At Family Restaurant, I am reminded of an assignment in my quest to find the soul of Wasilla; a girl squirts ketchup in her face; other moments

When I finally stepped into our room a bit after 5:00 AM to go bed, it was ice cold in there. This is because the five chords of wood that we began the season with is now down to a few sticks, so we had heated the house very conservatively, keeping the bedroom doors closed to hold the heat in the living room and kitchen, which left the bedrooms cold.

Plus, now that it is mid-March and spring draws nigh, the unusually warm weather that dominated December, January and February is gone and the temperature has dropped. I found Margie buried beneath her quilts, sound asleep. Although her knee injuries are much improved, she still must sleep in a bed by herself. Every night, I find myself lonesome for her.

Once I got down to my barefeet and was about to climb into bed, I realized that I needed to medicate Royce, so I did. By the time I was done and ready to finally go to bed, my feet had grown cold. In fact, I was cold all over. I climbed under the covers and waited to warm up.

My body gradually did, but my feet stayed cold. I would fall asleep and then they would wake me up again. Repeatedly. I kept thinking that they would warm up, but they didn't. Finally, after a couple of hours, I got up, put two pairs of socks on and went back to bed.

It didn't help. My feet stayed cold. I kept waking up and a bit after 8:00 AM, I reached a point where I simply could not go back to sleep - although I kept trying until about 8:45. Then I got up and came out here to my office, heated by natural gas, spent a couple of hours on my computer and then headed for Family Restaurant for breakfast.

I had not been there for awhile and I am still waiting for a check that I anticipated receiving last week, so I didn't really have any money to go but I did have a credit card. After staying up almost all night and then not sleeping well, I really needed to go to Family Restaurant for breakfast. Just Family. Nowhere else would do - not even home.

I invited Margie but she did not want to step outside into the cold, not even to pass through the short distance to the car. Plus, although I had been warming the car up for several minutes, she knew that the interior temperature would still be cool, but Caleb had made a fire in the living room so it was warm on the couch. That is where she decided to stay and eat her oatmeal.

When I stepped into the Arctic entry into Family, I saw this gentleman sipping on his coffee, looking right at me through the glass. I did not want to scare him, but it was a scene that I had to photograph and he was agreeable enough and so I did.

Afterwards, I chatted with him for just a couple of minutes and told him about this blog. He asked my name and when I told him, he said, "I've read your blog."

As it turned out, he is Tim Mahoney, son of the late Paul George and Iona Mae Mahoney, whose graves I came upon last summer in Groto Iona, after I pedaled my bike past a bare-breasted young woman and wound up on my knees amidst their graves.

At that time, I gave myself an assignment to learn something about who these two were as part of my quest to find the soul of Wasilla. I have not yet had the time nor have I been organized enough to do so, but I still intend to. Little reminders keep popping up - like my friend, Ron Mancil, appearing as a worker on the Mahoney Ranch, where those horses that I sometimes photograph hang out. Just last week, I received an invitation by email from Matt Mahoney to take a tour of the entire original spread, once summer comes and the snow is gone.

Tim's sister, Paulie, has also been in touch with me and has offered to help.

And today, I found a new reminder in a pair of eyes looking at me over a coffee cup as I entered Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant.

I was surprised when, shortly after I sat down, I saw a waitress who has often waited on me in the past enter the restaurant as just a regular Wasillan. It was Jolene, who you can find waitressing right here. She had told me about her children before, but I had never seen them and now here they were, with her - Javin, Jocelyn and Justice.

They were escorted to the table immediately across the aisle from mine.

Even though I know the names of all the children, and Javin is the little one, I forget which of the two older ones is Jocelyn and which is Justice. The older one took hold of a bottle of ketchup, but she squeezed it too hard and it squirted her in the face.

What kind of Justice is that?

She grimaced as her mother cleaned her face.

There was just enough commotion to catch the attention of the elder gentleman at the next table, who was amused by the whole little mishap.

Then the elder gentlemen visited briefly with young Javin - or perhaps Javen - I really should have followed Journalism 101 practice and asked for the correct spelling, but I wanted my interruption of their meal to be as short as possible so that they could just enjoy their food, along with each other's company.

When I went back to my car, I found this guy and one other, putting up a new sign on the marquee.

At 4:00 PM, I got back in the car and headed towards Metro Cafe for my news break. Michael was out, blowing the new snow out of his driveway. We chatted for a bit. He heads to work at Prudhoe tomorrow, but said when he gets back he will come and get me and we will go to Hatchers and go cross-country skiing together.

I can't believe that I have not been skiing once this entire winter. Last winter, sure, because I was in recovery from my shoulder injury and surgery and it would have been too dangerous. This winter, I have just been too behind and too unorganized, all winter long.

Maybe next week.

On the way to Metro, I drove by this moose, grazing from the Lucille Street bike trail.

Through the Window Metro Study, #392

Carmen, with Shoshanna, who she had just hired to help her out.

This is actually from yesterday, one of the photos that I had planned to use but did not, because I devoted the space to my friend, Vincent Craig.

This is what it looked like on Church Road, as I drove toward the Talkeetna Mountains on my way home. The shortest route would have been for me to turn right, very close to where I took this picture. Instead, I continued straight, then turned left, crossed the bridge over the Little Su and then drove out past Iona Grotto and the Mahoney Ranch.

I looked for Ron but did not see him, so I turned around and came home. That was seven hours ago. I have been here ever since, mostly sitting at my computer but not accomplishing nearly as much as I had intended to.

I will do better tomorrow.

On a snowy day in Wasilla, I write a bit about my friend, Vincent Craig, who battles cancer down in Arizona

It was a good snowy day here in Wasilla. As I have stated, due to the fact that I have a great deal to do and have worn myself down a bit, it has been my intention to blog light probably all week. So today, I took a few pictures of the snow from the car as I went to pick up Royce's new batch of medicine and it was my plan to post two or three, say something insignificant and then get today's blog out of the way.

But then a request came to me on Facebook from Maridee Craig, the wife of my good friend Vincent Craig, through their son, the filmmaker Dustinn Craig.

With the support of his family and friends, Vincent is fighting a tough cancer. Vincent is well-known in Arizona and elsewhere in US Indian Country for his talent as a cartoonist and a song-writer performer and so Maridee - who is also my cherished friend - asked that I write a little story about him for The Fort Apache Scout, the newspaper of the White Mountain Apache Tribe.

So I did. Although I sat down to do it at about 10:00 PM, I did not actual start to write until a bit after midnight, because I put some of his music on my office stereo and I could not write while it was playing. All I could do was sit there and think, remembering the days when those songs were young and so were we.

I finished writing it just after 3:30 AM. It is now 4:32 AM.

So, although it will make this a fairly long entry word wise, I am going to put what I wrote in here. Few, if any, readers of the Fort Apache Scout will see it here.

I have many old photographs of Vincent in negative form, but it would take some real doing to find and scan them. I did a search in my computer and the only images that I came up with were four of him with his cat, the late Gato, that I took on a visit that I made to Whiteriver in February, 2002, and another of him with his guitar and harmonica at Jacob and Lavina's wedding in Flagstaff on March 18, 2006.

I have better pictures of him, but these will have to do for now:

As so many years have passed, I write mostly in the past tense, but I must stress that the man I am about to write about is very much alive.

I first met him in February of 1976, shortly after I began my three-and-half year stint as the editor, photographer, reporter and designer of the Fort Apache Scout. He was an ex-marine and a police officer working for the White Mountain Apache Tribe. He was a poet and a musician who, in one song, could sing his own words, play the guitar, the harmonica and the Navajo flute that he made himself.

His shoulders were broad and his chest firm and stout. He had a wife and son, soon to be three sons, and he was active in his church. He was quick to laugh, even at his own jokes – because he knew they were funny, yet there were tears in his heart as well, and they would come out right alongside his humor, in his many songs.

One day, he walked into my office with a big cowboy hat on his head, boots on his feet and laid a stack of his drawings and paintings down upon my desk.

As he led me through them, my first thought was, “Wow! Here is the Navajo Norman Rockwell!” I came to realize that I was wrong. This was Vincent Craig, inimitable, a multi-faceted artist of unique talent, creating in the style of no one but himself, with a talent to dive deep into humor, sorrow, and politics all at once.

He showed me two cartoon characters that he had created – Frybread and Beans. So I hired him to do illustrations, cartoons, and stories too. Soon, his Frybread and Beans became famous all across the reservation.

I have no doubt that even if I had not hired him, Vincent Craig would still have gone on to fame as a cartoonist; he would still have created Mutton Man and made him a regular in the Navajo Times, but I am still proud that I was able to give him his start as a professional cartoonist –  even though he sometimes got me in trouble with tribal politicians.

Yet, what I am most proud of is the fact that he became my friend – not just any friend – but a best friend, one whom none other would ever replace, even though we have since become separated by thousands of miles and decades of years.

We both had Apache wives and children of the same age, so we would get together as families, too. Sometimes, my wife and I would babysit Vincent and Maridee’s boys, Dustinn (who is now making his mark in film and TV production), Nephi and Shilo and sometimes they would babysit ours.

We did many things together and it seemed to me that we shared the same kind of bond as did Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – two popular movie characters of that time period – and I got to see the kind of man that he was.

Vincent has always honored the Elders and in his songs often recalled what they had taught him. He is the son of the late Bob Craig, who, as a Navajo Code Talker, had waded through human flesh and blood on Iwo Jima and had played a vital role in the defeat of Japan.

Vincent wrote a song about his father and this is the poetry that he used to describe him:

“He’s the son of the Four Directions and the child of the Blessing Ways, raised in the loving arms of his mother’s humanity. Wisdom comes to him through the legends of long ago, told by the man who loved the wandering eyes of a little child. My daddy was a code-talking man. With Uncle Sam’s Marines, he spoke on the whistling wind, during the time of man’s inhumanity…”

His desire to be of service to children and youth was strong. He organized the first skate-boarding event ever held in the White Mountain Apache nation.

I once accompanied him and his Apache boy scouts on a camping and hiking trip inside the Navajo Nation. We hiked across miles upon miles of red rock and desert and it grew blazing hot. Some of the scouts thrived in the environment, but others grew tired and wanted to quit. Vincent kept his sense of humor and gentle but determined disposition. He did not scold, he did not chide, but he kept those boys going and when evening came and the air cooled to more pleasant levels, they were proud of what they had accomplished.

Some experiences with youth were hard. There was the boy who had gotten drunk at a new tribal complex that included a small mall, grocery store, movie theatre and swimming pool and had run off into night and disappeared.

In time, a search was launched and Vincent led it. I followed along.

Vincent spotted the body on the rocks alongside the White River at the bottom of the sheer cliffs that dropped nearly 200 feet into the deep canyon cut out by the river just across the highway from complex.

Vincent climbed and rappelled out of sight down the cliff. After he reached the bottom, I felt the vibrations travel up the rope as Vincent removed it from himself and it went slack. Soon, there were more vibrations as he tied the rope to what I assumed was the boy. Then he gave a good firm tug as the signal that it was time to pull the load up. A small number of us began to pull that rope up but the load was so light that I thought perhaps it was not the boy, but only whatever belongings he had taken off the cliff with him.

But it was the boy.

Soon, Vincent was back atop the cliff, lending his calm and knowing shoulder to weeping, shrieking, relatives. Another time, he descended into in an empty shed-sized water or fuel tank to the body of another boy who had died huffing gasoline fumes. A second boy was pulled out alive but brain-damaged, shrieking gibberish, the great potential that he had been born with destroyed. A third boy came out basically okay – but with such a burden to carry.

Once I and enough men to carry a litter followed Vincent on a long hike through darkness along the Salt River and then up the steep grade of one of the many streams that cascade down the cliffs and slopes of the canyon walls. It was a hard hike, because there were many rocks of all sizes to stumble over and we walked through rattlesnake habitat, but a woman had fallen off one of those cliffs, had broken her leg and needed to be rescued before shock overcame her.

Finally, we reached the ledge upon which she lay. She was blond, alert, in great pain but happy to see us.

What followed was a true physical ordeal, but after we got her down the cliff and then carried her in the litter for many hours through the darkness and then into the daylight, Vincent told stories, made jokes – and kept everyone, even the injured lady in good spirits. She even laughed, frequently.

He would often make us laugh: me, my wife, his wife, others gathered together with us at church or other socials as he played his guitar and made his music, but in that music the deep seriousness in his soul did also come through.

Leading in first with his flute in a minor key, followed by his harmonica as he finger-picked his acoustic guitar, this is how Vincent would describe the infamous and tragic removal under Kit Carson of the Navajo from their abundant homeland to the bleakness of the Basque Redondo.

“My grandfather used to take me to the mountains in my youth and there he would tell me the legends of long ago. Between the four sacred mountains we lived in harmony and now you tell me that we’ve got to go, because someone drew a line...

“Hey Mr. President, can’t you see what is going on, they’ve taken the heart and soul from the land, because someone drew a line…”

About the time we would all be fighting tears, he would switch to his tragic-comic ballad, Rita, which begins, “I met poor Rita down by the graveyard yesterday and she told me that she would love me all of the day. And then I told her that I wanted to marry her but she said you’ve got to steal the candy bar…”

Then, nearly 30 years ago, I took my Apache wife and children to Alaska. The visits that I have made with Vincent in the time since can be counted on my fingers – probably of one hand.

In that same time, Mutton Man became popular across the Navajo Nation and Vincent became in-demand as a performer and humorist not only in the Southwest but across Indian Country.

This point was brought home to me one morning when I sat in Pepe’s North of the Border Mexican Restaurant in the Iñupiat Eskimo community of Barrow, Alaska – the farthest north city on the continent. The radio was on, tuned to KBRW. As I ate, I suddenly heard the familiar sound of a flute, followed by harmonica and guitar, and then on to these lyrics, sung in the voice of my friend:

“…because someone drew a line…”

Recently, I learned that Vincent is fighting a cancer strain known as GIST. I have written this article for my old paper, The Fort Apache Scout, at the request of his wife, Maridee, who wants people to know something of the man that her husband is. She wants them to know that he is alive, and that he and his entire family are fighting together as one loving unit to keep him that way. It is the toughest struggle of their lives so far, but it is a struggle of hope.

He has made some performances since he became ill in December, but sometimes he is unable to do so, but not because he doesn't want to. He just needs to work first on his health.

Some misinformation has gotten out there, but there is a fund set up on Vincent’s behalf. Those who wish can donate here:

Wells Fargo Bank

Vincent Craig Donation Fund

Account # 6734185546

To help keep everyone better informed, Vincent and his family recently established a fan page on Facebook.

On February 26, they posted these words, “This morning we had less than 50 fans, and tonight we are up to 662! Thanks everyone for your support, prayers and positivity.”

When I saw the page for the first time this evening, that fan count was up to 2,457. Now it’s 2,458. Well wishes are pouring in.

God be with you, my friend, ‘til we meet again.

A blustery, burnout kind of day; Kalib - just for Riana

It was a blustery, total-burnout kind of day. I couldn't work. I couldn't even take a walk. I could hardly make myself do anything. In fact, I photographed only two scenes today: this one, blowing snow seen through the windshield of our car as I drove Margie past Wasilla Lake on our way to Eagle River.

There would have been more choices in Anchorage, but Anchorage was too far. I did not want to drive all the way to Anchorage. So we chose Valley River 6 Cinema in Eagle River and drove there.

Although Gift of the Whale is out of print, I still get quarterly royalty checks and last week one came in for $79.22 - not enough to pay any bills but enough to go to a movie and buy some popcorn, so that's what we did.

Shutter Island, with Leonard DiCaprio and Ben Kingsley is what we saw and it was just the break I needed.

At first, Margie did not want to see it, because she thought it was a horror flick and she hates horror flicks. It did not look like a horror flick to me, but a 1950's cop drama and they can be fun. She decided I was probably right and it was playing at the right time so we chose it.

As it turned out it was neither a horror flick or a 1950's cop drama, but a pyschological thriller that involved a 1950's cop and a taste of horrific horror.

I won't say anymore about it than that, because I don't want to give anything away to anybody who hasn't yet seen it but still might.

Above is the second scene that I photographed today: the highway as we passed by Wasilla Lake on our return home. You can see the snow is still blowing, but more lightly than it had been three hours earlier.

These are left-overs from Friday. I am including them in here just for Riana - my ten-year old reader who keeps me from swearing all the time.

This is pretty hard on me, because I like to swear, damnit.

But for Riana, I have been cutting back.

She left a message today. She typed the word, "hell" and told me that I was busted for typing it first. She said she missed Kalib, who had been absent from this blog for a full day. 

So, Riana, here is Kalib. This is what was happening:

"Where's grandma?" Grandma asked.

Kalib pointed his butter knife at Grandma.

"Where is Grandpa?" Grandma asked. Kalib pointed the butter knife and me and actually touched me with it.

"Where is Momma?" Grandma asked. Kalib pointed his knife at Momma and touched her, just like he touched me.

I don't feel as burned out as I did this morning, but I still feel burned out.

No telling what will happen tomorrow, but, like I wrote last night, I could blog lightly all week long. Then again, something dramatic might happen.

Riana, I've got a couple of really good leftover picture stories of Kalib and his cousin Gracie that I still want to post. They both will require some editing time, but now that I know you are there and that you miss Kalib when he does not appear, it is more likely that I will actually get around to posting them before everybody grows too much older.

Three of us make a very quick trip to the Iditarod restart in Willow, then hang out with cats; how Charlie fared in the beard contest

If you are looking for lots of good pictures from the Iditarod Restart, this is not the site to come to. I awoke this morning feeling completely exhausted, run down, as though I had not slept at all. I had a terrible headache, a bit of a sore throat and I felt just plain weary - barely enough energy to drag myself into the kitchen and cook some oatmeal.

I figured, though, that if Jacob and Lavina brought Jobe by for Margie to watch and then took off with Kalib to watch the dogs go, I would follow, but I would be very lazy and shoot just a few so-so pictures, just to say we were there.

After all, there would be scores of photographers seriously documenting the event for all sorts of publications, many would go on to follow the race and they would be working extremely hard and putting everything they have into it to get the best shots possible, so, really, what could I add to the mix?

I would just stick with Jacob, Lavina and Kalib, get a few lazy pictures and let it go at that.

A little after noon, Lavina called to say that they would not be coming at all. It would be nearly a 200 mile round trip for them, they were very tired (after all, they do have a newborn) and Kalib seemed to be coming down with something.

OK, then, I decided, I would just stay home.

Then Melanie called. She and Charlie wanted to see Lance Mackey take off. He wore bib 49, and was scheduled to leave the chute at 3:30.

Okay, I decided, I would go with them, but would still be lazy.

Melanie had to drop her car off at Mr. Lube here is Wasilla to get an oil change, so they would ride with me. Mr. Lube closes at 5:00, so she had to be back before then to get her car.

We left Wasilla for Willow at 2:20, twenty minutes after the race had already begun, reasoning that we had better head back home no later than 4:15 in order to get back in time.

We managed to find a parking place not far from the action, but wound up trudging through deep snow the long way around, so it took us awhile to reach the raceway. We got there just about the time that the 40th musher was charging down the chute behind his dogs.

This is musher 41. Dallas Seavey. In 2007, the day after this former state wrestling champion turned 18, he became the youngest musher ever to run the Iditarod.

These are the famous white dogs of number 43, Jim Lanier of Chugiak.

This is number 49, Iditarod Hall of Famer Lance Mackey, who Melanie wanted to watch depart. Mackey may be the toughest long-distance musher ever, having come back from a deadly battle with cancer to take multiple victories in the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod and winning both in 2008 and 2009.

You can find a bit more of his story here.

Pretty soon, we had to go. Traffic was sometimes very slow, but we got Melanie back to Mr. Lube with 13 minutes to spare.

Then Melanie and Charlie came to the house for dinner, and to hang out with our cats. Here is Charlie with Royce and Jim.

Charlie, Royce and Jim.

Charlie and Jim.

Melanie and Royce. Before they left, Melanie was trying to write a check out for me to cover Royce's upcoming vet care but I was being elusive. So she wrote it out and gave it to her mom.

Charlie and Royce.

Chicago and me.

Now, as to that beard contest...

I am too tired to tell the whole story, but, to make it short, there was some confusion about which category Charlie was to enter. He wound up competing against men who had at least some gray and white in their beards and they beat him.

That's because it was the category for men with gray and white in their beards, although it was described as being for men with multiple colors in their beard. Charlie has brown, red and blond in his beard, so he thought that meant him.

Afterwards, he learned that he should have been in the "Honey Bear" category. Two judges told him that they really liked his beard - if only he had been a Honey Bear.

He is thinking about going to the nationals in Bend, Oregon, in June, where the categories are more clearly delineated.

I will probably be blogging light for the next few days - maybe all week. I've got a lot of work to do and I feel like... heck.

(I was going to say, "hell," but once again I remembered that ten-year old girl who I am told reads my blog everyday.)

We follow Mr. Horsey to the end of the beginning of the Iditarod; he gets eaten by a big fish; Balto comes to the rescue

We did not arrive at Fourth Avenue in downtown Anchorage for the ceremonial start of the Iditarod until near the end, when just a few teams were left to go. We were not concerned about this, because the real start is on Sunday, at Willow, in the afternoon and we are pretty sure we will be there.

Still, Jacob and Lavina wanted to take Kalib downtown so that he could experience some of the flavor of it all and I wanted to go, to. Margie wanted to hang out with Jobe and he needed a babysitter. So I dropped her off at the house, then accompanied Jacob, Lavina and Kalib to Fourth Avenue.

But what is that little Mr. Horsey doing tucked into Jacob's coat as he and Kalib walk down Fourth Avenue?

Here. Read the story for yourself. The above letter came to Jacob and Lavina in a box along with a disposable camera. So, before Mr. Horsey makes his next journey, before hopefully one day in the near future returning to his first grade class in Killan, Jacob, Lavina, and Kalib thought they would give him a chance to experience the Iditarod.

Jacob is photographing Mr. Horsey with the banner that marks the Iditarod starting line in the background.

I believe this is the third to the last team to go. Jacob takes a disposable camera picture with the sled dogs in the background.

Shortly after the last team had left, this man, wearing a wolverine hat, and this woman, wearing a wolf hat, posed with Mr. Horsey.

I am not sure how such a scene will play in a first grade classroom in Southern California, but it does represent life in Alaska.

Shortly after that, Mr. Horsey sat in on a dog team line himself.

Melanie and Charlie joined us, under a real, live, snarling, angry, grizzly bear. I was terrified, but, as you can see, these three were very brave. The bear did not frighten them at all.

Across the street from the bear and a few steps down the sidewalk, Mr. Horsey took a short nap on the wing of an airplane flown by a rather odd pilot and his oddball passengers.

I don't think this airplane would pass annual and I am certain there are some aviation safety violations going on here.

From there, we walked down the hill to the train station.

"Take my picture, quick!" Mr. Horsey shouted at me. "Before we get run over!"

Then we met this fellow, whose name I forget. I wasn't worried about that, because he directed us to a table womanned by his wife to get a brochure and he said his name was there. So I got the brochure and I just now took a look at it for the first time and it has no names in it at all.

Anyway, he had some puppies for sale. These are a mix of great dane and something else - I forget what, because I thought that was going to be on the brochure, too, but it's not. His web address is, however, and maybe the information is there. I haven't looked yet and it is late and I am tired and want to get to bed, so I will leave that to you, if you are interested.

He said he also had some small breed pups and that Bristol Palin had bought one from him in the morning.

He and his wife also cater pony-parties for kids. All that information should be on the website, I would think.

Next, we moved on to the snow sculptures, where a giant halibut took an interest in Mr. Horsey.

Oh no! A leaping salmon got him!

How are we ever going to explain this to that first grade class in Killan?

Assuming that he and Melanie would be able to get tickets to the Miners and Trappers Ball, Charlie planned to enter the beard contest at 8:00 PM. I would have liked to have gone to take pictures of him competing, but, I didn't have a ticket and I was pretty sure that Margie and I would be back in Wasilla by eight.

We tried a couple of other places, but there were no seats available. Melanie called ahead to Snow City and by the time we reached there, walking, there was a table for us.

I ordered a portabello mushroom sandwich and Charlie picked up the tab.

I had never thought of Snow City as a place to eat any meal other than breakfast, but, that sandwich...

superb!

Kalib ordered some hot chocolate topped with whipped cream. He found it superb as well.

After lunch, Melanie and Charlie parted company with us and went their own way.

As we walked the mile or so back to the car, Jacob said he wanted to stop by the Balto statue to pay his respects to this great lead dog who saved so many people in Nome during the 1925 diphtheria serum run.

When we got to the statue, I could not believe my eyes. Balto had saved Mr. Horsey. I have no idea how Balto did it, but, as anyone can plainly see, he did.

Jacob, Kalib and Mr. Horsey, under the banner that marks the ceremonial starting line for the Iditarod.

We walked on, past the Fur Rendez carnival. Kalib had grown very sleepy.

He fell asleep in the car immediately.

I guess everybody was pretty tired.

In fact, I'm tired. Too tired to describe what is going on here.

These two had enjoyed a lovely time together while the rest of us followed Mr. Horsey about.