The Cabin

It's hard to write about what the cabin showed me this summer. No matter how I sit here, thinking about my phrasing, it all sounds silly. For me, it was really good to be away from the so-called comforts of city life in the Lower 48. Yet I was in a city. It was just a slightly different lifestyle, without many of the creature comforts that many Americans take for granted. You know what? I really didn't miss any of those comforts enough to make me want to change my living quarters. And in fact, my cell phone rang so much it annoyed me. The days I was on the road north of Fairbanks - and out of cell service range - were peaceful and anticipated.

The cabin looks like it's full of junk. Those boxes in front are paperwork from the project, and I was thankful that Lisa and Amy put up with the boxes all summer - I really had no where else to store stuff. Amy slept on the couch in the background, and I slept upstairs in the loft. When Lisa was in town, she threw her sleepingbag on the floor next to the couch.

Most of the people I know have no lack of running water. Yet this summer, I had just that - the cabin was dry and we had to plan time into our schedules to bring water home. In the picture above, you can see the blue water jug at the sink. We had 4 of those 5-gallon, 40-pound jugs - 2 for the house itself and one each for me and Lisa to travel with (although while in town, all four were used at home). We spent, I'd estimate, less than $20 on our water the whole summer. But the cost savings wasn't really the big deal. It was the conscious planning about water - and the lifestyle that a prolonged stay in a dry cabin produce - that was the deal.

Amy and I tried a little garden in front of the cabin. At the time of the picture, everything was still small. Truthfully, the garden didn't get as much attention - at least from me - as it should have gotten. If I ever get the chance to go back and do this again, I'd like to try another garden, and plan it out from the beginning. I should have taken a picture of this space at the end of the summer. It was a tangle of huge proportion - the tomato plant, complete with lots of green tomatoes, looked as though it would take over the world.

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