I drive to the 100th birthday party for Hannah Solomon, a beloved matriarch of the Gwich'in Nation

 

Hannah's daughter, Daisy Solomon, had billed it as "The Party of the Century" and I did not want to miss it. I had thought that I would drive up to Fairbanks the night before, so that I could be there early, but my wife and sons were very concerned, as I am still recovering from my broken shoulder and subsequent replacement surgery.

"What if you have to change a flat?" Margie chided. "What if you get stuck in a snowstorm?" So I relented and bought myself a ticket on Alaska Airlines.  

So why am I driving up the snowy Parks Highway, towards Fairbanks, traffic coming at me?

When I went to bed the night before, secure in the knowledge that I could sleep in and then have Margie drive me to Anchorage so that I could catch my plane, the wind had begun to blow. It picked up in intensity and soon was howling. It blasted against the house and caused it to shake.

It was the kind of wind that you wonder if it will drop a tree on the house, or blast through a window. It was a warm wind, up from the South Pacific. I knew it was melting our snow. It had collided violently with the cold air that had been sitting on us. I could hear raindrops tattering the house, like machine-gun fire.

The power went out, but was on again by the time I got up.

I sat down at my computer and learned that 20 jets had been diverted from Anchorage to Fairbanks and that Ted Stevens International Airport was now shut down, due to 100 mile-per-hour winds, severe turbulence and wind shear.

I did not want to miss the party. "I'm driving to Fairbanks," I told Margie. I got my cameras, warm clothes and a sleeping bag, climbed into the car and hit the road. 

The rain was heavy, blinding. I knew it would soon turn to snow, and it did.

I thought about turning around, but I know the country between here and Fairbanks and usually if you can make it the 100 miles from Trapper Creek through the Honolulu Creek area and then on to Cantwell, conditions will improve and you can make it all the way.

Altogether, it is a 330 mile drive from Wasilla.

It would have helped if we had already taken our summer tires off and put the studded snow-tires on, but we had not done that. In the worst stretches, I had to slow down to less than 25 miles per-hour. Then, when conditions would seem to improve a bit, I would gradually accelerate. 

Always, about the time I hit 40 or a little above, the car would start to fishtail - a couple of times, dramatically enough that I worried that I might go off the road, but I was determined not to and I didn't. As you can see, not everyone was so fortunate.

One who was not so fortunate.

I could see they felt a little silly. If you want to see just how silly, click on the image and blow it up. They needn't have, though. All of us who travel by car in Alaska do this kind of thing from time to time. And don't get the wrong idea. I am not a person who drives by someone in need of help. But they, and all others that I passed this day, had the situation under control.

Nor am I in any position to risk damage to my still weak shoulder. Plus - there was no way around it: the party was scheduled to start at 5:00 PM, Friday, October 10, and I was already going to be late. I drove past, very slowly, hardly more than a creep, but they were fine.

The Igloo hotel. It's been in Alaska for at least as long as I have and in all that time its never been open. Also, they should spell it "Iglu." This is Alaska, not Canada.

Trooper behind me. I have just gone through Cantwell. As you can see, the weather has improved. Now it is time to gather speed, and make up for lost time. The last time I got a ticket, about 25 years ago, the trooper who issued it told me that I could safely go nine miles an hour over the posted speed limit and not get ticketed. Once I hit 10 mph over, he said, they would nail me. 

So I always try to go 9 mph over the speed limit on the highway. But not when there is a trooper behind me. When there is a trooper, I stick right at the posted limit. 

And he stayed behind me for 50 miles or so.

See the name on the sign? Carlo Creek? It will take on added significance at the birthday party, so take note of it, because when the time comes, I will not remind readers of the sign. I will trust readers to remember.

Although I encountered a few more flurries, the roads stayed good the rest of the way to Fairbanks. I arrived at the party at 6:15 PM. So I was late, but I made it.

Next up: Hannah Solomon turns 100

Target opens in Wasilla / yesterday's snow / three views of the Chugach from the Glenn Highway while driving out of Anchorage

Today, Target opened a store in Wasilla - and another in Anchorage. Being Inside continually becomes more and more like being Outside. The Grand Opening is Sunday. Maybe if I am home, I will go to Target that day, take some photographs, talk to some people, and share in the refreshments. If so, I will make a full report.

Damned exciting stuff!

Yesterday's snow:

Woman crosses Brockton after checking her mail.

Black dog in snow.

Basketball standard on the corner where the chicken crossed the road and the dog tried to kill the bunny.

Two horses in the field that lies next to the shrine where some people go to pray. This is actually from the day before yesterday.

Three views of the Chugach from the Glenn Highway while driving out of Anchorage - from today

View # 1: The car dealership.

View # 2: The gas station.

View # 3: Airplane leaving Merrill Field. 

I drive to Anchorage to visit the doctor who took my shattered shoulder and gave me a new one

 

I had to go to town today to see the good - and I mean very good - Dr. Duddy, who took my shattered shoulder and replaced it with a new one. Shortly after we left Wasilla, we passed this Sarah Palin supporter.

Margie, Lavina, and baby Kalib dropped me off at the door and then went and parked the car while I checked in. Not long after I took a seat, they entered.

Kalib and Margie, as I wait to go in to see the doctor. The report is good. I am healing well. Still, he said, I can't go cross-country skiing until after the new year.

Damnit!

I was thinking about going real soon - next month, maybe.

We had lunch at Taco King. One of Lavina's co-workers was there. She adored Kalib.

As we wait for dinner, Kalib plays with one of those little things that you can put sauce in, and jalepeno peppers.

I had a meeting to go to after that, but not for about 45 minutes. Margie and Lavina took off elsewhere to go shopping, and I just started driving, wondering where I would go to. Soon, as always seems to happen, I found myself headed toward Lake Hood, and the airplanes.

I was thrilled when I had to stop at a railroad crossing, because that meant a train was coming. So I rolled down the window, knocked off a frame of the approaching engine, then remembered that I still had the camera set to the high ISO that I had used indoors. 

So this is what I wound up with, after I put the completely washed-out image into Lightroom and Photoshop for just a tiny bit of tinkering.

I just love trains. I do. I took lots more pictures of following cars. I could string them together and make a train of pictures.

As I drove along Lake Hood, this Cessna came in for a landing. Pretty soon, the floats will go and the skis will come on.

Soon, I drove by this WW II T6 trainer, shooting as I went. Just ahead, the road would turn, providing another view.

I could not look at the airplane as I navigated the turn, so I just held the camera out the window and, without even taking a glance to my side to see what it was seeing, pointed it in the general direction of the airplane and snapped, hoping that I would get what I got. Yes, a little more prop and nose cone would be nice, but when you drive-by shoot, you get what you get, and you can't be too picky about where the edge of the frame is, or just where the focus point falls.

Please don't try it. I'm the only person in the world who should do this. Not because its dangerous - it could be, but I take care to make certain that it isn't - but because it's my project, not yours. Oh, well. Do what you will.

At a stoplight, as I drive away from Lake Hood. I went to my meeting. It went well. More than that, I can't say right now.

The aftermath of what appeared to be a minor accident.

Back in Wasilla, we stopped at the Post Office. Margie went inside. Kalib and I stayed in the car. His mom had left us to go with his dad to see a movie.

So it was just Kalib and I, and he was asleep.

My daughter carries two signs in protest at the Delaney Park Strip in Anchorage

Driving to the Palin Protest...  

Not them - me. I'm the one driving to the Palin protest. I don't know where these two are driving to. They just happened to be in an open-cockpit, yellow, jeep that pulled up behind me when I stopped for a red light, so I photographed their reflection in my rear-view mirror.

On the day before - Friday - my flight on Alaska Airlines left Barrow at 8:00 PM Friday, landed in Anchorage just before 11 and Margie picked me up. By the time I retrieved my luggage and we made our way through road construction traffic diversions, stopped at Taco Bell and then continued on to our house in Wasilla, it was nearly 2:00 AM. I had been looking forward to spending Saturday at home, being lazy, doing whatever I damn well felt like doing, but after I entered the house, I learned that Lisa, my youngest daughter, had made signs and was going to carry them in a protest against Sarah Palin to be held in Anchorage the next afternoon.

So that's why I drove to Anchorage and wound up stopped at a red light with these two behind me.

The protest was scheduled to last for two hours, and I arrived after it had been going on for about an hour and fifteen minutes. I looked around for Lisa, but I could not see her.

The protest was aimed at Palin's recent maneuverings to derail "Troopergate," investigation launched by a majority Republican vote of the Alaska State Legislature to try to determine why she fired Walt Monegan from his job as Public Safety Commissioner. When the investigation was launched, Palin promised that she and her staff would cooperate fully with the investigation, that they would be completely open and forthright in every aspect of it. She changed her mind after she became McCain's VP candidate. 

When her husband, Todd, and some of Palin's top aides received Legislature subpoenas to give testimony to the investigator, Attorney General Talis Colberg instructed them to ignore the subpoenas.

Unhappy protesters called for Colberg to be fired and disbarred for obstructing justice, and Palin to be impeached.

According to the Anchorage Daily News, about 1000 people participated in the protest, although the crowd was notably smaller than that by the time I arrived. I thought it should be easy to find Lisa. I spent most of my time wandering around, looking for her, reading signs, looking for the two that she had told me she made. I could not find Lisa. I could not find her signs.

There was a speaker's platform with many people crowded together. As I had not found her elsewhere, I thought maybe I would find her there. I put myself in a spot where I could study the crowd, a spot where Lisa would likely see me if I did not see her.

But I did not see her, nor did she appear to say, "hi Dad! I'm over here."

So I took a few pictures of this guy as he read a speech for another guy who had been unable to attend.

 

Then I turned to the side, and shot these people.I looked hard, but I did not see Lisa... and yet, had I just been a little more observant... look to the top and right of the picture... see the top of the head, the forehead, and the nose of the young man who is mostly hidden behind the older man wearing glasses? That head and nose belongs to Bryce, Lisa's boyfriend. 

Lisa had momentarily stepped away from the crowd. If I had noticed Bryce, or if he had noticed me, he would have told me that Lisa would be right back.

But I did not notice that it was Bryce. Bryce did not notice me. I continued to search in vain for my daughter.

I wanted to call someone, so I reached into my pocket, only to discover that my cell phone was not there. I could not have called Lisa anyway, as she is temporarily without hers. So, again, I roamed through the crowd, looking for my protesting daughter. I did not see her, but I saw geese coming. I am still using the point and shoot, and I knew that at best I could get two frames of the geese as they passed over.

So, I quickly sized up the situation, shot this frame, then turned toward a man who who held an anti-Palin sign high over his head. Quickly, I framed the picture so that his sign would be prominent below as the geese flew overhead. He saw the geese, too; he saw my camera pointed at the sky behind his sign, where the geese were about to fly. 

He was polite. He dropped his sign, so that it would not obstruct my view of the geese, leaving me only a picture of geese in an empty sky.

"Why did you drop your sign?" I scolded. "It was part of the picture! Do you think I come to a protest rally just to take pictures of flying geese?"

He felt very badly. I felt ashamed that I scolded him.

"It's okay," I consoled. "You were trying to help. You didn't know."

So I walked back to where I had parked the car, about three blocks away, to see if maybe my cell phone was in it. It wasn't. I turned around and headed back to the protest. Along the way, I spotted this cat as it crossed the road. It jumped up onto this fence. What could I do? I had to stop to take its picture.

The protest was focused on a small amphitheatre positioned just behind this statue of a soldier, one who represents all Alaska military men and women who have died fighting for the United States. Freedom of speech is one of the rights these soldiers fought for. On this day, my daughter, Lisa, and her boyfriend exercised their freedom of speech.

Before I had arrived, they had positioned themselves by the side of the road, along with many other protesters, so that passing motorists could see what they had written on their signs. Some of the passing motorists flipped them off; some said, "f--- you!"

These people also exercised their freedom of speech - in a way meant to intimidate, to strike fear into my daughter, so that maybe she would think twice before she exercised her freedom of speech again in the future.

Interesting conundrum. 

"Dad!" I finally heard her voice. "I've been looking for you." That's her, towards the right, just in front of the flag pole, wearing the Chicago Cubs hat. Lisa loves the Chicago Cubs. She attended their season opener in Wrigley Field and wants to return to be there when they play in the World Series - hopefully, this year.

This is the other sign that she made and wore. "If I put these pictures of you on the blog," I told her, "some people are going to be very angry with you. They might say mean and threatening things to you."

"I know," she said. "That's okay. They already flipped me off; they already said, F-U!" Also, she has an Obama bumper sticker on her little Chevy Cavalier. Since Palin was put on the ticket, she has noticed that she is often tailgated by the drivers of much bigger vehicles, especially when she drives into Wasilla.

She is tailgated more than she ever was before.

"Tricky Dick" was there. He claimed to support Sarah Palin in her effort to stonewall the Legislative investigation.

After the protest, Lisa, Bryce and I went to Kaladi Brothers Coffee Shop on Fifth Avenue. We hung out there for about an hour and half and laid out the solutions to a good many of the world's political problems - if only the politicians would listen to the three of us! And then act upon what we say! Then we went to the house of my other daughter, Melanie, and fed her cats. Melanie is down south, in Texas, headed to Canada. Next, we went to see, "Tropic Thunder."

Finally, I headed for home, but I had to stop and get gas before I left town. As I filled my tanks, this was the scene before me.

I had wanted to take Lisa and Bryce to dinner, but the coffee and the movie popcorn and what have you killed their appetites, so I did not. I was not hungry, either, until I got to Eagle River. Then I suddenly wanted a taco and a burrito, so I pulled off the highway and drove to Taco Bell. 

I ate my food in the parking lot, then left. I soon had to stop at a light. In front of me, I saw more freedom of speech being exercised. And yes, when the opportunity appears before me, I will be just as happy to shoot a pro-Palin rally as an anti-Palin. I'm sure it will happen. Wait and see. I'll still vote for Barack Obama, but even so, were I to get the chance to interview and photograph Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John McCain and Sarah Palin, I could lay it all out in a most even-handed manner.

Even so, John McCain, a man whom I have long admired and respected, back when he acted like John McCain, would say that I was being biased and unfair, because that is the tactical position of his campaign. 

As the hour grew late, I drove back into Wasilla. My town.

September 10 and 11, 2001/ September 11, 2008 (injured series, part 2)

  

This morning, September 11, 2008, I took a long walk through my part of Wasilla and as I did, I thought about September 11, 2001, and September 10, the day that preceded it. September 10 had dawned sunny with a bit of frost on the ground, but the frost quickly melted and then the day turned warm. The sky was that deep blue that it gets around here in the fall. The trees were yellow or turning yellow, and new snow graced the tops of even some moderate mountains, which stood out sharp and beautiful in the still, cloudless, air. 

In that year, I had not expected to feel real warmth again until spring, but the afternoon turned hot - maybe into the 60's. So I invited Margie to join me in the car and we drove up into the glacier-carved, Matanuska Valley, to the place pictured above. We got out of the car. The air smelled terrible, of fish rot and decay, for the rivulet-braided banks of the Matanuska River were littered with spawned out, dead salmon.

Despite the odor, I was, as I always am when I am out an about in my home of Alaska, awestruck. Thrilled to be here. What a privilege!

A soon to be spawned out salmon propels past those who are already dead on a beautiful September 10. 

 

Spawned out salmon reaches a dead end.

As is always the case when I am in the midst of Alaska, I felt this deep, unattainable, longing to be in Alaska, to be part of Alaska. I feel this longing the strongest when I am right here, in the midst.

So today, as I walked, I thought about what I had saw and experienced on September 10, 2001, and how September 11 had dawned equally beautiful, but I experienced a rude awakening that day. It happened at 6:45 AM, right after I got out of bed and let Jim, the black cat, out of our bedroom into the hall. 

As I closed the door and started back to the bed, I heard footsteps in the hall, followed by a loud, "Mom!"

It was our oldest son, Jacob, who in the spring had graduated from Arizona State University. I opened the door again, irritated that he was speaking so loudly. "She's in bed, sleeping!" I whispered loudly, for I did not want him to wake her.

Jacob ignored me, and came right into the bedroom. "Mom!" he exclaimed. Margie sat straight up in bed. "They bombed the World Trade Center!"

I will say no more about that day, the days that followed, the weeks, the months, the years. You already know about it.

So this morning, as I walked through a cool, very light, on and off again sprinkle, I kept my eyes to the road, and thought about these things. Then, as I climbed a curving rise on Gail Street I lifted my eyes and saw this house, flying this flag.

I kept walking. Soon I saw this postman, delivering mail.

A bit beyond a postman, I saw this flag, one of two adorning either side of a driveway.

And just a few houses beyond, I spotted this dog, looking at me from this window.

I reached Lucille Street, and turned to walk down the bike trail. I did not see anyone on bikes, but I did see this young man riding his skateboard.

Come lunchtime, Margie and I could not stay in the house so we went and ate hamburgers at Carl's Jr. On the way home, she drove slowly past the main Wasilla fire station. Flags, representing all those killed in the attacks of 9/11, had been posted in the yard. 

In the late evening hours, I took a break from some work I was doing in my office and I stepped into the house. This is what I saw.