Outside rearview mirror - four studies of the Municipality of Anchorage: The biker and his stogie, UPS truck, unmarked cop and mark, strolling family

I had to drive into Anchorage to drop off some photos. I did not intend to shoot four serious studies involving my outside rearview mirrors, but then, as I waited for a red light to turn to green, I saw this guy behind me, smoking a stogie.

Suddenly, I knew it was time to do some serious study:

Outside Rearview Mirror Study of Anchorage, 1B: Biker smokes stogie while stopped at red light.

I wonder how it is to smoke a stogie in a motorcycle wind?

I figured one study was enough, and frankly, the creative effort involved in the biker-stogie study took just about everything that I had right out of me. So I thought I was done, but a bit thereafter, I again found myself stopped at a light, where I discovered that a UPS truck was behind me, the driver looking very serious indeed.

It was a huge challenge and required unprecedented effort, drive, and skill to shoot another serious study so quickly after the first, but I reached deep, dug up some adrenaline, rose to the challenge and shot it:

Outside Rearview Mirror Study of Anchorage, B1: the serious UPS man, the guy with the turned head, two indifferent women in a car.

Outside Rearview Mirror Study of Anchorage, 42C: unmarked police car at the scene of minor mishap.

I never imagined that I could do three studies, but I did. I thought I was okay, but as I neared Eagle River, I realized that the effort had drained me beyond belief and sapped me of all energy. I needed to refuel, so I pulled off for a Taco Bell stop. Shortly after exiting the freeway, I observed this family.

Yes, although many in Eagle River would chose to deny that they live in Anchorage, ER is within the Municipality of Anchorage, so here you go:

Outside Rearview Mirror Study of Anchorage, Z9: family strolling through Eagle River. The XXL burrito steak was really good.

For all those of you living or visiting Paris, France, please drop by the Louvre anytime from July 14 on. I expect that by then all four of these images will be on permanent display, at mural size, on Wall #9 - the most important and prestigious wall in all the Louvre.

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Ice cream is spilled, lips are kissed; a cop helps out; Jobe rests on the couch

Readers who were here yesterday will notice that I have slightly retreated from my summer retreat in which I have resolved to post only one, two, or three pictures per day and have instead posted four. It is because of these two. I did not expect them to appear in my life yesterday, but they did.

It is hard to limit my posts when they are here.

I could easily make this a 15-picture post, all pictures devoted exclusively to these two, but, given the fact that I am in summer retreat and worse yet that I am dealing with such a computer nightmare, I restrain and hold the total number of images to four.

Somewhere around 8:00 PM last night, Lavina called to say that, due to a mishap in the improvements they are putting into their house, they had lost their flow of water and could we take Kalib and Jobe for the weekend?

We agreed to meet her and the boys in Eagle River,  a little more than half-way between Wasilla and Anchorage. I had too much work to do to go and was going to let Margie go by herself, but then I thought about ice cream. I thought about how, if I went, we could stop and get four ice-cream cones before we returned to Wasilla.

What great fun that would be! The boys, Margie and me, all eating ice cream as we drove home, taking in the scenery.

So I put my work aside and I went.

But when we found them, the boys were already eating ice cream. Lavina had bought it for them at McDonald's in Eagle River. Or at least one of the boys was eating ice cream. The other had been, but had apparently had his fill of it and so had discarded it.

We transferred them from their mother's car to our car. Then their mother kissed them goodbye. We drove off, then stopped at McDonald's where Margie and I bought two ice cream cones, one for her and one for me.

The life of a freelancer being what it is, that ice cream about flattened our bank account and we are now fending off angry calls from creditors. But I expect to receive a good check Monday and everything should be good for awhile after that - I think I have enough work lined up that we will be fine for the remainder of the summer.

Fall will be another question. By fall, I must have the foundation laid to begin to make a living from an online base, for I expect my old ways of making a living in paper publishing to be completely dead by then.

That's what this retreat is about - not about relaxing and getting rest. This retreat is a retreat to work hard, to do what needs to be done now and to figure out what needs to be done in the future and how to do it.

On the way home, we passed by this scene. Someone had experienced difficulties and by all appearances the cop was helping them out. The LCD dash screen is a little hard to read at this size (easy at slide show size) but it states that is 9:10 PM and the temperature is 72 degrees.

Yes - after my note yesterday that we had not seen anymore 70 + degree days following the memorial weekend, yesterday really heated up. The sun blazed down upon us. It was damned hot and we sweated like crazy. I don't know how hot it got, but by 9:10 it would have cooled off a bit so I think we might have made it to the upper 70's.

Today, it is raining. My iPhone says it is 62 degrees in Wasilla.

I feel bad for all the people of Minot, North Dakota. How unbelievable are the pictures coming out of Minot?

And here is Jobe, at the house.

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Mormon missionaries ride bicycles

Two Mormon missionaries with their bicycles, spotted as I crossed through the intersection of the Palmer-Wasilla and Glenn Highways in Palmer. Other than what you see in the picture, I know nothing of them, yet I know them very well - better even than they do.

A former Mormon missionary shadow biking down Seldon Street in Wasilla. I know all about him, yet he is an enigma to me. I may never understand him at all.

Now... I must apologize. I have spent the past five or six hours dealing with one of those things that a man who is not a businessman yet is in business for himself must sometimes deal with, just like a real businessmen must - one of those things that he thinks he can do in half-an-hour and if he was a real business man could probably do in three sentences to his secretary, who would then take care of it in 15 minutes. The businessman who is is not a business man then winds up spending half a day and nearly $2000 to get done, an expense which will liklely yield him nothing and the particulars of which he does not understand at all but if he wants to stay in business he has to take the time and he has to spend the money.

So I am left with time to begin my long delayed Arctic series and it will have to start tomorrow.

Actually, the best thing to do would be to hold it for the online magazine I plan to start and not even worry about it all for now, but I promised that I would do it and there are people who have let me know they want to see it, so I will do it.

Hopefully, beginning tomorrow.

Now I must get back to work.

Except the sun is shining. It is wonderfully warm and I do not want to be inside at all.

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Kalib gets his shoe stuck in the mud; straight "A" college student

Once again, Jobe had been feeling under the weather with his respiratory infection, so Margie and I went into town, picked Kalib up and brought him home to spend the weekend with us in order to make it easier for his parents to care for Jobe and do all they needed to do.

After he got up in the morning, Kalib laid lazily back down upon the couch.

He didn't stay lazy for long, though. Soon he was out in the backyard, gathering golf balls.

He knew just what to do with them.

Then he wandered down to the back part of the back yard.

Kalib, at the edge of the woods.

Soon, he wandered off into the trees. I wanted to follow, but I had let Jim out. I needed to keep my eye on Jim.

So Margie went off into the woods with Kalib while I kept my eye on Jim. Jim had not been out the whole time that I had been traveling, as he only goes out when I can watch him and make certain that he does not wander off and get eaten or run over.

It drove me a little nuts, though. 

I wanted to see what Kalib and his grandma were up to.

Finally, I got Caleb to take Jimmy into the house and I went off to find Kalib and Grandma. I found them returning from whatever adventure they had been on.

Then Kalib turned around and took off back in the direction from whence they had appeared. Margie followed. I followed, too.

Kalib left our property altogether and went out into what we still call "the swamp," or "the marsh." Dodd Shay, the friendly property owner, does not like me to call it "swamp" or "marsh."

"Meadow," he insists. "It's a meadow."

Perhaps he is right now. But for the first 10 or 15 years that we lived here, it was a swamp. If Kalib had been where he is in this picture, he would have been emerged in water to his hips - especially this time of year, when the snows have been melting.

Still, the swamp is not completely dry. A bit of water and a bit of muck still remains out there. Kalib scurried off to this four wheeler track, left by vandals who ignored all of Shay's signs telling them to keep their machines out of the meadow because machines damage it.

It looked to me like Kalib had stuck his foot into mud. "Kalib," his grandma and I both shouted out to him. "Don't put your foot in the mud! Take your foot out of the mud."

He just stood there, keeping his foot in the mud, smiling mischievously at us.

Finally, he pulled his foot out of the mud. We called him to come to us, but he would not. He just stood there with a troubled expression on his face.

No matter how much we called, he would not budge.

Finally, I walked to him. When I saw that he now wore only one of his little dinosaur boots, I understood the troubled expression. Look to the right of the frame. There you will see the little dinosaur boot that goes on his left foot - stuck in the mud.

His grandma came, pulled the boot out of the mud and helped him back into it.

Kalib did not want to walk in his mud-filled boot. He wanted to be carried. I offered to carry him, but he would not let me. Only grandma would do. Kalib is grandma's boy.

Then he got down and walked.

How did he get his knees so muddy?

Come night, Kalib and his grandma sat on the couch and reminisced about the day's grand adventure. They watched movies with Uncle Caleb.

A little after 10 PM, Kalib fell sound asleep in his grandma's embrace.

Yes, Kalib is Grandma's boy.

Grandpa then carried him into bed, tucked him in and there he slept for the next 11 hours.

Wow!

While I was traveling, Lisa completed all her class projects, took her finals and wound up with straight A's. It had been a very tough semester for her. She carried a full load, worked full time, and had to take on extra tasks such as dog sitting to make ends meet.

Once, we found her in tears and tried to give her some money to make it a little easier, but she would not take that money. She wanted to do it on her own and she did.

Right after she graduated from high school, Lisa went excitedly off to college in Durango, Colorado, but the year proved disastrous for her. She had an alcoholic roommate and she grew so homesick that when the year ended, she came home and dropped out of college.

But now she knows that college is something she needs to complete to go where she wants to go.

We are very proud of her.

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They'rrrrrrre baaaaack.... in the blog: Jobe, Lavina, Kalib, Jacob and Margie - in that order

How long has it been since this face has appeared in my blog? Six weeks? Something like that. And look, in this, the very first frame that I shot of him upon our reunion, he is just standing around. STANDING around. Not wobbling shakily. Standing.

As though it is no big deal at all. As though it is just something that a little kid would be expected to do.

Jobe. 

Standing around.

And he walks around at will, too.

I was worried that after all this time, he might have forgotten his grampa. Remember how he loved me? How he adored me?

Has he now forgotten me?

After a brief period of study and contemplation, he walked right over and sat down on my lap. He had not forgotten.

And then he went out to play with Martigny. Martigny did not not want to play with him. Maybe it was the "woof" on his shirt that scared her away.

I'm afraid Jobe has been sick the past couple of days. Respiratory infection. 

Jobe needed rest.

Still, he gets up and moves happily around. He is getting better.

Then Jacob called, to say that he and Kalib were coming home from their walk and would soon reach the nearby park. I went out to see and this is the first frame I shot, right after they came into view.

Last time I saw them, there was a still a good amount of snow here. Now the leaves have come out.

Kalib went straight for the slide. As he started down, he looked up at his dad to see what his dad would do.

His dad came sliding after...

Kalib threw some pebbles into a slide chute and then watched as they tumbled and slid back down.

Then he ran off and his dad chased after.

Soon, they were in the house, eating popsicles. When offered a variety of colors, Kalib chose the green one. Then he saw his mom pick a red one for herself and decided that the red one would be better instead.

I also had a red one.

The red ones are best.

Although the green is pretty good.

It was about 10:30 PM now. Margie's flight was scheduled to arrive at 1:38 AM. I had come in early just so I could finally see the boys, but Jobe was now asleep and the rest would soon join them.

That meant I had three hours to wait.

The prospect horrified me.

What I could I do with all that time?

I could go sit in a bar and sip root beer, wink my eyes at honkey tonk women and say stupid things as they danced and sauntered across the floor.

Instead, I laid back on the couch. I sank right into it.

I closed my eyes. The lids were so heavy, I did not feel like I could ever open them again.

I fell asleep right there. At 1:09 AM, I forced myself to get up and go. I drove to the airport and picked Margie up. Her plane had come in half-an-hour early and she was standing there waiting when I pulled up, so I stopped, she put the one bag that she had left with in the back plus the other that she had bought and filled in Arizona and jumped in. 

I took off without even taking a picture.

As regular readers know, it is our tradition to go out for breakfast the morning after either one of us returns from a trip.

So this morning we went to Family Restaurant - no, not Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant but Denali Family Restaurant, just a few miles further up the Parks Highway.

I would not have even known about this brand new restaurant had I not gone to Fairbanks to cover Katie John's graduation, but I saw it as I drove home.

If they had named it, "Mckinley Family Restaurant," I would never have tried it. I would not have walked through the door. I try never to patronize a business that bears the name, "Mckinley." I stick to "Denali."

Inside, it was very much like Mat-Su Family Restaurant. The decor was similar, the menu similar, the food similar and the plates exactly the same. Even all the staff that I could see, including the waitresses, were staff I recognized from Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant.

So I thought maybe it was an extension, built by the same owner to compete with him/herself.

No. It wasn't. It was built by a competitor and the staff that I could see had all been hired away.

Breakfast was very good - the hash browns cooked just right and, I hate to say it, better than at Mat-Su. 

I will still continue to patronize Mat-Su. It is a bit closer. And Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant has helped me bear some extremely hard mornings. Very hard mornings. Mornings that followed nights of turmoil and grief, nights without sleep.

So I will keep going to Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant.

But I will patronize Denali, too. Good hash browns are a big draw to me.

Margie enjoyed it, too.

It was the first time she had drank coffee in weeks, she said. 

She stayed with her sister, who remains a pretty active, decent and abiding Mormon. She allows visitors to brew coffee for themselves, but Margie did not feel like brewing coffee for just one so she abstained.

Tomorrow, I will discuss a recent NPR story about the health benefits of coffee - particularly for the prostate - and will thank a generous, almost not-anonymous lady who bought me a coffee at Metro the other day.

Margie is glad to be home, but she says it feels cold here.

"I have come back to winter," she said.

This, even though the leaves are sprouting out here and it snowed three inches at her sisters house 6000 feet up in Arizona her final morning there.

Still, it was warmer there than here.

Which it ought to have been.

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(warning - slideshow contains additional photos of Jobe and Kalib not seen in the actual post)