By Jim Stone
It’s been a crazy week it rained so hard that there were huge landslides that covered most of the roads. Us dogs are stranded for a while. Alaska is such an amazing show of Mother Nature. She’s very beautiful but can unleash some pretty wild weather conditions. Most days I worry more about bears and wolves but now landslides and mice. Yup mice are a big threat in the wilderness. I think they’re bionic. They can jump 3 feet in the air, out run an eagle and would win a game of hide and go seek every time. They invaded my truck one late night. I could hear them under the hood so I got a broom handle and tried to spear them. I was doing pretty good till my flashlight went out.
The next day my whole computer system was out. It would take 2 ferry boats to ship the truck
to a place that could fix it and way too expensive for my budget. Really all I
need is for the truck to run and the heater working because e us dogs are living
in the truck through the winter on an island in the middle of Alaska. I think
this has been one of the most challenging things I've ever done in my life it’s
been such a wild adventure. Maybe it's a midlife crisis.
So I made some mouse traps for under the hood and in the bed
of the truck, it was mouse after mouse I stopped counting how many there were.
It was bizarre; the little mice could jump on the bumper then off the tailgate
right into the back of my truck.
One dark night I was reading the owner’s manual trying to
figure out how to fix the truck. I
started pushing buttons, checking fuses and unhooked the battery. Pretty much everything
the book suggested.
Nothing worked I’ve
got OnStar in the truck, normally when you push the button a nice person comes
on the radio to help, but that didn't work either. So I pushed another button,
it flickered a little bit but still nothing.
So I crawled in my sleeping bag and was just about asleep.
About an hour later I heard sirens and woke up to flashing
red and blue lights with search lights lighting up the whole truck.
I had pushed the SOS button witch goes to a satellite than
dispatches the search and rescue and police department. I was in the middle of
nowhere on a logging road surrounded by wilderness and they found me. It was
freaking crazy. The police were so nice;
I had two guns on my dashboard that they saw. Their reply was “we are just glad
you’re ok and you've got a gun just in case you need it.
One of the policemen invited us dogs over for a hot meal and
gave us a phone number if we ever needed something. If they couldn't have gotten to where we were
by truck there would have been a Coast Guard helicopter in flight to help us. It
made me feel a lot safer to know that if something bad happens as long as I
could push that SOS button that help is on the way.
It wasn't funny at the time, but now I think it’s pretty
funny that something as small as a mouse could become such an issue living wild
in Alaska. Us dogs are off on another adventure this week. We all hope you guys are doing awesome. I’ve
almost given up a few times and just said “let's go home” but us dogs wake up
in the morning and think it’s a new day. Let's live the best life we can let’s
go on an adventure together. All of us dogs are sending all of you guys the
biggest smile we can send, sometimes when we leave our comfort zone and go on
an adventure big or small, .it just brings a big smile full of life long
memories.
