In our last blog we wrote about fully living the remote Alaskan life, quiet and away from the world. But what happens when we break our winter’s isolation, even just for a trip to Kodiak, not a city by any means, just an 8,000-ish person town?

In two words: Culture Shock.

Simply walking into a grocery store can be quite the experience when you’ve been in the bush for so long. The heavy sensory overload with all the colors and options all at once can be jarring. It’s not just the people; it’s also the artificial lighting jangling your nerves, the wealth of choices demanding your attention, the advertising begging to be read, the smells from the bakery, floral department, Starbucks, the deli. Tollef often volunteers to shop so Adelia can avoid the stress, but he’s not unaffected either. All this can cause us to feel like we’re wandering the store in a kind of zombie-like fog bank stupor, causing us to do things like forget the first and most important item on the grocery list.

Even though it’s a small town, everything feels fast. For a moment or two when you first get in a car after only walking or taking a slow boat or skiff for months, you get this little momentary rush at the speed and smoothness of that mode of transport, even if the vehicle is only going 30 mph. Very quickly your senses adjust, but the first heartbeat-length of travel on pavement versus rough water brings back a childlike glimpse of wonder.

Being in a real house, especially at night, with its modern noises – the boiler rumbling, swoosh of tires on wet pavement of the cars going by, various electronics doing their things – can make sleeping, even with earplugs in, a challenge. Not that it is silent here at home; we’ve always got something talking to us, from wind to waves to wood fire crackling, from rooster crowing (as he is now) to water pump running – it’s just that the town sounds are different and take some getting used to.

The culture shock we feel is probably exacerbated by packing our visits to town with massive to-do lists in a short time frame (gotta get home!). But at the same time, we are perhaps more appreciative of what we can do in little old Kodiak than if we lived there full time. As we are running hither and yon accomplishing some errand or another, stocking up on every last item we can think of to get through the next few months, from food to hardware to lumber, we’ll stop to get a coffee at one of our favorite spots or check out the offerings at the latest food truck for a lunch one day, savoring eating something that we didn’t personally make from scratch. Making use of telephone service to take care of all the things that have needed it in the past 6 months is a big part of the “town” to-do list, but it’s also great to FINALLY be able to hear the voices of friends and relatives we’ve missed, being without phone service. It’s a whirlwind of our own creating and we get through it by knowing that it is our choice to live this way, and soon enough we will be heading back out to the peace of home. Having that to look forward to allows us to just dig in and go-go-go while in town.

The trip home in a slow, loaded skiff gives us time to shed the jittery “what’s next” mentality of town and breathe more deeply into the longer, slower wavelength of bush living. On our recent homeward journey our load included our dog, just neutered and still tender, being pampered with cushy beds and towels out of the wind by our feet; two apple tree seedlings which we picked up on the way from other homesteader types and secured under a tarp for the ride; tanks upon tanks of gasoline; totes of food; a hodge-podge of other things; and ourselves wrapped in our many many winter layers. It was unseasonably warm at about 40 degrees, but still very raw when it’s a high-humidity environment and you’re standing in the open going 24 miles an hour with the wind blowing through you for the three plus hours it takes to get home. Actually it took us longer because we were going slowly for the sake of the pup and the apple trees. But with enough clothes on and calm weather, it became a time of meditation and recalibration. Watching the pearly gray waters undulating underneath us, stretching our eyes to the far-off horizons, slowing down the thought processes, all felt so calming.

Once home, it always takes a couple days to completely reverse the culture shock. Coming home is a bit of a merry go round, getting resettled. This time, we had to walk our kitchen basil plant home a mile through snowy woods from our nearest neighbor’s sunny window where we left it so it wouldn’t freeze while we were gone. The lettuce starts we took a gamble on before we left were actually doing quite well in a different neighbor’s greenhouse, so we also toted those through the wintery paths, chuckling at carrying fragile green starts through such a landscape. After everything was unloaded, carried up the beach, unpacked and stashed, we finally felt like life had returned to normal. And really, as in all travel, doesn’t a big part of the enjoyment of it stem from the fact that it gives a heightened appreciation of home in the end?

Hmmm, is the basil undergoing culture shock too?