I couldn't just drop everything to leave the next day. There are always things that need to be done if you leave your home for a while. But, that invitation was two weeks ago. I have accomplished what I needed to get done. I'm ready for the tundra and some bear sightings. Lots of bear sightings! I wrote to my sister and said it was time to pick a convenient date.
My sister has not had a convenient week.
Normally, when my sister needs to go to the dentist, she heads for Cancun. Yep, her trip to the dentist involves a Caribbean experience. She stays in an incredibly wonderful hotel on the main tourist strip of Cancun, right on the beach, where her dentist is located. (I went to the same dentist once. It's clean, modern, cheaper than in America, and I got to paint a mural. It was my kind of travel.)
However, my sister had an emergency and she was in Alaska. If you check your map, that's not so close to Cancun, and it was a dental crisis. There was no time for a Caribbean vacation. No tooth fairy showed up to whisk her off to Cancun. There was no time for that anyway. She was in a teeth grinding, grit your teeth, gnashing of teeth situation with intense pain. Delay her treatment and she might kick you in the teeth.
Normally, she would have to fly to Anchorage for any specialist. Dentists in King Salmon, the closest town to where she lives, are as rare as hen's teeth. Usually, searching for them with a fine toothed comb does no good. But, miraculously, there was a dentist in town when she needed it most. And, he saw her on a Sunday!
These days, dentists have signs that say things like "painless dentistry" and you might hear someone say, "This isn't going to hurt a bit." That would be lying through your teeth on this particular day. The dentist wanted my sister to open her mouth, bare her teeth, and say "ahhhh". He knew right away that her sweet tooth needed a root canal. He was armed to the teeth with all the tools he needed to fix the problem.
Well, that was how it was supposed to work.
He sunk his teeth into the project, but perhaps he bit off more than he could chew. There was drilling, filling, grinding and a whole lot more work involved in this task. None of it is fun. The dentist managed to accomplish the root canal part, but there was still some drilling work that needed to be done. That was when the drill bit broke off in the tooth. The guy fought tooth and nail (or in this case drill bit) to get that metal out of her mouth. It was like pulling teeth to do it. And, in fact, that's kind of what happened. The tooth collapsed and had to be removed.
I'm not sure, she might have considered an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth after all of this. But, I've not heard any news reports about Alaskan dentists with missing teeth. For the moment, my sister has no thoughts about false teeth, but she does have a gaping hole in the back of her mouth and a prescription for a lot of extra strength Advil.
You would think this is enough reason to delay my trip, but you would be wrong.
My sister and her husband don't live at either of their lodges. They have a house that is located in between their lodges. It's set on an idyllic lake. But, things happen when a house is left empty for half of a year. In this case, bat things happened. That was not a typo. Their home has turned into a bat cave, and not the cool kind with Robin and a very amazing car. It seems that a whole houseful of bats has taken up residence in the attic, attached garage, back porch and sometimes in the living quarters! No bat guano!
A simple trip to the garage could drive you crazy, or at least put a few bats in your belfry. My sister opened the back door and saw a dozen pairs of bat wings flying in her face. Were they tube-nosed bats, fruit-eating bats, Mexican free-tail bats or western big-eared bats? Who cares? They were bats! Faster than you can bat your eyelids, she went to the other side of the garage and opened the larger door for cars. The bats flew away and she entered into this section of the bat cave for whatever reason brought her there.
These bats apparently are a protected species in Alaska. As far as I'm concerned, all bets are off when the bats are in your home, belfry or bat cave. Bat life expectancy drops significantly under such circumstances. I don't care if they are long-eared bats, hog-nosed bats, or mouse-eared bats. If they are in my house, they are all vampire bats. I will not go to bat for them. No, I'll go for a baseball bat at them. And, it would be a good time to bat one thousand, not that I want one thousand bats anywhere close to me.
My sister has a full house now - with people as well as bats. Her son said he found a bat in his bedroom. Did it drive him batty? I'm not sure. Maybe he didn't bat an eye? I would have. And, the only way that dastardly bat could have entered his room was by crawling under the space at the bottom of his door. Who knew bats did that?
At least one guest currently sleeps in the main room of the house, which was my bedroom last year. Right off the bat, you know it is not the best place to stay. But, it's worse when bats are involved. Batboy was sound asleep in the middle of the night. Something tickled his face, and he woke up with a bat on his face. No bull bat! Of course, he screamed like a bat out of hell. Wouldn't you?
I learned one more thing about these critters. It doesn't matter if you are blind as a bat or have 20/20 vision. Bat teeth are so small that you can't see bat bites. Those little suckers like to bite eyes, noses and mouths, so what do you think that jackass bat was doing on Batboy's face? He's facing rabies shots now. You can't take chances when a vampire bites you, and since he isn't sure about anything, it looks like he has to have the treatment.
So, to make a long story finally come to an end. I'm not sure when I'm going to Alaska. They have to get rid of their bats first. If you know me, you know I love to travel off the beaten paths of this world, but I draw the line at vampires, bats on my face, and unwanted rabies shots.
No Real Species of Bats were harmed in the writing of this blog. I still can't say they would be safe if they were found in my house.