The Homesteader family lives off-the-grid in northern Southeast Alaska. Living off the land and sea, we grow, gather, hunt and fish most of our food.
Urged by family and friends to share our experiences, we have turned to the Blogosphere to begin that process.
To preserve our privacy, we are identified only as father Hunter, mother Gardener, and teenaged daughter, Apprentice.
Each member of the family submits articles and blog entries if and when they have something to say. (Hunter)
As luck would have it, we got a second chance on that misdirected Christmas card after all.
We returned to town on December 30th, and checked our mail. Only after we had hiked home and started opening our Christmas cards did I see that the stack included the very same card we’d sent away on December 13th! Gardener pointed out that I had neglected to mark out the Post Office bar codes at the bottom of the envelope. We had checked the mail at least once between the 13th and the 30th, so we know the card left town, then “boomeranged” back to our mailbox!
Luckily, we had to go to town again the next morning. Apprentice and I went out and took photos of her holding the card, one from our front yard with a view of the mountains across the water in the background, and one in front of the town's "welcome sign". We then handed it to our Postal clerk, who saw to it that it was mailed properly this time. He pointed out that the code directed it to our Zip Code, but a different mailbox. The intended recipient's “plus 4,” 1316, is the same as our box number, giving us the same plus 4. That and our daughter name being close to the first name of the recipient are the only similarities. He marked out the barcode, then turned it over and marked out the corresponding fluorescent bar code on the other side—we forgot about that one. The card could have come back a third time!
We trust that the proper person has received the card by now. If not, who knows where it might be off to?
We wrote a letter explaining how far the card had come, and will send it to the sender and recipient, along with copies of the photos the next time we go in to town.
This card, sent from Sanford, Maine, was supposed to reach Glendora, New Jersey, 333 miles away. Instead, it traveled 2870 miles to Alaska! Ignoring all the extra travel it must have experienced, it logged at least 5,770 miles to reach Glendora from Sanford, more than 17 times the distance it should have gone!
If I had known that the Powers That Be intended to grant my wish at a second chance, I would have sought to change some situation other than this particular one. However, we got a lot of satisfaction from being able to send word to the folks on the east coast after all.