Boston to Nantucket: I share an airplane with sweet baby Junior

This is sweet baby Junior and, just like me, he is preparing to fly from Boston to Nantucket on a Cape Air Cessna. The breeze catches his mom's hair and hurls it skyward.

Shortly after I get in and buckle myself down, I see sweet baby Junior boarding with his mom.

I can't believe my good fortune! Sweet baby Junior sits down beside me! I see that I will have good, intelligent, company on this trip. I believe we will discuss Socrates, Shakespeare and Persimon Munk.

The pilot gives us the preflight briefing. Sweet baby Junior pays rapt attention. I can tell that he is worried that the pilot does not know what he is doing and might crash. 

"It is okay," I tell him. "I think this pilot knows what he's doing - and if he doesn't, I'm a pilot too, so I will just simply take over. And I've only crashed once, so you know you will be safe if I must fly the plane."

As you can see from his expression, this filled Sweet baby Junior with great relief.

Soon, we left Boston behind us.

Shortly after we flew out over the Atlantic, I turned to sweet baby Junior to start the discussion. "So," I queried, "what is your theory about whatever became of the vanished libraries of Persimon Munk?"

But sweet baby Junior did not answer. He had fallen into dreamland.

Perhaps he would find the answers there.

Soon we were over what is nick-named Fog Island, home of the old yankee whaling town of Nantucket. 

We come down on final, headed towards Runway 24. I wish that I were flying the damned plane instead of this guy. Not that I have anything against him and he did a good job, but I just always like it better when I am doing the flying. I haven't done the flying for too long, now.

Sweet baby Junior and his mom got out and headed for the Cape Air terminal building, but they had left a shoe behind.

I picked it up and hollered at them. They came back and got it.

I have not seen Sweet Baby Junior since.

Wouldn't it be fun if he showed up at my show?

I kind of doubt it, though.

But I hope he does.

Should you see this, Sweet Baby Junior, know that you have a special invitation.

Two PM, Saturday, March 27, at the Nantucket Whaling Museum.

I take a walk and then a drive, but I do not try to splash water on the dry man

I have been spending too much time sitting in this chair. I am tired of sitting in this chair. In fact, I am getting sore from sitting in this chair.

Here's the challenge: remember how yesterday I mentioned that I am in the midst of processing a bunch of photos? I'm not sure how many. Somewhere between 200 and 300. Remember how yesterday the program Lightroom went haywire and cost me several wasted hours?

Nothing like that happened today, but what did happen was that I spent somewhere between four and five hours processing just three images. I leave for Nantucket Wednesday, and not only must I have all these photos done before that, but there are other tasks that I must do - such as go photograph some more village basketball in Anchorage Saturday - and I must prepare the slide show that I will present in Nantucket and in New York.

It's not as bad as it sounds, though, because those three photos were exceptionally difficult. All three were excellent content-wise, but were severely underexposed and strongly backlit besides that. So they were pretty damn hard (Riana has given me permission to swear - but I will still swear lightly and with good judgement and only when it is essential) to process and pull into a normal range.

Were in not for RAW photography, they would have been lost forever. Had I shot jpeg or on film - not a chance.

After I finished those three off, I probably averaged about 15 minutes per image until I stopped for the night. I must pick up the pace.

Before I started it all, I did get out for my walk. Here I am, above, going down Tamar, where I saw no other person, not even a dog.

When I got back to Seldon, I did see a DC-3. It always makes me feel good to look up into the sky and to see a DC-3. An old airplane, older than me - still flying.

As I neared the top of the hill on Ward's Street, I heard someone shout at me from a distance back. I turned to see who it could be.

It was this woman. I did not know her. Why the hell was she shouting at me?

As it turned out, she was not shouting at me at all, but at that white dog in front of her.

I wonder who she was?

I wonder who the dog was?

And did you see the Anchorage Daily News today, the story about the man who shot his neighbor's Chihuahua dead with a shotgun? He said he didn't mean to kill it; he only intended to tickle it. He shot it with a shotgun to tickle it tickle it. He said he was glad the dog was gone though, because it was a nuisance.

And the Daily News ran a warm and homey picture of him loving his own dog.

Did he see the irony?

And I did break away at the usual time to go to Metro. I did not do a "through the window study" or a "reverse study."

Instead, I did a "waiting in the Metro drive-through line study."

This is it:

Waiting in the Metro drive-through, Study #12

As I drove home, I saw this UPS van coming. It could have splashed water on the guy walking down the bike trail, but it didn't.

As you can see, he is dry.

I wonder if he was still dry after I passed him by?

I didn't try to splash water on him - honest, I didn't.

I'm not that kind of guy.

On the day that Lance Mackey wins his fourth straight Iditarod, I meet a husky, go to the Barrow Whaler girls game, visit baby Jobe; Pioneer Peak

In the morning, I took a walk and this airplane flew overhead. It felt like our poor excuse for a winter had ended. It was warm - in the 30's and would rise into the 40's come afternoon.

Shortly after the plane passed over, I saw this woman, walking this husky. Somewhere, I have both of their names written down from a much earlier meeting, but I don't know where.

Just before 3:00 PM in the afternoon, the nose of Lance Mackey's lead dog would cross the finish line under the burled arch in Nome, giving cancer survivor Mackey his history-setting fourth straight Iditarod win - and he has won that many Yukon Quests. No one else in the history of dog mushing has accomplished such a feat. If you haven't already, you can read about it here at the Anchorage Daily News or here at the Alaska Dispatch.

When Mackey crossed the finish line, I was at the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage, ready to photograph the semi-finals Class 3A basketball game between the Barrow Whaler girls and the Mount Edgecumbe Braves.

Five Barrow starters were suspended by their coach when they were caught drinking on a road trip earlier in the season. Most people figured that it was it for this team this year, but the younger, less-experienced players continued on and played hard and strong. They won the Western Conference Championship and a spot in the State Championship tournament. On Monday, they won their first game against Cordorva.

I was not there, but today I went to the semi-final. In the third quarter, the whalers were down by 12, but in the last two minutes came within three points of the Braves, but lost 34-29.

I took quite a few pictures and they are still downloading into my computer. I have no time to edit them for this blog post and so just pulled this shot from the pre-start huddle. I have not yet taken even my first glance at any of the action pictures.

Wasilla played at the Sullivan today, too - and won - and some may wonder why I did not photograph them as well - especially since three of my children graduated from Wasilla High.

I could only spare the time to go to one game, though and my community ties remain much closer to Barrow than to Wasilla. Plus, I have a little publication that I have put together that this will fit nicely into. The problem is, that publication is completely done and I am just waiting for my client to finish the review before it goes to press. 

I do not want to take anything more out of it than I already have, but I want to put the Barrow Whaler girls in, so I need to find a way.

After the game, I stopped and paid a visit to baby Jobe. I was amazed to see how alert he was. He studied everything, including me.

Kalib was home, too, but he was sick and asleep. I never got to see him.

I hate even to mention it, but this was also the day that a judge held a hearing and made the divorce of my beloved youngest son and the wife he so greatly loves final, save for a bit of paperwork.

So it was a sad day, but, as it always does, life went on and it will continue to.

As I drove back into Wasilla, I looked into my rearview mirror and there loomed Pioneer Peak.

We take Kalib to breakfast; Cars and snowmachines, ravens and airplanes

The check that I had been waiting for finally came yesterday, so I decided to take Margie and Kalib to breakfast at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant this morning. From Friday night through Saturday night, Kalib was pleasant, happy and in good spirits.

Today, he seemed a little down and out. I think he surpassed his tolerance of being away from Mom and Dad. He did enjoy helping Grandma to sweeten her coffee.

He also seemed like perhaps he was coming down with a cold. Still, he did go exploring beneath the restaurant table.

Margie shared her breakfast with him, but he didn't eat much. He did drink most of his cranberry juice. Despite having received my check, I still paid for breakfast with a credit card. The money will not be in the bank until tomorrow and I did not want to suffer an overdraft charge for breakfast.

We do have a big auto-bill pay tomorrow. We will rush the check over in the morning, but I do not know if it will show in time to save us from whatever penalties the bank will be delighted to charge us.

Just before we left, I saw Melanie, not my daughter but the Melanie who works at IHOP, with her son Duncan. When he was just a baby, I photographed the two of them at Carr's.

After we got home, I went for a walk. Many cars zoomed by me.

In just two months, these bare trees will burst out in new green. Given how warm it has been this winter, the leaves might come out a little earlier than the normal mid-May.

But then April could be cold, so who knows?

Snowmachiners passed by on the left.

Two ravens flew overhead.

So did this airplane.

It has been a long time since I have cut through Serendipity, just because it depresses me so. But today I did. I stress again - I hold nothing against anyone who lives in Serendipity, but if you once had a place where you retreated every day that you were home, just you and your dog, to hang out with moose, bears, ravens, eagles and if you rarely ran into another person in that place and then one day they tore your woods down and it wound up looking like this and you could find no solitude there, it would depress you, too.

When I returned home, Kalib was waiting at the window for me.

Kalib and I.

Even though he now has one of my old fish tanks and gets to feed fish every day, Kalib always wants to feed the fish when he comes out.

He insists that his grandma come out and observe.

In the early afternoon, he carried his little stuffed muzzy to the car, along with his Grahamn Krackers. Uncle Caleb buckled him in and then Margie drove him home to Anchorage.

She said that she was not going to be gone long, that she would just drop him off and then come straight home. I have heard this before and I did not believe her. She stayed in town for several hours.

She reported that Kalib's mom was so anxious to see him that she came out the door even before Margie could out of the car.

Kalib was also overjoyed to see her, and Dad, too.

As for Margie, she looked very dejected when she got home about seven hours after she left.

"I sure miss Kalib," she said.

I have a great deal to do this week. Once again, I must push the blog to the back of my priority list. I will post every day, but lightly so - unless something happens that I just have to go all out on.

Margie goes to town and drops me off at the edge of the highway, I find food to eat and see some fascinating sights

Margie had a physical therapy appointment in Anchorage this morning, so I had her drop me off at the side of the Parks Highway as she left town. I then went looking for food, and wound up at Mat-Su Family Restaurant, about 30 feet away.

This is my waitress, waiting on someone else.

I am a generous person and am happy to share my waitress with others.

Here is a fellow who has already finished his breakfast, walking back to his vehicle, keys ready to be inserted in the ignition.

She came by refilling coffee cups.

This is the view that I see as I look out my Family Restaurant window: Alaska.

Now I am walking home from Family Restaurant - close to four miles. A dog comes riding over the hill. There is a man in the vehicle with him.

The dog wishes the man would get out for once, and let the dog drive.

But the man won't. The dog does not understand why.

Bill. I think you should go to bed. Get some sleep.

A military jet passes overhead.

Then a military raven flies by. It is carrying little bombs. They will not kill you, but you don't want to get bombed - not by a raven, anyway.

This is Ken Clark. He is wondering why a strange looking man is walking down the street towards him, taking his picture.

He was very amused once he found out.

Now he will be remembered forever.

Just by looking, you can see that this was a very warm day. It got above freezing.

I suppose some people like it that way, but not me.

Not this time of year.

It's just not right. 

It's like mother nature has forgotten where we're at.

Through the Window Metro Study, #42A. That's Karl, Carmen's brother-in-law, and Cindy.

On my way home from my coffee break, I had to stop for these moose. Some may not believe this, but if this had been a cold, snowy, winter, instead of the warm farce that it has been, we would be seeing many more moose.

The number of horses would remain the same.