Catch up, #1: I travel from my home to my home

I was going to write a bit more about this trip, from my community home that is the Arctic Slope of Alaska to my home where my house and family is in Wasilla, but I was exhausted to begin with and the events of the past couple of days have left me even more so.

So I will be brief, just so I can catch up in, say, three or four posts, which I will put up in fairly rapid succession.

The trip began here, on the tarmac at the airstrip in Nuiqsut, where I boarded the Beechcraft chartered by the North Slope Borough Iñupiat History, Language and Culture Commission.

Kathy Agiak, the commission chair, takes a look at her cellphone. Mine (ATT) showed bars in Nuiqsut, but all my attempts to make a call on it failed. Behind her is James Aiken, an Elder from Atqasuk.

We flew to Barrow, where two little dogs clad in dresses waited at the Alaska Airlines terminal to fly south. 

On the jet south, I sat next to Carolyn and Nick Smith, tourists from Virginia. They had spent no time in Barrow other than their wait for us oncoming passengers to board, but had been part of a tour group that rode the Alaska Railroad into Denali National Park. They were most impressed with the ride range of wildlife they had seen there, ranging from wolves to grizzly bears, and even a fox nipping at the heels of a caribou.

Everytime the caribou whipped around to face the fox, it would run backwards. Sounds like the fox, which could not bring a caribou down, was having great fun being a tormentor.

From there, they had gone on to Fairbanks, where the tour became a bus ride. They traveled up the Dalton Highway, stopped at the Arctic Circle to feed the mosquitoes and get the official certificate, then continued on to Deadhorse, where they boarded the flight that next flew on to Barrow, where I boarded.

Somewhere between the Brooks Range and the Yukon River.

Back in Anchorage, Margie drove up to the roadside pickup and I was just about to climb in with her and Kalib when I spotted this cat, waiting to be picked up. I believe that his name is Cleo, from Colorado, and that he had just moved to Anchorage to make a new life for himself, but I could be mistaken.

Margie and Kalib picked me up. I had not seen either for seven weeks. I wondered if Kalib would still remember me. He studied me carefully, and with wonder. He was most grateful to be descended from such a man.

As for Margie - see how good she looks? How happy? How healthy? Finally, after her long recuperation?

Barely three days have now past. I wish she still looked so good.

Except for Rex and Stephanie, who had gone off to Seward to study sailboats, everyone agreed to meet us at Moose's Tooth to welcome me home with pizza, and to give me a late birthday party.

We had to wait for 50 minutes to get inside. This gave Kalib the chance to stand in the light rain and study passers by.

None of us, least of all him, had any clue as to what his parents were about to give me for as a birthday present.

It was such a special present that I will end this post here, and give it a separate post, all of it's own.

I took a lot of pictures of all family members gathered inside the Moose's Tooth and had planned to run a major spread.

But I must move on.