;)
So here I am, crossing the Palmer Hay Flats, just outside of Wasilla, on the drive to Anchorage to dine at the Kabab and Curry with Melanie, Lisa, and Charlie. The temperature on the Flats is -4 degrees (-20 C), which is a little cooler than it will be in town.
I roll my window down and then, without looking to see what the camera is focused on but knowing that whatever it is, it will be beautiful, I point the camera out the window, keep my eyes on the road and push the shutter.
Thus you have it: the Palmer Hay Flats, with Pioneer Peak and the Chugach Range rising behind.
By the way, nobody grows hay on the Palmer Hay Flats. They once did, before the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake. That quake lowered the elevation of the land here, so that at high tide, salt water creeps in. That's why the trees are all dead.
The hay that once grew here is dead, too.
As beautiful as it is, this is really tough world, one that kills tree and hay alike, with no remorse. All it takes is a simple, indifferent, slippage of earth against earth. The result was a 9.2 magnitude earthquake, the second most powerful ever recorded.
I was an adolescent living in Eureka, California, at the time and I had persuaded my Sunday School teacher to take our class on a beach party at Moonstone that Saturday, but a tsunami came to us from Alaska and closed all the beaches. We could not go near them.
Crescent City, a short distance to the north of us, took the wave straight on and 15 people were killed. My friend and next door neighbor, Mike McDaniels, had just gotten off the bus in Crescent City when the wave smashed into town.
He reported that he saw a baby get ripped out of the arms of its mother and then disappear in the swirling, cold, dirty, water.
So the Alaska quake that killed about 131 people in this state, totally destroyed the village of Chenega (which, not long after it was finally rebuilt was oiled by the spill of the Exxon Valdez), dropped the Palmer Hay Flats into tidal waters reached far away and gave me a direct link to my home in Alaska long before I actually came home to live here.
The Palmer Hay Flats is now a State Game Refuge. Many moose live here year round and each spring and summer ducks and geese come to raise families, as do many other birds. Salmon swim in to spawn and fishermen and women pull them from the water.
;)
A bit less than half-way to town, I saw this ambulance speeding in the opposite, northbound, lanes of traffic, rushing to an emergency. I reasoned that perhaps there had been an accident somewhere behind me.
;)
Actually, the accident had happened a short distance ahead of me. I soon reached it and passed it. By that time, the ambulance had exited out of the north-bound lanes, entered the south-bound and was just reaching the accident scene.
Later, I looked at the online Anchorage Daily News, but found nothing about the accident. This does not mean that someone did not receive a significant injury, but it does mean that no one was killed.
;)
Not far from Eagle River, I saw the half-moon, teasing the clouds who, even as high up as they are, can never touch it. Sometimes, clouds get so frustrated by this fact that they start to cry and then they rain all over everything.
If its cold enough, their tears turn to snow.
I know this to be a fact, because my father was a meteorologist.
;)
Jacob, Kalib, and Lavina were not home when I reached their house, but they soon arrived. As you saw in my last post in a picture just one frame away from this one, Kalib had fallen asleep in the car and had to be carried into the house.
;)
Muzzy came to greet me, then fell down submissively upon the floor. As big and headstrong as he is, he can be a submissive dog.
;)
Jacob gave Lavina a foot massage. There has been no change in her status. She is still experiencing mild contractions about one-hour apart, still hoping the birth can wait until the grandmas arrive.
I did not know that labor could be like this - so long, drawn out over many days or even weeks. It never was with Margie. She was in labor with Jacob for about 13.5 hours and that was the longest she was ever in labor. It was intense, all the way through.
;)
Before I left to go meet Melanie, Charlie and Lisa at the Kabab and Curry, I sneaked into the bedroom to take a peek at Kalib. He was fast asleep.
;)
They had laid him down still fully dressed in his snow suit, so as not to wake him. I gave him the softest of pats, then drove off to meet those other three at the Kabab and Curry. The full review will appear at 12:00 noon Alaska time, 4:00 PM East Coast time, which is 2:30 AM India time.
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been getting hundreds of hits from India - not just from my relatives, but from many others. Pretty amazing.
There will be a couple of cats in the Kabab and Curry post, too.