The house is a beautiful and spacious 2,200-ft. ranch style in the city of Anchorage with a large yard with trees, bird feeders, and bird baths. We have a small guest room with a double bed and two bathrooms with a shower in one and a SafeStep Walk-in Tub with jets in the other.
My spouse travels frequently for work and I want one or two women to stay in our house with me when she is away. I am a kind and thoughtful senior woman with a doctorate in anthropology. I function fine alone, but I prefer to have somebody in the house with me at night.
You can use the house as a base and our Toyota 4-Runner while you see the sights on your own. Alaska is beautiful! I will treat you to restaurants (from time to time) if you will drive me there with our car, and I'll buy our food for the house if you will help cook and clean up after the meal. (We have a housecleaner who comes alternating weeks to clean our home). Your primary responsibility would be to sleep at the house and hold a conversation with me once or twice each day (perhaps at breakfast and/or dinner.)
This is a good place for a writer, as you can use my spouse's private study while you are here that has a fireplace and a rocking chair in addition to a desk with computer connections. Bring your own laptop.
We have . We do not have WiFi in the house, but we do have cable connections and a smart T.V.--- NetFlix, HBONOW, and iTunes. Our home has another fireplace in the livingroom and a sturdy treadmill you can use.
When there is no snow on the ground, you can use our bicycle for recreation. We live 1/2 block from the beginning of a city trail that stretches for more than 20 miles through the greenbelt of the city over creeks and along Cook Inlet and lagoons, and if you are very good at biking you can ride off road all the way to Kincaid Park and back--which would take a day.
We live a few miles from the YMCA that has a nice pool and weight training facilities. I am a member so you could go there for a nominal fee. I am a writer myself and need quiet time, but I don't like to be totally alone for more than a few days. And I do need help with minor things around the house--watering house plants for instance. I am hoping to find a housesitter who will be compatible both with this beautiful home and with me.
In October 2017 for ten days my spouse will be going to Rome. I am hoping to find a housesitter who would like to be in Alaska in early winter. We used to get our first snow in mid-October, but I cannot promise snow to you if you are a skiier, because climate changes have made our winters in Anchorage a bit milder than they used to be ten years ago. But if you come in the winter, the trails are lighted and groomed for skiing; we have exceptional downhill skiing nearby, and of course there is snow shoeing if you like to do that. There is a nature center near Anchorage where you can take winter walks, see nature (woodpeckers and other winter birds), moose, and sometimes foxes. You can sit in the center by a potbelly stove and keep get warm and sip hot chocolate.
Anchorage, Alaska has five seasons. Summer begins on Memorial Day and ends on Labor Day. On June 21st the sun hardly sets and the sky is navy blue until 3:00 a.m. when the sun rises. Autumn brings rains and yellow leaves falling from birches and cottonwoods. Anchorage starts getting freezing temperatures in September. Winter snows come in October and end in April. The fourth season in mid-April is called "Breakup" which is when the snow melts during the day and refreezes at night causing great ruts of ice on the roads--which is why we need vehicles that do not bottom out such as an SUV or a truck. The fifth season is spring which brings unusually beautiful light, alpenglow sunsets on the nearby mountains, and ravens that perform their mating rituals in the sky above the tall buildings downtown. We sometimes refer to summer in Anchorage as the "construction season." :)