Packing List - Ten lbs of stuff in a Five lbs Bag

I always equate the start of the moving process to the opening kickoff in a football game.  The whole thing is theoretical, just a pile of expectations, until you’re running down the field and BAM!, you’re looking out the earhole of your helmet.  Up to this point, the move has been a philosophical exercise wrapped in assumption.  Fact:  Today I dropped off our Toyota RAV4 in St. Louis with American Auto Transport, which is the contractor that ships personal vehicles for military and other government employees.  The move is now firmly planted in the land of reality.  This certainly lights a fire under all the tasks we need to accomplish in the next two weeks.  Only six days until they are boxing up our things.

Sitting in the Lambert – St. Louis International Airport without Wifi (you have to pay to play here in the St. Louis airport), I have some overdue quiet time to reflect on our plan and start pairing what we need to take with how we’ll take it.  Starting broad, four main categories define the “things” we will take on the trip as opposed to shipping with a moving company.  Movers will ship the majority of our stuff, but we will have to pack several things ourselves.  The list of items that we will take with us is broken into four logical categories including 1) things needed for our vacation, 2) belongings we’ll need between when we move into our house on Fort Wainwright and when the movers come, 3) required items to complete the flight, and 4) miscellaneous things that the moving company won’t move.  The overall purpose for preparing this section is to help us organize what we need to separate before the movers pack it.  If it is helpful or entertaining for you as the reader, then bonus!

There are only three means for taking needed items with us.  They can either go in the airplane, in the car, or by mail.  Each method has its limitations, which forms the overall limits to how much we can bring.  The car, a 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid, is limited by space.  With four seats filled, the car will be constrained primarily by trunk space.  The cost of mailing is limiting or even prohibitive making it a last resort.  A couple, single-use items are candidates for shipping such as my dress uniform, our dress clothes from Paige’s graduation, and uniforms that I’ll need when we arrive.  The airplane has a good deal of space, but is limited by weight.  We’ll revisit those limitations after forming our initial packing list.

One of the more obvious packing list categories is all the clothes and personal items that a family would typically take on vacation.  Essentially, we will be on vacation for about a month.  Some specific things to consider are:

-        Summer clothes for Kansas and Florida

-        Bathing suits

-        A dress outfit for Paige’s graduation

-        My dress uniform for the graduation in Kansas

-        Comfortable clothing for Alaska (little heavier than the Florida clothes to account for the cool nights)

-        My uniforms to start back to work on Fort Wainwright (This includes uniforms, limited field gear, and my flight helmet)

-        Work clothes for Liz when she starts her job at BLM on 1 July (granted, she’s going to work as an environmental health and safety expert with the Bureau of Land Management.  She’s gonna be in a granola faction of an earthy-crunchy organization.  I suspect Keen sandals will be a mandatory dress code item.  For those not familiar,  Keens are to the post 2010 earthy-crunchy community what Crocs were to the 2000s, Birkenstocks to the 90’s, and Tevas to the 80’s.  However, I digress.)

-        Toiletries

-        Medicines

-        Hair stuff for the girls

-        Diapers

-        Wipes

It’s important to digress again for a second and explain how our household goods move will work.  Our belongings will get loaded on the mover’s truck on 29 June.  Because we won’t have an address designated on Fort Wainwright until we arrive, our goods will be shipped to Fairbanks and placed in temporary storage.  Additionally, our goods probably won’t reach Fairbanks until after we arrive in late June.  Once the shipment does arrive, we will still have to wait for a local mover to deliver the crates to our house.  The lag between our arrival and our household good delivery could extend as long as two months.  That’s two months on air mattresses.  That’s us enjoying the summer until late August with whatever we can bring with us.  That really stresses packing enough socks and underwear!

A couple boxes/bags of the following items will help us sustain until our property arrives:

-        Air mattresses (Liz and I have a queen mattress, and each of the kids has their own in kids size)

-        Air mattress pump

-        Pillows

-        Linen

-        Declan’s kid tent/mattress

-        Towels

-        A kitchen box with essentials

-        Measuring cup

-        Can opener

-        Small bowls

-        Wok type pot with lid

-        Camping flatware

-        Plates

-        A sharp knife

-        Small cutting board

-        Kitchen shears

-        Ziplocs

-        A couple of Tupperware’s

The flight and drive to Alaska comes with several distinct requirements.  Among the items required for the flight are survival equipment, maintenance items and tools, and flight publications.  The challenge with carrying all the necessary items in the airplane is weight.  5XV has an empty weight of 2074 lbs.  This is the weight of the airplane and all the permanently installed equipment.  This does not include fuel, oil, people, and baggage.  The maximum allowable weight, called the maximum gross weight, is 3,600 lbs.  After filling up with 88 gallons of 100LL fuel and packing three adults and one pip-squeak in, we will have 366 lbs. remaining.  Removing one of the third row seats will gain us 11 lbs. and space farther forward in the cabin.  This is significantly more weight than most small airplanes could handle, but we will probably still run up against this constraint if we’re not careful.

Alaska’s state regulation, AS 02.35.110 lists several items of survival equipment that small airplanes must carry.  The list includes:

-        Rations for each occupant for one week        (A butt load of Mountain House meals)

-        An axe or hatchet                                                (check)

-        First aid kit                                                            (check)

-        Fishing tackle                                                       (check)

-        Knife                                                                      (check)

-        Fire Starter                                                           (check)

-        Mosquito head net per occupant                    (only have two, need more)

-        Two signaling devices                                        (road flares and laser signaling device)

Although not mandatory, I will take several spare parts, service items, and tools with me.  I change the airplane’s oil every 25 hours of operation.  Crunching the numbers, this means that I’ll have to change the oil on the fuel stop between Grimes Field in Ohio and International Peace Garden.  This process takes a couple hours and I can carry everything I need in a 5-gallon bucket.  The items that make up my oil change kit are listed below:

-        5-Gallon bucket

-        Flathead for the cowling

-        My specially cut half bucket to catch oil from the filter

-        Champion CH48109-1 oil filter

-        1” socket

-        1” socket handle

-        Oil filter cutting tool

-        Razor to cut the filter element out of its assembly

-        Magnet (just in case)

-        Zip Lock for the filter

-        Safety wire

-        Safety wire pliers

-        Tubing to drain oil

-        Blackstone oil sample kit

-        Funnel

-        Shop towels

-        Prepared label for the write-up

There are several flight planning and navigation tools that I need to conduct the flight across the U.S. and Canada.  Electronic charts and aviation planning publications on the iPad sure does cut down the list (and weight) of paper that I’ve got to carry.  Running Foreflight on the ipad with a Second Generation Stratus ADS-B receiver provides me a pseudo moving map display with weather along much of the U.S. portion of the route.  Canadian charts for flying VFR (outside the clouds) are not yet digitized, so I’ll have to tear those off the walls and pack them in the plane.  The following list lays out all the things I’ll need for the flight:

-        iPad

-        iPad charger (AC and DC)

-        Stratus receiver

-        Headsets (Two Bose X and the Davie Clark head vices.  I wish they rented Bose/Lightspeed headsets.)

-        Canadian visual flight rules (VFR) navigation charts (VNCs)

-        Canadian supplement

-        Alaska supplement

-        Alaska charts

-        Special trucker’s cap (you gotta look right to perform right)

The last packing list group specifically needed to accomplish the drive/flight, and arguably the most important, is the bag of things that the kids need to pass the time.  You can only entertain a four year old with mountain scenery for so long.   This list certainly isn’t exhaustive and grows at the whim of said four year old:

-        DVD players

-        DVD cases stocked with DVDs

-        Books

-        Workbooks (coloring, maze, etc.)

-        Ziplocs (for the occasional motion sickness)

-        Wipes (see above)

-        Small pillows

-        Snacks

Lastly, there are things that we must take because the movers aren’t allowed to or it would just be smarter for us to take.  An example of items the movers won’t take includes chemicals, perishable foods, candles, and batteries.  It is obviously smarter to take items like important papers, medical records, the airplane logbooks, my flight records, computer, and cameras than to send them with the movers. 

So, we established a plan that we won’t stick to and a packing list that we don’t have room to pack.  Sounds like things are coming together.  The challenge is that everything so far is relatively easy compared to the actual muscle movement necessary to separate these items before the movers start packing on Thursday.  Oh, yeah.  I almost forgot that our time will be split between putting together this list of items, finishing school work, completing the airplane annual, Liz’s last week of work, and Brayden’s last week of school.   More to follow later this week as the movers complete packing and we head out to Gaston’s for the OK18 supercub.org fly-in for the Memorial Day weekend.

Trip Planning - The futile necessity

A common theme resonates from trip reports of the flight from the lower 48 to Alaska.  It is necessary to plan, but you’ll never follow it.  Weather is the determining factor when it comes to actually flying each day’s legs, and you can’t be wed to your plan.  Make no mistake, you do have to start with a plan.  Pink highlighter on a chart or an electronic magenta line on the iPad has a certain gravity that’s required to keep you moving in a generally productive direction.

How does one know that I’m planning a trip across Canada to Alaska?  Aviation charts virtually cover the walls of our office/guest room depicting all of the contiguous U.S. (referred to in Alaska as the lower 48), Canada, and Alaska.  Charts are the aviation equivalent to maps, with aviation specific markings to assist pilots.  In total, charts of some type cover 78 square feet of the room’s walls.  Twenty-six feet of varying colored highlighter mark the different routes across the U.S. and Canadian Territories.

I’ve used several sources to plan the trip.  Online aviation forums are peppered with the question, “How do I get information about the flight to Alaska?”  The resounding answer is to get a copy of the Alaska Airmen’s Association Logbook.  The Alaska Airmen’s Association is an aviation advocacy group for pilots and the aviation industry in Alaska.  The Logbook is an aviation version of the Alaska travel planner atlas, The Milepost, and chronicles the different routes to and in Alaska.  In great detail, the Logbook explains sights, airports, attractions, hazards, and considerations along several popular routes.  A great deal of the book discusses the exact flight that we plan to take, which follows the Alaska-Canada Highway across Canada to Fairbanks, Alaska.  Although not an official publication to use while flying, I consider the Alaska Airmen’s Association Logbook one of the most essential publications before starting this journey.  Unfortunately, it is no longer in print and copies are difficult to come by.

Many other references have been helpful while planning the route and logistics of the trip.  The aviation forums, backcountrypilot.org and supercub.org are a treasure trove of knowledge with several trip reports from those that accomplished this flight before.  One of the challenges of the trip is negotiating the U.S./Canadian border.  I was able to hash out the requirements/procedures for crossing through an articles (membership required) on the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) website, the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) website, and tutorials on the Canada Border Services Agency website.  Per those requirements, I now have the radio station and radio operator license (though I’m told the Canadian’s have never asked for it), my illustrious CBP sticker, and have registered for an Electronic Advanced Passenger’s Information System (EAPIS).  EAPIS is an additional step to border crossings into and out of the U.S. requiring you to declare the passengers that you are carrying in a web-based system well before making the crossing.

Using these resources, we have sketched out a pseudo plan.  The flight from Fort Leavenworth’s Sherman Army Airfield (KFLV) to Albert Whited Airport (KSPG) in St. Petersburg on 1 June is straightforward enough.  The airplane and I are both certified/qualified to fly either IFR (instrument flight rules or in the clouds) or VFR (visual flight rules flying using references outside the airplane).  Either way, I’ll split the flight into two segments with a fuel stop in Northwest Alabama or Northeast Mississippi.  Having made the Alabama and Florida portion of this flight several times, I’ll fly to Tallahassee and Cross City to stay overland around the "armpit" of Florida's Panhandle.  Albert Whitted Airport is a picturesque little airport with two runways that both jut out into Tampa Bay.  Most approaches bring you in next to the downtown Pier and offer great sights.

The plan once we depart St. Petersburg on 16 or 17 June is a great deal more nebulous.  The following outlines our initial strategy with a short explanation for why each stop was chosen.  For the non-pilot types following, the three or four character code in parenthesis is the airport identifier.  This is used to enter airports into navigation equipment and during communications.

This displays the general route overview from St. Petersburg, FL to Fairbanks, AK.  The sections below detail this route.

St. Petersburg’s Albert Whitted Airport (KSGP) to Macon County Airport (1A5) in Franklin, NC.  Uncle Norris owns a house in Franklin.  A 3-hour route, I thought this would be a good start after dropping the women off at Tampa International for their flight to Kansas City.

Macon County Airport (1A5) to Grimes Field (I74) in Urbana, OH.  My brother is attending Law School in Dayton and we can’t fly this direction without stopping in to see him.  I chose Grimes field based on a suggestion from one of those crazy Ohio Bush Pilots.  They frequent several of the online forums that I follow.  By going to Grimes, we’ll be able to meet up with some folks, visit my brother, maybe tour the museum on the field, and have a terrific piece of pie at the Airport Café.

Grimes Field (I74) to International Peace Garden (S28).  International Peace Garden straddles the U.S., Canadian border 11 miles north of Dunseith, ND.  I chose this border crossing for three reasons.  First, this was conveniently on our route to Edmonton.  Second, this put us close to where the girls will be crossing the border for a possible meet.  Lastly, I’ve seen recent trip reports that suggest this is a pretty easy border crossing with 24-hour Canadian customs service during the time period that we are passing through.  This actually represents two legs with an undetermined fuel stop because of the distance between Grimes and International Peace Garden.  We’ll plan the fuel stop when the trip gets closer.

International Peace Garden (S28) to Edmonton City Center (CYXD).  This is a four-hour leg.  The stops through Canada are still under negotiations depending on what sights the passengers want to see. Edmonton is the right distance to put some mileage behind us and has a lot to see.

Edmonton City Center (CYXD) to Fort Nelson, BC (CYYE).  At just over three hours, this leg is based solely off the leg’s duration.  It’s long enough to make progress without exceeding any bladder limitations.  A stop at Fort Nelson also splits the distance between Edmonton and Whitehorse into manageable segments.

Fort Nelson, BC (CYYE) to Whitehorse / Erik Nielsen International Airport (CYXY) in Whitehorse, Yukon.  Who can do this trip without stopping at Whitehorse to see the DC-3 as a weathervane?!  This is also a great spot to setup for the last leg or two into Northway or Fairbanks.

Whitehorse (CYXY) to Fairbanks International Airport (PAFA).  Our final destination will be the East Ramp on Fairbanks International Airport.  This is where the general aviation airplanes are kept on the field.  Rows, and rows, and rows of general aviation airplanes.  We'll have to make a decision on this leg whether to stop at Northway, AK (PAOR) enroute to Fairbanks.  Although It is not necessary to stop at the first airport once crossing the border, the first stop you make has to be an “airport of entry” with customs services.  You are also required to predict your arrival time within a relatively narrow window, so a shorter leg into the airport of entry is preferred.  Northway is an “airport of entry”, but doesn’t have customs on the field.  When you arrange for customs services, the agents drive over from the border to meet you. Because of this, they have limited hours.  Fairbanks customs is always open, but the longer flight makes time management a challenge.  Decisions, decisions.

This whole process could take us as little as 3-4 days, but more likely, it will take 5 before accounting for weather delays and sight-seeing.  Total flight time is computed to be 26 hours.

Changing gears, the girls will be driving from Kansas City to Fort Wainwright.  They expect to start the journey on 17 June after flying commercial from Tampa to Kansas City on 16 June.  There is not a great deal to report on their route.  My mom has been busy plotting national parks to get our parks passports stamped and of course, Geocaches.  It would be a shame to make that drive without adding some new Geocache states and Canada to her already impressive portfolio.  There was also discussion of learning a language during the drive.  The possibilities discussed were Chinese, Japanese, and Dutch.  In the end, my older brother has a tape series for Spanish, so aprender español it is. 

I’ll revisit the planned segments in the introduction to each leg’s report.  It will certainly be interesting to compare what I’ve planned with what we actually fly/drive.  We will also have SPOT Messengers in both the airplane and the car.  These are handy little devices that send GPS position and prearranged messages such as “911” (alerts authorities you need emergency assistance), “Help” (tells someone you designate that you need assistance), and “OK” (tells someone you choose that you’re doing fine).  An additional feature valuable for our trip is the “track progress” function.  When activated, the feature transmits the device’s location every 10 minutes providing a trail of “bread crumbs” that will depict our route.  This feature is extremely valuable on a trip like this, because the actual journey rarely follows the plan, and difference often provides the best memories.

Prologue - Setting the stage for our trip

This trip’s background is as circuitous as the route we expect to take.  I am an active duty member of the Army currently stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  My wife, Liz, and I found out in December 2012 that we were being assigned to Fort Wainwright, AK.  This was very exciting news.  We thoroughly enjoyed a previous assignment to Alaska from 2005 to 2009.  It was during this tour that two of our three children were born. It was also in Alaska that we purchased our first plane, a 1953 Cessna 180, and I learned to fly.

In an effort to frame the trip, I should start with some of the facts.   Liz, our three children (Brayden – 7, Carly – 4, and Declan – 1), and I are moving from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to Fort Wainwright, Alaska.  We have to move out of our house on Fort Leavenworth and move all of our things, including our two cars and our airplane, to Fort Wainwright.  Liz and I are originally from Florida and our families are still in our hometowns. Since Alaska is quite far for our families to travel, we will be stopping in Florida enroute to see them before moving. In addition, my daughter from a previous marriage will be graduating from high school.  My father, mother, and Uncle Norris will be accompanying us on the journey, partly for assistance and partly to participate in the adventure.  

The following dates drive the requirements of our trip:

-        5 June – My daughter, Paige’s, graduation from high school in Tampa, Florida

-        14 June – My graduation from an Army school at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

-        1 July – Liz’s first day of work with BLM on Fort Wainwright.

-        6 July – My report date to Fort Wainwright

Anyone who has moved understands the mixture of excitement and anxiety that controls your emotions during the process.  Our preparation for this move is no different.  Our excitement at moving back to Alaska is tempered by the anxiety of planning all the parts of the move.  To simplify the many tasks, I’ve broken them into five main efforts:

-        Pack and ship our household goods

-        Visit family in Florida and attend my daughter’s high school graduation

-        Attend my own graduation from an Army school at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

-        Liz and the girls driving to Alaska

-        Flying the Stationaire to Alaska with my dad, son, and uncle

Movers will pack our household belongings on 23, 24, and 28 May.  They load the truck on the 29th, and we move out of our on-base house on 31 May.  Tucked tightly in and around this timeline, we are attending the supercub.org fly-in at Gaston’s over Memorial Day weekend and departing Fort Leavenworth on 1 June for Florida.  One additional muscle movement involved in the move is shipping one of our cars.  The government ships one of our vehicles on contract transport.  There are select locations around the country to drop the vehicle off, called vehicle-processing centers.  The closest vehicle-processing center is in St. Louis.  To ensure we have something to drive when we arrive in Fairbanks, I’ll ship our Toyota RAV4 on 17 May.  It will arrive by 17 June and be picked up by a good friend.  If all goes according to plan, it will be sitting in our parking spot on the East Ramp at Fairbanks International when we arrive.

This leads to the journey’s actual beginning.  Through the month of June, I will be travelling with a combination of family from Fort Leavenworth, KS to St. Petersburg, FL, then to Fairbanks, AK.  I’ll attempt to explain the trip’s combination of legs, methods, and family members, but referring to the diagram below might explain it better.  Liz, the kids, and I depart Fort Leavenworth on 1 June for St. Petersburg/Tampa in the airplane.  The only thing we will leave at Leavenworth is our Toyota Camry.  During the first week in Florida, we are taking the kids to Disney and attending Paige’s graduation.  I travel back to Leavenworth via commercial airline from 9 to 14 June.  Liz, Carly, Declan, and my mom depart Tampa on 16 June via airline to Kansas City.  From there, they will drive the Camry up the AL/CAN highway to Fairbanks.  I depart Florida with Brayden, my dad, and my uncle Norris.  We are flying the airplane from Tampa to Fairbanks.  There are sketchy plans for the guys and girls to meet up along the route.  We might also make a stop in Ohio to visit my brother.

Hopefully this graphical representation of our move will help clear up who is riding in what and to where.

 Our “airsheen”, as CloudDancer would call it in his CloudDancer Alaska Chronicles, is a 1979 Cessna U206G.  For those not familiar with small airplanes, this is a six-seat, single piston-engine, fixed landing gear airplane with the wings over the cabin (referred to as high-wing).  We purchased 5XV in 2011 as an upgrade from the four-seat that I learned to fly in Alaska.  We simply exceeded the seat to butt ratio between the airplane and our family.  I have two years and just over 200 hours figuring out this newer, larger airplane.  The craft is more than capable for the trip with a 310 HP Continental IO-550 engine, 88 usable gallons of fuel, two instrument flight rules (IFR) certified GPSs, engine monitor, short takeoff and landing (STOL) kit, 406 ELT, and Reiff engine preheater.  I’m slightly concerned about damage from gravel at some of the airports along the way and once we reach Alaska.  Although I’m familiar with all the techniques to prevent this, there is always the chance of dinging the prop or kicking a stone up into the tail.  This doesn’t limit what I do, but I still want to keep her as nice as I can.

This is "5XV", our Cessna Stationaire.

 The remaining chapters of this log will detail our trek starting with the departure from Leavenworth on 1 June.  My intent is twofold.  Primarily, I intend to document the journey for the sake of our family.  This is sure to be a monumental trip with memories around almost every bend.  Secondly, I hope to journal details of the trip to help anyone else that plans to do the same.  Now is as good a point as any to inform you that I’m not a writer.  Surely, you’ve already figured this out.  I’ve spent my entire adult life in the Army.  Thus, I write in a direct and concise manner.  I’m also a relatively inexperienced pilot.  I’ve been flying Army helicopters since 2002, but I didn’t start flying airplanes until 2007.  Even then, my abilities as a pilot caused my instructor to laugh uncontrollably at me during pattern training.  Hopefully we can all look past my poor writing and exceptionally mediocre flying skills to harvest some memories and value from the experience.