Five cyclists from Kentucky pedal onto the stage that Scot built for his wife, Carmen - Metro Cafe; the huge challenge Scot and Carmen now face

When it comes to Metro Cafe and the couple who created it, it is mostly Carmen who appears in this blog. Her husband Scot gets in now and then, but Carmen is the public face of Metro and it is her face with its bright and exuberant smile that tends to appear in front of my camera and then wind up here. On the day that I took this picture, sometime last winter, I was inside the cafe, visiting with Scot and I told him what a remarkable thing he had brought to us when he designed and built Metro. 

For those fortunate enough to have taken the time to stop in, this little coffee shop has given a whole new feeling to this neighborhood. It has created options to relax and enjoy that never existed here before. On a cold day, it is a warm place where people gather - warm not only in temperature but atmosphere and spirit. In my opinion, the coffee is the best to be found in Wasilla; Children come here for smoothies and Kalib really likes the hot chocolate. It is a place for old people, teens, young adults, conservatives, liberals. It doesn't matter. Carmen wraps her warmth around all who enter. She causes all to feel that they are special to her and that this place that belongs to her and Scot is theirs, too.

Metro is a pleasant place for us all. There has never before been anything like it in all of Wasilla. This is what I told Scot that day.

"I see Metro Cafe as a stage," Scot answered. "All I did was build the stage. It is Carmen who directs the show. She is the one who gives it spirit and brings it to life."

Take a close look at Scot's face, and then come back and look at it again after you finish reading this post. News of great import had just come into his life, into Carmen's life - the life they share together, the life they share with their five-year old son, Branson.

Late yesterday morning, this three-year old girl, Robin Harrison, pedaled into the Metro parking lot from Kentucky. She entered the stage that Scot had built and ordered a hot chocolate from Carmen. Yes, you read right - she pedaled in from Kentucky. I am not making this up. It is true.

On August 1 of last year, she pedaled away from her home in Mt. Vernon, Kentucky, headed south to the tip of Florida, turned north again and continued on in a 7,000 mile bike ride that took her across the south, through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon and on to Seattle, Washington. From there, she put her bike on a series of ferry boat rides up to Prince Rupert, BC, Juneau and then to Whittier, from where she had so far pedalled on to Wasilla but still had more than 300 miles left to go.

I asked her how it had been for her, a little girl, to ride a bike all that long way?

"I'm not a little one!" she shouted in feisty indignation. Well, she looked kind of small to me, but how could I argue, given what she had done?

I pressed on. How had she liked her bicycle journey?

"Good!" she shouted. What she had liked best? "I like riding the ponies!"

Readers probably suspect by now that Robin had not pedaled all this distance alone. This is correct. That's her seven-year old sister, Cheyenne, sitting across the table from her. Cheyenne had pedaled with her. I asked Cheyenne what had been her favorite part of the trip.

"I liked riding the horses," she agreed with her younger sister. So far, they had had two horse-riding excursions - one in Tennessee and the other in Texas. Since entering Alaska, the sisters had also seen a moose, eagles and bears.

Could two girls of such young age really have made such a journey alone?

I must confess... no, they did not pedal alone...

Their five year old sister, Jasmine, pedaled with them. And what had been Jasmine's most memorable experience thus far?

"The sea horses," she answered. "I loved the sea horses. All the colors, the texture..."

These they saw when they stopped at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California.

Okay... the girls' parents came with them and they all rode on one bike, a five-seater. Here they are, all together with their bike and with Carmen, Scot and Metro Cafe. That's their dad, Bill, on the left, and their mom, Amarins, on the right.

The family name may be Harrison, but on this trip they call themselves the Pedouins, which, they explain on their website, is derived from the Arab word Bedouin, "signifying a member of an adventurous family" traveling the continent by bicycle.

They have had adventures and they have met many people, most of them helpful and good. They plan to write about it in a book. Once that book is released, they hope to come back to Wasilla and do a book signing at Metro Cafe.

Many people, such as the dentist seen waving at Robin in picture two, have put them up for a night or two and have fed them. They have been helped in many ways, but on occasion they have met unfriendly people, too. The worst incident happened in Alabama, when they were pedaling up a hill on a four-lane highway in the right hand lane of the two that went up. There was no shoulder so they had to stay on the road, but there was plenty of space for drivers to go around them. Even so, a man driving up that hill grew angry with them. He honked and shouted.

After they topped the hill, they pedaled into a gas station and there he was. He scolded them and called the cops. An officer came, but he took their side, not his.

What they have found on the whole is that truck drivers generally show them the most courtesy. They give them a wide berth and appear to radio ahead to their colleagues so that they can be on the lookout. The most problematic drivers they encounter tend to be driving big RV's. All too often, these are the ones who crowd them the most closely.

Many people honk and wave in a friendly way. Some stop to take their picture, or invite them to dinner.

They have pedaled over mountains ranges and the uphills have grown harder as they have progressed - in part because the girls have grown and their weight has increased. On the downhills, they never let their speed climb above 20 mph. "If we did, we would become just like a runaway train," Amarins explains. "There would be no stopping."

Amarins says they have been most impressed by the magnificent beauty of Alaska. She has visited Wyoming's Grand Teton Mountains, which were breath taking - but Alaska "quardruples that - and we have only seen a little bit of Alaska," she adds.

From Metro, they pedaled off toward Denali - 200 miles, hoping to go 20 miles a day. Many people visit Denali National Park and never see the mountain as it spends so much time buried in the clouds. The Pedouins have already seen it - on a clear day from Anchorage. Before they get to Denali, they are going to make a little detour into Talkeetna. Now, on their behalf, I make a plea to anyone in Talkeetna or who has good relations with any of the mountain flying services that operate out of there.

Think what this family has done! Please, if the weather is suitable, load them into a 185 or 206 or 207 or whatever the hell you've got and fly them up the Ruth Glacier into the Great Gorge. They have come so far - please! Let them see the Great Gorge. Then they will truly see the truth of Amarin's statement about the Grand Tetons, not merely quadrupled, but multiplied ten times over.

After Denali, they will go on to Fairbanks, where their bike journey will end.

Bill and Scot found they had something in common. They both love old cars and machines, particularly machines that transport people from one place to another.

That brings me back to Scot, to the day that I took the picture that opens today's entry as well as this one. Not long before that day, after undergoing more tests than he was comfortable with, Scot and Carmen learned that he has a dangerous - but not unbeatable - colon cancer. Until now, I have been quiet about it but many of their regulars know. On this day, one of them, a church-going Christian man, had given Scot the book that he holds in the hope that it might encourage him.

I have few left and it is hard for even me to get more without paying more than I can afford, but I gave him a copy of Gift of the Whale. I did so because Scot has a long history in the oil fields of the Arctic Slope and operates his own, very successful spill containment business there. An Iñupiat man who is the son of the late Mary Edwardsen, the woman who made the white hunting parka that protected me from the cold for so many seasons before it finally wore out, has often worked with him.

This man respected Scot so much that he secretly had his mother prepare a polar bear ruff for him and then had that ruff delivered to Scot by snowmachine to a camp nearly 200 miles from where Mary had made it.

I figured that if Doug Edwardsen respected Scot that much, then I would give him a copy of my book. Plus, he had brought this fine thing called Metro Cafe into my neighborhood. I wanted him to have the book.

Scot, who is determined to beat his cancer, says it is okay to let people know about his cancer now. Carmen adds that Scot is a fighter and does not give up. She hopes that maybe someone else who has cancer and who feels like giving up can learn about Scot and find more courage to wage his or her own fight.

Scot, sitting where he had told me that he built the stage, but Carmen had created the play.

I should add that Amarins told me that in all her travels across the United States, she had never found a coffee shop to equal Metro in warmth and coziness. "You just don't find something like this," she stressed.

Carmen now carries this token of divine strength with her. It quotes from Psalm 23:

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures

and leads me by still waters...

It was a gift to her from her friend, Elaine, who lost both breasts to cancer and carries her own, pink ribbon, pendant.

Scot and Carmen, late last winter, before Scot went in for his first surgery.

Once, as Scot was out of state for medical care, I was in the shop with Carmen and their son Branson, who was still four. Scot called on the phone. Branson talked to his dad.

Carmen shows me - and a young visitor whose name I have forgotten - some of the drawings that she and Scot made as they put together their plan to build Metro Cafe.

Yes, many people have stepped into this stage that Scot made for Carmen. Several of them have appeared in this blog.

There is Sashanna, the 19 year-old barista who uses her earnings to help fund her college courses. This summer, she is taking a creative non-fiction writing course. Last week, she let me read a piece she had written, about rain and how rain not only nourishes the soil and plants, but helps to heal the hurt soul.

I was moved by that piece. When I read it, I knew that, as one way or another we all must, the writer had experienced pain but knew she had to continue on. In the rain, she found the courage to do so.

The fellow she is serving is named Paul, another player on the stage. He is a regular, comes by just about every day. That's all I know about him.

Yesterday, Jobe was carried onto the stage that Scot built for Carmen. He was warmly received...

...by Scot as well as Carmen.

I took this picture in late spring, of Branson as he rode his bike past my rearview mirror. Close to the same time, Scot told me how he planned to teach Branson to drive a snowmachine, because he wanted him to be a responsible driver. He told me how he had discovered a Metro bus, decades old, how he planned to rebuild it.

Two days ago, on my birthday, as I sat at the Metro drive through window, I looked out the passenger window. I saw Scot on his Harley. 

"You look really good," I told him.

"Yes," he answered. "Today."

On Monday, he will go in for his regular Chemo treatment. There is no way to describe that experience, he told me. He will not look so good afterwards. He will feel awful for days. But to survive this cancer, he must survive the chemo. Survive is what he is determined to do.

It was a hot day, so I ordered a raspberry mocha frappe. As it was my birthday, Scot would not let me pay for it - not even with the gift card Funny Face had purchased for me. He pulled out his wallet, removed the few dollars that it would cost and handed the money to Carmen, who stood within the stage that he had built for her. He paid for my frappe.

I think it just may have been the very best frappe I have ever tasted.

I mean it. It was that good.

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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.

Tracks in the new snow; mama moose blocks my path; a treasured seed winds up in the garbage

Finally, it snowed again. Regular readers have read my lament - about how it has basically not snowed here since early December (oddly enough, it has snowed in Anchorage a couple of times, but not here). Yes, you may look at this blog and see snow everywhere, but that is only because this is a place where the snow that falls in October is typically still here in April and sometimes even in patches as May begins.

(Contrast this to the Arctic Slope, where the snow that falls in September can linger in patches into July).

This year, of course, there was no snow in October here. It did not come until early November and then it never built up to much. And the weather has been so warm, for us, even as it has been cold to the south, for them.

Thank El Niño. Thank the Arctic Oscillation.

But, last night, I noticed a few flakes coming from the sky. Then, as I lay in bed, more flakes came. They kept coming, one on top of the other, piling up, piling and piling and piling up until finally this morning I stepped outside and disovered that they had piled up to a depth of...

1/8th of an inch, give or take 1/16th, depending on where you were standing.

Well, one-eighth was enough to allow feet to leave new tracks on the roads.

Here are the tracks left by a young moose and a raven.

And here are some tracks left by some ravens who got together to eat out. What did they eat? I don't know.

I walked on from the spot where the ravens dined and then stepped away from the road and into the marsh. I headed toward Dodd's trail, the one he has tried to keep open for walkers, but to close to machines. It's not that he is against machines, just selfish and immature drivers who tear things up with them and sometimes even wake homeowners from their sleep. I took this picture about 100 feet from the barricade with the "no trespassing" signs that he has placed at the entrance to his property.

When the wind blows, it tears through the marsh. I cannot eliminate the possibility that the wind ripped this sign free from his barricade and planted it here.

More likely, though, it is the work of someone on a snowmachine or fourwheeler who is undoubtedly very possessive of all that is his and wants everyone to respect his rights and propety, but has no respect for the property and rights of others.

Being a walker on good terms with Mr. Shay, I continued on, headed for my house. I soon happened upon some very fresh moose tracks.

And then I saw the moose, separated from me by a few bushes. There were two actually. This one that you are looking at here is the child, the nearly grown calf.

The child decided to step out into the open and the mother quickly followed, keeping her eye on it and on me.

And then, standing right in the middle of the path, they played. Regular readers all know that I love my pocket camera, but right now I was wishing that I had one of my DSLR's, and my 100 to 400 mm lens. But I didn't. When you set out to document your surroundings with only a pocket camera, you understand the limitations from the beginning.

You just have to live and work with them.

If you look through their legs, you can see the trail going on beyond. That is where I want to walk. Right here, I am no more than 300 yards from my back porch - if that far.

But this mama moose is not going to let me pass. I have to back up and find another way.

Two calves used to hang out with this mother. I wonder what has become of the second?

And when I do, I come upon Patty, who, according to the doctor who refused to treat her cancer and told her to go home and prepare to die, should have been dead for two, maybe three months now.

But she is strong and getting stronger. Her eyes match her hat and coat.

When I get home, I find Margie ready to drive to Anchorage, to try once again to help Lavina prepare a room for her sister, who will arrive from Arizona tomorrow so that she can help with the new baby.

I decide that I might as well walk two more miles so I have her drop me off at Metro Cafe so that I can still get my afternoon coffee even though I will have no car to listen to the news in.

Carmen's sister, Theresa, has come out from Anchorage to help out and has brought her son, Evan, with her. While a few pass through the drive-through, I am the only customer in the store right now. Everyone is pretty comfortable with me, so Carmen's son Baranson and Evan get away with staging a little wrestling match.

After the wrestling match, Baranson is feeling pretty bad. It seems his teacher gave him some kind of special seed at school, but Evan took it and threw it in the garbage. 

Somehow, I missed that part.

So Carmen and Baranson look for the seed.

Evan comes bearing a little gift, hoping to make up for having throw the seed away. Baranson is not interested. He wants the seed.

Carmen, Baranson, Evan and Theresa. 

Just before I left, as I was paying for my coffee, the seed was found and Baranson got it back.

Margie returned late in the evening.

"No baby, yet," she said, "but Lavina is feeling a lot of pain."

Man. That's why I want our new grandchild to come soon, even three weeks ahead of it's due date - so this two week plus labor that Lavina has been in can come to an end.

PS: I was just headed for bed and I looked out the window... it is snowing. It looks like it might be for real, this time. And somewhere out in that snow, with no shelter but their own fur and tree branches aboe them, those moose have settled down for the night.

As her son runs the New York Marathon, the Fit Lady sprints beyond her cancer; Sarah denies being on Little Lake - it is written that Jesus wuz

I went walking a bit after noon today and, after I cut through the marsh, hiked up the hill through the trees and then came out onto the road, I saw Patty Stoll coming the other way. Patty, regular readers will recall, is fighting a deadly cancer. August 17 was the day that I first learned of and made note of it in this blog. 

At that time, without special treatment and surgery available only in the Lower 48, her doctor gave her only "months" to live - with that treatment, perhaps a year. It had been difficult to do, but, having a strong desire to live, Patty got herself lined up to go down south and get that surgery. Then, the doctor who was supposed to do it studied her data, concluded that her case was hopeless, that there was no point in doing anything further and told Patty to make her peace, because her time was up.

But Patty did not make her peace. She decided to fight. She would fight with naturopathic therapy, her strong will and medical treatment that she could get locally. She has made amazing progress.

So, today, once we got past the greetings, I asked, "how are you doing?"

"Good!" she said. "They still tell me that I am sick, but I feel good. I haved gained weight and I am growing stronger."

She told me that her local doctor is astounded at her progress, that he called it "extraodinary" and called her his "examplar." 

He asked her if she would be willing to meet with and speak to other patients with severe cancers and she agreed.

"Someone needs to be the examplar of how to beat this cancer," she said. "It might as well be me. I will set the example." She told me that she has two more rounds of chemo-therapy scheduled and that is it. Please note: she still has her hair.

Patty was also most pleased to tell me that her 30 year-old son, Willie Stoll, had run in the New York Marathon today. He finished the 26.2 mile race in 02:55:08, 616 out of about 20,000.

Jacob and Kalib had taken off walking before me. I went the opposite direction that they took, thinking that I might run into them along the way. But when I reached Little Lake without coming across them, I knew that that I had missed them.

As you can see, the ice has hardened and thickened around the goose decoy. I think it safe to say that, unless someone takes some heroic efforts to free it, this goose is locked down tight until some time in April or so.

The frogs that hang out back here are buried into the mud, where they should be frozen solid by now. They are amazing frogs, because, in the spring, even when only a small portion of the surface of Little Lake has broken clear of ice, you can hear the males croaking, calling their lovers to come and meet them so that they can make tadpoles together.

I could see that various people had been out testing the ice, and that a dog had been with them. The paw prints were big - like Muzzy paw prints.

I had missed them, but Jacob, Kalib and Muzzy had not missed the chance to frolic on the ice.

Others had gone out onto the ice, as well. I'm pretty certain that, despite their official denial, Sarah and Bonnie were among them. H'mmm... Sarah......??? do you think......???? Considering the denial and all?

It wuz written that Jesus had been there. This should surprise no one. 

I wondered if this track had been left by Jacob (It was too big to have been Kalib's) or by Sarah or Bonnie or whoever else might have ventured out onto the ice of Little Lake. When I returned home, Jacob confirmed that he, Kalib and Muzzy had been out on the pond, so I had him show me the bottom of his shoes.

This track was not his.

I should note that the reason all this dirt was on the surface of the pond is because of the big wind that blew the past few days. This is glacier dust, with some volcanic ash thrown into the mix, plus, I am certain, some regular dirt, too - along with the disintegrated remains of several dead spiders.

The wind still blew today, too, but not nearly so hard as the past couple of days. This flag needs to be taken down, disposed of properly and a new one raised in its place.

Since I missed them on the walk, I took Jake to lunch at Taco Bell. During my chat with Patty, she told me that she eats nothing but healthy food and that this has been the case for decades. Seeing as how we have always encountered each other in healthy situations - bike riding, walking and cross-country skiing, she had always kind of assumed I was healthy eater, too, and so has been very surprised to discover, on this very blog, the fact that I am a junk food junky - "a walking heart attack," as she put it.

Taco Bell food is pretty good though and it's got a lot of beans in it, and lettuce, tomatoes, corn chips and cheese and a bit of meat. I think that pretty much covers the food groups - except for fruit. When I got home, I ate a banana; later, Jacob gave me a chunk of persimmon that came all the way up from Brazil.

As you can see, Wasilla Lake is still not frozen over - although windblown shards have piled up on the edge of the shore. Way behind schedule. 

Come 4:00, I still had to go out for coffee, so that I could listen to the news on the radio. Here I am, in line at Mocha Moose, where I saw this guy reflected in my driver's door rearview mirror.

I took the long way home, via Shrock Road, where I took this picture at about 4:30 pm. This morning, it was very nice to be off Daylight Savings time - this afternoon, not quite as nice.

Even though we have yet to experience our first cold snap, the temperature has finally stayed continually below freezing for two days straight.

And tonight, I took a brief walk outside. Even with the lingering dust, the sky was crystal clear and the brisk air gave me a distinct bite that I can still feel in my ears. It felt just the way it does before a real cold snap sets in - so maybe.

I just wish there was snow, but there's not and if it gets cold you can be sure there won't be until it warms up again.

She dances, then speaks of the cancer her doctor said would kill her six months ago - now she has the support and prayers of the Native community

Mildred Martinez, Tsimshian from Metlakatla, (left) had been dancing strong at AFN's Quyana Alaska Friday night, but then the dancing stopped and she told the crowd about her fight with cancer. What started out as breast cancer had migrated to her spine, into which a metal rod was inserted, and then two tumors went to her brain.

In February, her doctor told her that her situation was hopeless, that it would be futile for him to treat her further and that she should just go home and prepare to die, because she would not make it past April.

Yet, here she was, six months past the deadline her doctor had given her, dancing with a group of Tlingit and Haida dancers from Juneau.

She spoke of how she had not given up just because her doctor said she was done, but had fought on and had found a physician in the Lower 48 who believed she could still make a fight of it. He began to treat her and so she is still here.

"Everyone has the right to fight for their life," she said.

Her fight is not over. Although she still lives, the cancer is still with her and she will soon travel Outside for chemo treatments.

Martinez expressed her faith in God, and stated her belief that He will help her through this.

Out in the crowd, hands lifted up in prayerful support.

Her fellow dancers gathered around her and sang, "How Great Thou Art."

When the song ended, the box drummer returned to his drum. The booming sound that he created was one of power and strength.

After she danced down from the stage and moved in traditional style toward the exit, a hand reached out to her. It would not be the only one.

She danced toward the exit.

Before stepping through the exit into the hall, she received a hug.

She joined in (back row, far right) with her fellow dancers as they waved through the TV cameras to their relatives and friends down in Southeast Alaska, and to well-wishers in every part of Alaska.

So many people who this morning did not know who she was now pray for her. In the Alaska Native community, that means a great deal.

As for me, I am in the same situation I was last night, but it is even later, I am more tired, my headache is worse and there is simply no way I can even look at the bulk of the day's take.

It seems a small matter. It will all hold. The pictures of all these people that I have been meeting and photographing will be there for me to run another day.