finished cleaning out the crapcar today! To backtrack, it's a nasty '82 Accord I got last summer (with dad's help) that came complete with rust, a floor full of cigarette butts, and a mini-bong in the side pocket. And a bad odor. And it cost $10.

It came from a Happy Hookers (towing company :P) impound auction...and as a gift they let me keep the broken-off spoon handle used as a key, since the outer part of the ignition lock lay on the passenger-side floorboard, as I later found out...anyway, after a new water pump, four brake shoes and calipers, and some new brake fluid, it came alive and I used it to work at the fair last summer. And then it sat...for nine months.

But I came back and it still works! Once I got out the febreeze and baby wipes (left over from my illegitimate child of uncertain ethnicity, patrick, since you ask :P) it's almost a normal car...if you can ignore that it has the body of an '82 Accord hatchback...so I can drive my little manual crapcar again, and Kat can learn how to handle a stick. :O She just has to remember to be gentle, and it will respond...


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All done! Ok, college's been done for a few weeks already...ok try more than a month. But for two weeks thereafter, I was kidnapped by the crappy schedule of an Alaskan trucker, complete with beerbelly, and didn't get home til the beginning of July. Kat got home from Japan before I did. How sad is that?

After hanging out with my family in Tacoma for 5 days after I got out of college, I got a call from Trucker Mike - his expected load down in Seattle hadn't materialized and the only thing his broker was able to procure was down in...Stockton, CA! Hmm, wrong direction, but I hadn't been through Oregon before and didn't want to be a burden on my Grandma for food, since she doesn't have loads of money, so I said "sure, let's go!" and started my trip home by heading south.

En route to Alaska I found out that Oregon is really beautiful in some places, even on I-5, and California has rice paddies. Who knew? Oh, and they also have these huge stretches of sand colored nothing, and then a random compound of stamped out houses will pop up behind a sound-barrier wall a few hundred yards off the interstate, and then it goes back to nothing. Where are the trees? But cali has Mount Shasta on its side (right by Oregon/the state of Jefferson) so I can't be too disappointed. It's a beautiful mountain.

We made it down to Stockton in two days, I think, so Trucker Mike could get a load of plants/trees to take back up to WA, and that's damn quick. Mmm this is a great sandwich. We killed some time down there, watched The Italian Job and Matrix 2 back to back (mind numbing), ran away from the heat back to WA, and then wasted time (for 5 days...) til he got a load of....boxes...to take to Alaska. So two weeks after escaping from Seattle, I was back in Ballard, finally getting to go home.

Once we got on the road it was beautiful and we made really good time. It really only takes 3 days to drive through Canadia and down through Alaska to where the people are, since most of the road is paved and we didn't really care about the speed limit. I randomly checked on my grades from a cafe in the middle-of-nowhere Yukon and figured out I need to study for my physics class next quarter if I want to survive it and organic chem at the same time, so there's my summer for you. :-/

Right after the cafe we went through Canadian exiting customs (didn't have to stop) and 20 mi later had to go through Alaskan customs. Why are they so far apart? Don't ask me, but I'm claiming the land in between as my own. Since I'm not 19 and didn't have a note from my daddy saying I could go to Canadia, getting into the damn country required me having to go through immigration, which was fun, but getting back into Alaska was easier.

I was so happy once we got on the Alaskan side (though it's no different than the Canadian side...) because I was that much closer to home and my own bed. Whenever we were on the road Mike and I were sleeping head-to-toe in the sleeper compartment behind the cab...in sleeping bags...and I wanted my own bed. Sadly, all my built-up excitement once we reached Glennallen that I was getting close (read: only a few hundred miles) to home was crushed when we turned south to Valdez to deliver the stupid load of...boxes.

For non-Alaskans: Valdez, while nice, pungent, and technically closer to home than Glennallen, offers only three ways to get to Wasilla; boat, plane, or back up through Glennallen and down a different road.

So at 7pm on June 30 I was sitting in the office of a fish processing plant (that needed boxes, evidently) talking to the parenthood on the phone, realizing that a) I wasn't going to get home until 1 or 2am, as it's at least 6 hours from Valdez to Wasilla, and b) that it really would be July before I got home.

But Mike doesn't deserve all the crap I've said about trucks since the trip ended, because he was awesome as far as truckers go (i'm guessing, since I don't know any others). He put up with me for the whole time, and let me play my music in lieu of country part of the time. He also offered to take me down in the fall if I have too much crap to take on the plane. And he paid for most of my meals on the road, refusing to let me cover even my part. Pretty nice. I just don't understand how they can just sit and drive for so long. Anyway, I got home on July 1 at 2:30am (because they're blowing up part of the mountainside at Caribou Creek) and the rest is for another day.


About me

  • Homebase Madison, Wisconsin
  • I was raised in Alaska, am the shortest person in my family, and I can wiggle my ears.
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