This story has several crucial ingredients: A casual suggestion. A pandemic. A career change. A Netflix Series. And some shower thoughts.
I'm convinced Newton didn't come up with the theory of gravity when an apple fell on his head -- it was while he was standing under a nice warm shower. I can't substantiate that claim, but still. Shower thoughts are not to be messed with. You'll see what I mean.
Rewind to about a month and a half ago and the first ingredient in this life concoction. Our friend Jeff (@frozentrident on Instagram) flippantly threw the idea out that if we wanted to come try out living in Alaska, his cabin would be open to rent in a month. Daniel and I talked about it for all of 32 seconds, decided that we just weren't in the right place, and put the idea on hold.
A couple weeks later, I started working for a new company. The Corona-COVID-19-Pandemic-Palooza 2020 was showing the world that it was completely possible to be a productive human employee while sitting at your kitchen table wearing pajamas. So there are ingredients two and three in the mix.
At this point, the stage is set and the pump is primed and all of those other stupid sayings for some serious life changes. All that was needed to tip the scales . . . was Netflix.
Daniel and I started to watch Win the Wilderness (ingredient four, if you're keeping track) -- a story about a couple living in Alaska who were searching for a younger couple to pass their homestead on to now that it was time for them to leave their remote tract of land. We love Alaska. It's beautiful and scary and wild and empty and thrilling. One night after binging Win the Wilderness pretty heavily, we added the final ingredient to the mix: shower thoughts.
I can't recall the conversation exactly, but mid-shampoo and condition routine, it went something like this:
"Would you ever want to live in Alaska?"
"Yeah, I think so. It would be a big change."
"Definitely. But we might really like it . . ."
"Hmmm . . . let's just see what kind of homes are for sale up there."
We were up until 2AM on the Realtor and Zillow apps finding each and every noteworthy property in the state. We got excited about the prospect of this life-changing move, and if you know anything about us, when we get an idea . . . well, that's generally what ends up happening. Law of Attraction and all that.
The very next day, I called up the CEO of the company I had just started working for and proposed that I continue working remotely (thanks to the pandemic for proving that this is a feasible option) . . . from Alaska. He agreed, and we had the blessing to start planning our insane scheme for reals.
Within 10 days from those shower thoughts, we had listed both of our properties here in Virginia Beach, were under contract on a home outside of Fairbanks, Alaska sight-unseen (thanks to our friends Jeff and Jeri for doing a FaceTime tour for us), and had dove deep into the process of uprooting our lives.
We told some friends and family. They thought we were insane, but they weren't surprised. After all, we got married in Vegas five months after we met while Daniel was still a Royal Marine Commando living in England. So yeah, we have a record of being nuts.
So there you have it. A pandemic, Netflix series, and some shower thoughts changed our lives. We'll see what happens next!
Now there's just one thing to do: North to Alaska.