Cibecue Creek, part 4: We frolic at the magical falls; Jacob does a back-flop, Rex gets dizzy; we hike out in a race against darkness

As an old man watching from an audience of stone faces observes with a wry smile, Caleb takes a big leap and plummets into the pool below Cibecue Falls.

How could a place where spirit faces peer out from ancient stone be anything but magical?

You can be certain that when Jacob - who was actually the first to jump and jumped the most - hit the water on this plunge, he felt it. It stung; it felt for a moment like he had fallen into concrete. Later, when I asked him what in the world ever got into him to try it this way, he told me he thought that he could complete the rotation before he hit the water.

Remember, my children grew up in Alaska and never had much of an opportunity to hone their water-sport skills.

It looks to me like that old man who peers out from the rocks chuckled a bit as Jacob plunged past.

Even so, Jacob swam away feeling good about the experience.

I think he could have kept at it for hours - if we had hours available to keep at it. We didn't. The sun had long since left the canyon and we knew it would be getting dark soon.

It looked like a decent enough jump for Rex...

...but when he first tried to emerge from the water, he found that he had become dizzy, unable to stand. It took awhile, but finally Rex recovered enough to rise. He took no more jumps after that. Water had gotten into his ears and would stay there for a day or two.

Charlie hit okay.

As all this was going on, Kalib engaged in a game of "throw the rock." His mother stuck close by to guide and watch over him.

Lisa didn't jump, but she did swim a bit.

Melanie spent some time floating in the shallow end of the pool, where the jumpers would not come down on top of her.

As for me, I spent too much time trying to photograph it all with my pocket camera. Finally, I decided to go up and jump, but because of my shoulder, I began to climb very slow and deliberate, and then realized that it was going to take me so long that I had better abandon it, if we were to get out of the canyon before dark.

Anyone can believe that I just chickened out, should they choose, but anyone who knows my history in this life would know that is not true.

Still, I can't stop anyone from believing whatever they are going to believe.

Even before the jumping finished, everyone posed for a picture... well, not quite everyone...

Now it's everyone.

Before we began the hike out, we refueled on mangos, a giant sandwich, oatmeal bars, assorted berry candy and other delicacies.

Now we knew we had to hurry, if we were to get Kalib out by dark. Kalib himself gamely plunged forward.

Sometimes, he needed a little help - but remember, he is only two-and-a-half years old. I think he was doing pretty well.

Once he fell and completely submerged. Cibecue Creek took the hat that he had borrowed from Jobe and swept it right off his head. Still, he got up and forged on.

Not withstanding the big hurry that we were in, we had to stop when Kalib needed another diaper change. A dark rock was releasing the heat that it had gathered from the sun back into the cooling air, so, while Lavina changed the diaper, my fellow hikers laid down upon that rock to absorb some of that solar warmth themselves.

After his diaper had been changed, Kalib found a big stone and played, "strong man."

Now we had to hurry as fast as was safe to go. The sun had officially set - even above the canyon walls. Arizona is not like Alaska, where daylight lingers long even after the sun goes down. In Arizona, after the sun goes down, dark comes fast.

When we reached the small dirt and gravel parking where Cibecue Creek empties into the Salt River, the light was just about gone.

Before we could drive away, Lavina had to change Kalib's diaper one more time. She had only the light of the inside car lamps to work with. After spending six hours with his feet either submerged in water or held in soaked shoes, Kalib's feet were wrinkled to the extreme.

He was also extremely drowsy. At the moment his mom finished changing his diaper and strapped him into his car seat, Kalib fell asleep.

As we drove through the night along the dirt and gravel road that follows the Salt River toward the highway, the moon rose over the canyon walls.

Kalib slept all the way back to LeeAnn's house - a drive of about an hour-and-a-half. He did not wake up when Jacob unstrapped him and carried him inside. He did not wake up when his grandma took him from his dad so that she could hold him on her lap and love him.

He did not wake when his mother got him ready for bed. He did not wake when she put him to bed. He slept until the following morning.

It was a well-earned sleep.

I think he did pretty damned good.

Remember - he is only two-and-half.

Cibecue Creek, part 3 of 4, possibly 5: We happen upon a frog, experience a bit of adventure, then hike into a place of magic

I will begin with the frog, which we happened upon shortly after we started to hike. As you can see, it was a tiny frog, but it brought to mind a bigger frog that I encountered very near to this place over 30 years ago. On March 10, I wrote a bit about my friend Vincent Craig, who was fighting the cancer that on May 15 took him.*

One of the experiences that I recounted was a nighttime rescue that he led that took place in a canyon cut out by one of the creeks that flows out of the White Mountain Apache reservation into the Salt River.

Perhaps it was this very creek, Cibecue. I cannot remember for certain, as we did the hike in and out and scaled the cliffs from which two waterfalls fell in the darkness of night. I have no visual memories of the terrain through which we hiked.

This creek does lead to a couple of falls, however, and it is a creek that is sometimes visited by non-tribal members, such as the blond woman who fell on the cliff and broke her leg.

There is another creek further upstream that also does. So it could have been either one. Somewhere, I have it written down and stored away, but that document would be hard to find and I haven't the time to look for it.

Near the beginning of that rescue hike on that night three decades ago, I was stumbling about on the rocks as we worked our way upstream when suddenly I felt something cool and clammy plop down upon my left wrist. "Snake!" was my immediate thought - "rattler" in particular. I let out a little shriek, but kept enough composure not to jerk my hand away until I knew what was on it and what it was doing.

I transferred the beam of my flashlight from the rocks below my feet to my wrist and there saw the startled eyes of a big frog, looking back at me.

Lisa holds the frog out for Kalib to see. Kalib cautiously touches it.

From the moment we came upon the creek and I looked at the walls rising into mountains on all sides of us, this line from Vincent's song, Someone Drew a Line, came into my head: "Between The Four Sacred Mountains we lived in harmony..."

These were not The Four Sacred Mountains that Vincent wrote about, yet, in their way, I believe all the mountains to be sacred and so it seemed appropriate. This song would stay in my head throughout the hike - for every minute of it, every second. Not for a moment would it leave me.

Sometimes Kalib hiked on his own power. Sometimes, he would be carried - either by his dad or his uncles, Caleb, Rex and Charlie.

Due to my shoulder, I could not carry him.

Mostly, we hiked through water. Before we started to hike, the heat had felt oppressive and I had wondered how we were going to do it. The water mitigated that heat. It turned out to be no problem at all.

Jacob trips and goes down while carrying Kalib.

Jacob gives Kalib an assist up a boulder, to his waiting mother.

There, atop the boulder, she changes his diaper, then helps him into a new one. Let no one doubt - she will pack the dirty diaper all the way up and all the way out. Other than temporary footprints, we would leave no sign of ourselves behind.

Kalib splashes water.

Jacob and Lisa hiking up Cibecue Creek.

Lisa comes to a big rock. She debates whether to go over it or around it.

She chooses to go over it. I walk around and get this picture of her as she tops it.

Although everyone had spread apart, we somehow all came together at this point. Something in the sky then caught everyone's attention.

It is a magnificent bird - a turkey vulture. At this moment, I kind of wished that I drug along my big cameras and my 100 to 400 zoom, but it was really nice to hike with a just a little tiny camera that I could slip in and out of my t-shirt pocket.

As everyone was gathered in one spot, we decided this would be a good moment to make a good group portrait - sans me. Kalib had grown hungry and so dug into his nose to see if might find something good to eat there.

He did. And he ate it.

Rex carries Kalib as we continue on.

Jacob and Lavina, hiking through the water.

Lavina and Jacob, stepping out of the water.

Melanie pauses by a big rock.

Kalib rests upon a rock.

Jacob and Rex survery the terrain ahead.

Jacob climbs over a rock and comes upon this drift log, wedged into a crevasse. "It looks just like a big b..." he exclaimed. I will leave the "b..." to your imaginations.

I will probably get in trouble with some of the female members of the family for even having said just this much.

Jacob climbs out onto the log and waves at Kalib, who is still working his way in this direction.

Uncle Caleb assists nephew Kalib as he works his way over a series of big rocks alongside water that was too deep to walk through.

Kalib tops the rock. Caleb offers him a "high-five."

Melanie finds a very pretty rock, which she shows to everybody. 

She by-passes a deep pool via a well-scuplted boulder. By now, we can hear the distant roar of a water fall. It sounds kind of like a jet.

As we move upstream, past cutouts in the rock, the roar of the falls grows louder.

And here it is, the lower of the two Cibecue Falls. It feels as though we have hiked into a place of magic.

Tomorrow: We frolic in the place of magic.

*Today, June 6, would have been Vincent Craig's 60th birthday. Today, his mother Nancy Mariano passed away, also from cancer. 

Glimpses from the past three days: Cibecue Creek, cookouts, punching bag, US Border Patrol Agent, Sunrise Dance, Charlie in Apache country

Following this morning's session of the Sunrise Dance, I returned to LeeAnn's house with what I thought was a good plan. I would lie down for half-an-hour in the hope that I might nap, then I would get up, refresh myself and, over the next four hours or so, I would put together a magnificent post on the six-hour hike that I took with my children, my daughter-in-law and my oldest grandson up Cibecue Creek from the Salt River.

I did take the nap, but when I got up I was struck by two realizations: one - it is Memorial Day weekend. People are out, having fun, beginning their summer. My readership would be way down. In fact, I checked the numbers and it is way down - down so far that if it were not Memorial Day weekend, I would conclude this whole blog experiment of mine has been a failure and I might as well shut it down.

Despite this holiday setback, the overall trend is upward, so I will forge on.

Two - I could not do justice to the hike and still accomplish everything else that I must accomplish before I head to PHX Sky Harbor Airport Sunday. Yesterday in the Basha's parking lot, our rental car was struck by a run-away shopping cart and was badly dinged and dented. So I must contact our insurance company and find out what I have to do to deal with this when I return the car tomorrow. In addition, the contract that I had expected to receive before I left on this trip and was counting on the initial payment to provide me with some spending money down here finally arrived by email and now I must review it, digitally sign it and email it back.

On that note, I must add that the only thing that has saved me at all on this trip, other than the generosity of my family and friends here in Arizona, is the support that I have received from readers who have contributed to this blog. Without that support, I would not have had money to buy a tank of gas, or even that Apache-style green chili burrito that I devoured yesterday.

Thank you.

And there are many other things that I must do before I leave.

So I decided just to sum up the past three days or so and then follow up with more in-depth stories after I get settled back into Wasilla. This won't happen until late next week, because, once my plane touches down in Anchorage, I barely have time to return home, give comfort to the cats and take a shower before I get on another jet that will take me to Fairbanks, where I will transfer to a small plane that will fly me to the Brooks Range village of Anaktuvuk Pass.

As part of that summation, I dropped into my Cibecue Creek take at random and pulled out this photo of Kalib, Jacob and Lavina hiking in the Apache homeland.

This hike took us to a very magical destination, so, I still have every intent to give it a full post once I settle back down.

In summation, over the past three days, we have all gotten together for two cookouts. This from last night, at the home of Janet and Emerson Craig - Janet being Margie's sister and Emerson the brother of my dear and late friend, Vincent Craig.

This is my nephew and Vincent's nephew, Cole Craig, beating his punching bag in excellent rhythm as the food cooks on the coals. I had hoped to introduce readers to all of my nephews and nieces, but the time here has passed so rapidly and has been so intensely occupied that I don't think I will be able to - even after I get home. I guess that just means we must come back sooner than we might have expected, so I can continue this journey.

The same applies for all of Margie's living brothers and sisters. This is Red Nose. He received the t-shirt as a gift from his son, Sugar Ray, who lives in Phoenix and has many Mexican friends. So Sugar Ray picks up things like this to send as gifts to his dad.

Red Nose came up to Melanie wearing this at last night's cook-out. "I'm from the US Border Patrol and I would like to see your papers," he told her.

At both cook-outs, we sat around the fire into the late hours, which, unlike in Wasilla, get dark down here. Many stories were told, some about frightening subjects such as Skin-walkers and the Bigfoot-like creatures that many, including, perhaps, myself, claim to have spotted in the White Mountains.

Emerson also told some good stories about Vincent. I have interviewed and photographed a number of people in preparation to make the tribute that I have planned for Vincent, including all of his living brothers and sisters, his children and grandchildren. I had hoped to have it posted in it's entirety before I left Arizona, but this did not prove practical.

I will do it when I can sit down and give it the time Vincent deserves.

This is from this morning's portion of the Sunrise Dance. It is not the dance that we had originally planned to attend as a family. Janet and Emerson were to be the sponsors of that event, but had to cancel, not only because of Vincent's death, but because immediately after, the doctors found that a cancer in the mother of Vincent and Emerson is aggressive. 

This morning, Emerson, Janet and family left to Albuquerque, to be with her in the hospital.

Then we learned about this dance, and that the young woman is a member of our extended family and the Godmother is a young woman who we would sometimes babysit when we lived down here. So we decided to take in at least part of this Sunrise Dance.

You can see my own children, Rex, Melanie and Lisa running behind their Aunt LeeAnn in a part of the Sunrise Dance where everybody runs. Yes, that's Charlie running with them. He came down, too.

You will also notice how different the country here is than down in Salt River and Cibecue Creek canyons. The river-bank elevation down there is about 2500 feet, whereas up here where the dance is being held, it is over 7000 feet above sea level.

Here is Melanie, getting a rare chance to live her Apache heritage. She is blessing Kiana Fawn Carrol who, on this day takes the role of Changing Woman, as she herself changes from a girl into a woman. Even as she blesses Kiana, she is blessed by Kiana, just for being there.

Lisa is there, too - that is her hand immediately beyond Melanie.

The dance will continue into this night and again tomorrow morning. I fear I must leave for Phoenix tomorrow before it concludes.

When I can sit down and do it justice, I will dedicate a post to this dance.

And here is Charlie with Red Nose and Melanie. He has just started a pickup truck of LeeAnn's that had not run in months.

Everyone in the family down here loves Charlie. 

As different as he is, he fits right in.

Charlie credits Red Nose with giving him the tip that helped him solve the problem.

And here is Kalib, Jobe, Lavina and Jacob, leaving here just a couple of hours ago. They are on their way to other parts of the Southwest to visit members of Lavina's family.

"Drive careful," I told Jake before they left. "Remember, you are carrying precious cargo. It does not matter how fast you get there, what matters is that you get there."

Now, God, You know that despite my plea, Jacob is not going to listen to his dad, so, even though I often wonder about You, about who You really are and why You would create such a beautiful, lovely, magnificent, dangerous, brutal, indifferent earth, I leave them to your care.

Please watch over them and bring them safely to their destination.

As seen through my iPhone: we go to see Ira Glass, then hang out with cats and eat pizza

Before the Ira Glass performance began, Margie and I headed to the Kaladi brothers attached to the Anchorage Performing Arts Center. We had not planned to meet anyone else there, but when we arrived, Melanie, Charlie and Lisa were already standing in a long line, so Margie and I gave them our orders and found a place where we could all sit.

Soon, we all did: Melanie and Charlie.

Charlie and Lisa.

Margie and me - although I cannot be seen. Yet, I am here, as you can see, taking pictures with my iPhone.

Following the Ira Glass performance at the PAC, those of this family who attended all gathered together at Melanie and Charlie's place to eat pizza and hang out with cats. Three cats were present to hang out with, but, for some reason, it was Poof who kept putting himself into the middle of things.

"I can tell, Poof cat is getting ready to do something bad," Melanie said at some point. Apparently, the night before, as Charlie had been cooking, Poof had repeatedly tangled himself up in Charlie's feet and disrupted the cooking in a number. Finally, Charlie scolded him.

It is hard to imagine Charlie ever scolding a cat, and I am pretty certain that as cat scoldings go, it was a rather gentle one, but Charlie does insist that he actually scolded Poof. "I did. I scolded him," Charlie said.

Here is Poof, studying Lisa and Bryce. That's Lisa's feet on the table. 

Ira Glass fans are probably wondering why I do not have a picture of him here.

For one, given the situation, me armed with only an iPhone and faced with a difficult exposure situation and no way to exert any control over shutter speed, aperture and the like, it would have been very challenging to have gotten a picture of Glass.

I did not intend to bring only my iPhone. Before Margie I drove out of Wasilla, I put a full charge on my pocket camera battery, cleaned the lens and got it all ready to go. I then thought that I put it in my pocket but when we arrived in Anchorage and I got out of the car, I discovered that I had not. The only items in my pocket were my wallet, iPhone and lens cleaning cloth.

Then, just before Ira Glass came out, this fellow appeared on the stage and instructed everyone who wanted a photo to take it right now, of him, or the person seated next to them or whatever, because no photos would be allowed once Ira stepped onto the stage. Please turn off all cameras, cell phones and recording devices.

So, just before Ira stepped out, from the very excellent seats that Melanie and Rex had secured for us, in rows 5 and 6, almost directly in front of the table that had been set up for Glass and his sound equipment, I used my iPhone to snap the guy who was telling us that we could not take pictures.

I got the hand of the lady in front of me, too, as she put her hair in place.

I have been asked to give a full report on the Ira Glass performance, but I am at a loss as to how I might do that. He entered the stage in the dark, set down at his table in the dark, and then spent the first few minutes talking in the dark, to emphasize that radio is an acoustic medium, where the visuals are put into your head through the words of the speakers, not through photos or moving images.

He spoke of the power and direct connection this creates between the story tellers and their audience.

Indeed, sitting there in the dark, I felt very connected to every word that he spoke, and I felt the power of it.

Ira Glass said many things and even though I was exhausted and tired beyond all reason, it seemed to me that each one of his words reached me - even after the lights came on - and that I understood everything that he intended me to.

Although I work with images and written words rather than sound and even though I am reaching an age where some might want to believe my opportunities to truly succeed as a story-teller are in the past, Glass inspired me. In his voice, I heard the potential before me - if only I can but reach out and grab it.

Just before the performance started, someone took the seat immediately to my right. Then the lights went dim and I never really saw who that person was or what he looked like. Through the performance, he laughed boisterously and with approval and then mustered up the courage to ask a question during the Q&A period at the end.

As he asked his question, I looked at him and suddenly realized it was Jack Dalton.

Jack is himself a story teller - an actor, playwright and poet with both Yup'ik and Iñupiat ancestry and his fame both in and out of Alaska is growing.

This is he, Jack Dalton.

Lisa and Rex can be seen behind him.

Afterwards, those of this family who had attended discussed what we should do next. After five or ten minutes of indecision, during which time I swore I would make no recommendations, as, being a reckless and irresponsible eater, my recommendations sometimes get me in trouble with my daughters.

In time, though, I forgot my pledge and absent-mindedly recommended pizza from Milano's, delivered to Melanie's, where we could eat and hang out with cats at the same time.

And that is how we wound up going to Melanie's to hang out with cats and to eat pizza from Milano's. Despite my well-earned paranoia, my suggestion had been warmly received.

We had hardly stepped through the door into Melanie's house when Poof appeared and made his presence known.

Poof Cat.

Poof Cat, again.

I looked around and soon found Bear Meech. I could not see Diamond, so I asked where she was.

Immediately after I asked, she pranced into view.

She leaped up onto a table and looked at me as though she wanted me to pet her. I could not believe this, for usually, if I try to pet her, I am met by a growl as she jerks her head away from my hand.

Cautiously, I reached out to her. Diamond did want a pet!

My day was made.

But, as I have already noted, it was Poof who kept inserting himself into the scene. There were seven humans present, and he kept wandering about among all laps to make certain that his presence was acknowledged and adored by all. Here he is, winning Melanie's adoration.

Now he goes to Charlie, but fails to get his full attention.

Poof puts on his full charm. He gains Charlie's full attention.

Soon, he tucks himself in next to Margie.

Then he moves to my lap.

Suddenly, there was great clatter, clashing and banging, as dishes and pans and pizza box crashed onto the kitchen floor. Poof shot off like a rocket and immediately disappeared, as it was he who had caused this commotion. Once the humans among us regained our composure, we focused our attention upon a green-haired doll that had been with Melanie ever since she was a tiny girl. None of us can remember exactly when the doll came to Melanie, or just what was that TV series or cartoon character it was connected to, but, for as long as she can remember, this doll has always been with Melanie.

Not even the calamitous results of Poof's own mischief could long subdue him. Soon, he reappeared and took Rex over.

Poof - with Lisa and Bryce. Bryce did not go to the Ira Glass show, but he did come for pizza.

PS: Given the fact that the competition includes one of the most successful blogs in history, one that appears to have millions of followers, I recognize that the odds are against me but smahoney has nominated this blog for a Best Photography Blogger's Choice award and it has actually popped into first place for the moment.

I thank all who have voted for me and here is the link for any who might yet want to.

Also, I have encountered some problems in posting a Pay Pal donation link, but, when I can take 15 minutes to do so, I think I can solve those problems.

Thank you, smahoney!

Thanks to Furless Jim, Royce eats raw meat

This morning, I put Royce through the usual routine. I rubbed his thyroid medicine into his ear, then prepared a mix of Friskie's Salmon Senior Blend and Metamucil. Royce dug in.

Shortly afterward, I received an email from Jim Earnshaw, Charlie's dad - now better known to the world as Furless Jim.

He informed me that he had prepared some homemade, raw-meat cat food just for Royce and asked if we were going to be home.

I wrote back to tell him that we would be home, but suggested that rather than drive all the way out here, Margie could pick up the cat food Wednesday morning, after she drops me off at the airport.

About 45 minutes later, I was sitting here, in my office, working at this computer, when I heard Margie knock upon my wall. This is her signal for me to come into the house, so I did and this is what I found.

Royce was wolfing... cougaring... down the homemade raw meat cat food like a ravenous lion. I had never saw him go at food with such tremendous enthusiasm, yet he has always been an enthusiastic eater.

It will be interesting to see if he gains any weight while I am gone.

Even if he doesn't, Furless Jim said, he will enjoy himself and will experience improved quality of life.

Royce and his benefactors, Furless Jim and Charlie. Thank you both.