It’s cold in the mornings. Travis wakes before the sun is done coming up, when its rays start splintering through our windows scratching at our eyes. “Get up! Get up!” The sun is saying. Travis pokes me a couple of times, realizes I am quite content to stay in bed, and kisses me goodbye. I sleep another hour; he heads outside.
There is the quiet barking at first. One dog here and there. Not the whole lot of them barking, just a few. It’s always just the excitable dogs at first who want Travis’ attention, his love that bark first. Then it invariably gets louder. Maybe he is throwing them a fish or shows a harness, it varies. No two things twice in a row. We aren’t organized enough for that.
It’s been a long, tough, summer for us all. We are young and filled our plates with too much stuff. Our eyes were bigger than our stomachs. We had a blast doing tours but there were so many new components to it this year — employees, managing a glacier camp, and a huge learning curve…Now we reveal in the quietness of our days, the way you sit on the couch after Thanksgiving Day Dinner and watch football. That’s how we are passing the days now, digesting everything we’ve accomplished, waiting until we feel less full.
When I finally leave the comfort of my bed at 8:15, the team is already gone and the lot is already quiet again. Sometimes, they howl — the dogs who are left behind — and sometimes I feel like joining them. I hate staying home. Still, there is something that feels so intrusive about interrupting Travis’ early morning routine by tagging along, like watching a magician practice his tricks before the show. Instead, I try to figure out where to start my day.
We have lived in our home on Exit Glacier Road for almost two years. Yesterday, I hung our first picture up. It was strangely gratifying. I will work on the house for a few hours and try to do the things your supposed to do when you move in that we never did because we started a business instead. And then, as if one wasn’t enough, we said hey! lets take on another one! So now, finally, a quiet lull, and we are moving in; painting walls and tearing walls down, adding furniture and cabinets, fleshing out our skeleton home. We are putting our roots down. We’re here to stay. This is not just a house; it’s our home. And we need it to feel that way.
Eventually, I get sick of working — wrapping up business paperwork and organizing our kitchen. We have 17 cans of kidney beans in our closet, in case you wanted to know. (Don’t worry, we have even more cans of diced tomatoes and chicken broth.) Travis comes back somewhere in the middle of all this and begins hooking up another team to head out on another. I put by boots on and go out.
“Get on,” he says. The team is already all hooked up.
“Ok.” I clamber up the four wheeler.
“You ready?” He asks.
“Always,” I say.
He grins and calls the dogs up. And just like that, we’re off on another adventure…