We take a scary drive to take a dog home and then we get to see three boys who are not as little as they were last time

Muzzy had been separated from his immediate family for almost four weeks now and besides that he kept eating the cats' food. So, somewhere between 2:30 and 3:00 PM, we loaded his own food and personal possessions into the car, opened up the gate to the back and in he jumped.

We - Muzzy, Margie and I - then set off to drive to Anchorage. Down on the floor of this valley, the sun, which at its zenith now barely rises above the tops of the mountains to the south, had already set.

It's rays still created a beautiful fringe of light on the icy mountain tops.

The highway was icy, too, and scary. Here and there, cars had slid off the road.

I thought of the day before, when I had decided to sleep and let Margie drive herself into town for her doctor appointment. As I stated, she hates to drive in the dark, especially if there is ice on the road. In contrast, my night vision is probably about as good as anyone's except for a cat.

When I saw the ice on the highway, the big trucks and thought of Margie driving this gantlet in the dark, I felt very badly that I had slept. But, she did good. She came back alive and well.

We reached Muzzy's house in safety. In the window, I saw the face of a little boy who, it felt, I had not seen in years - even if it had only been a bit less than four weeks.

Dog and family exploded in joyful reunion.

Finally, it calmed down a bit.

Then Jobe noticed that grampa had come, too.

Kalib dragged his grandma to the downstairs playroom to see the trains. Jacob and Lavina bought this set of Thomas trains off Craigslist for $40 - and it has proved to be the best toys these boys have ever had - better than anything electronic or magical.

They hold it, they carry its cars here and there. They push it around the tracks and even where there are no tracks.

They never tire of Thomas the train.

I want such a set for myself.

I don't know where I could put it, but I want one.

Lynxton was sleeping in the very dimly lit master bedroom. His dad was still at work. It is kind of hard to get off a plane after three-plus weeks in Arizona, southern Utah and Las Vegas and go straight to work, but that is what he had to do.

Lavina goes back to work Monday.

It was hard enough for her just to leave the warm sun of the southwest and come back to Alaska.

Margie plans to go in Sunday night so she can stay and hang out with the boys.

The cats and I will be alone again.

Last Christmas, Melanie gave Margie and I a gift card to Century 16 and we still had one movie and one set of refreshments left on it.

So, at 5:00 PM, we headed to Century 16.

We saw Hugo.

MAGICAL movie.

I was entranched from the first fame to the final.

And that was the 2D version. The time of the 3D was off for us.

Yet, even the 2D often seemed 3D.

Gotta see it in 3D, some day.

Oddly enough, this latest wonder of modern communication technology really brought to life the wonder of books.

It made me want to do nothing but read books - and create books.

Afterward, we returned to the house to see if Lynxton had woke up yet. We found him asleep in the cradle of his dad's arm.

He soon awoke. Then his grandma took him.

I was amazed at how big he had grown - how chubby his face had become.

His had left with a lean, slender, face. He returned with chipmunk cheeks.

Lavina ate a lot of mutton in Arizona.

And then we left to go home.

As we always do.

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How long can an iPhone last at -20 F? A "that's so Wasilla" moment

I still had my iPhone when I took this picture Sunday of Kalib back in his house after Rex's birthday. That phone has really become a part of me. My life is wrapped up in that phone. But it would soon disappear.

Look! Look! This guy has an iPhone! Is it mine? It must be! Mister, you better give my iPhone back, right now! 

Oh, wait a minute. I still had my iPhone when I took this picture. I was sitting in the passenger seat of Charlie's little car with Melanie at the wheel and we were stopped at a red light in Anchorage, watching penguins waddle by. This guy had called the head penguin and was telling her to get her birds out of the road, because he had places to go.

The penguins paid him no mind at all, they just continued to waddle by, one by one, until all 5,000 had passed through the light.

I would have taken a picture, but the penguins had posted a "Do Not Photograph the Penguins!" sign. I felt like my First Amendment rights were being violated, but penguins don't care about American law, the US Constitution, or the First Amendment.

They follow penguin law and penguin law only and they were carrying Ak-47's and shoulder-fired rocket launchers just perfect for blasting Charlie's little car right off the road.

I did not photograph the penguins.

This is where the story starts to get tricky. It was Monday afternoon. Thanks to these shingles and the fact that all my immediate work was out of the way, I hadn't done much but still I took my coffee break and went through the drivethrough at Metro.

I had my phone with me. On my way home, I saw this school bus stop on the road, red lights flashing. Naturally, I stopped, too. This dog came walking out to meet the bus. I was certain the dog had come to meet a student debarking from the bus. But the bus just sat there and the dog just stood there, for about one minute. 

Nothing else happened. Finally, the bus left the dog behind and continued on its way without a single student debarking.

Pretty strange.

After I returned home, I came out here to my office and got into my computer. After half-an- hour or so, I became aware that my iPhone was not in my pocket. I searched the area around my desk. It was not there. I searched every single place in the house that I had been. No iPhone. I searched the car. No iPhone. The weather had turned cold and I had been to the woodpile a couple of times, so I searched all around the woodpile.

No phone.

I called my phone in all these places and more. It did not ring. I called it with all the lights turned out, including the flash light. It did not glow.

I just could not find that phone.

Just before I went to bed, I did another outside search. I did not wear gloves. My hands are very cold conditioned and I can man my cameras bare-handed for long periods of time in zero degree F weather but it was well below zero now and pretty soon my fingers went numb.

So I built up the fire and headed for bed, making a stop at the bathroom to the master bedroom along the way. I could see my breath in there.

The next morning, yesterday, Tuesday the temperature here stood at -20 F (-29c) and it would stay below zero all day. I called my phone. It went straight to voice mail - this meant the battery had died. That meant that I had most likely lost it outside.

But where?

I did a lot of re-searching, both in places I had searched and in places I had not even been before the phone got lost.

Once, if you lost a phone, you lost a phone. Annoying, but no big deal, really. You just replaced it. But now when you lose a phone, you really lose something. Your whole identity gets wrapped up in that phone. There are notes and photos and recorded interviews and aps going here and going there and intimate notes sent back and forth to your wife written when you are separated from her and plenty of personal information.

Losing a phone has become a big deal.

Today, I slept in very late. I have turned the corner toward healing, but I am still battling these nasty, painful, shingles and I still need as much sleep as I can get.

When I got up, I found a note from Caleb. He had found my phone - wedged into a very strange place in the car where I swear I had looked myself. My theory is that the phone froze and so did not ring nor glow when I called - because I called it a few different times from within the car and never did it ring or glow.

But I have it now and life is okay, once again.

Now about the picture: yesterday afternoon I went to Metro one hour earlier than usual. I had not seen Carmen in two weeks, maybe more, because she leaves early these days to pick Branson up from school. So I dropped by a little earlier than normal.

When I pulled into the drivethrough line, there was big pickup truck in front of me, just one space behind the window itself. I could not see a car in front of the truck, so I reasoned that someone in a small car was sitting at the window in front of the truck, which I figured blocked my view of it. It was one of those trucks with a darkened back window, obscuring the occupants from view.

I sat there, waiting in line for several minutes, wondering when the order to the lead car that I could not see because the big truck was sitting between us would be filled and the line could progress.

Just as I was growing so impatient that I was just about ready to jump out and go up and see what was going on, a woman who I had never seen before walked out of the coffee shop, climbed into the truck and drove away. There was no smaller vehicle in front of her. She had just parked her car in the drivethrough line one space back from the window, left it there, went inside, made her order, and took her time.

Boy! This falls into the category of behavior that my daughters call, "That's so Wasilla!" It really isn't indicative of most Wasillans, but we have more than our share. Like all those times that you pull into a crowded parking lot and find someone has parked their big truck at angle across two spaces - sometimes three, if they can figure out how to manage it.

When I pulled to the window, I saw Shoshana and Carmen on the other side. They had wondered why it had been so long since anyone had pulled up to the window.

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Transition: Wasilla to New York

I am two days behind on this blog and furthermore, I am very tired. So I will keep my words brief. Here I am, on the plane, just leaving Anchorage, sitting next to a very smart guy who is reading the Wall Street Journal. The news is grim.

These don't care if the news is bad or good. Either way, they just keep standing there. These are the Chugach, a bit north of Prince William Sound.

This is Bob, from Colorado, the guy who was reading the Wall Street journal. Now, he is overtaken by the view out the window. Bob works on road slide repair.

Now we are coming in to land at SeaTac, buzzing Seattle as a ferry pulls toward the dock.

The flight out of Seattle had been delayed by five minutes and was now scheduled to leave at 3:10. This was plenty of time for me to wander down to the main food court and order a rockfish sandwich, which I did. It was excellent. 

I then went back the gate but now saw, in big numbers, 4:00 o'clock. "What time do I need to be back by?" I asked the gentleman behind the Alaska Airlines Counter at the gate.

"Not until 4:00 o'clock," he answered in a derisive, sarcastic, tone of voice.

It was then that I looked more closely at the smaller letters posted with the number. "Next update," they read.

"Oh, I see," I said, "I had misinterpreted it to mean 4:00 o'clock."

"No," he sarcastically replied. "It says next update. Check back at 4:00 o'clock." 

So I went back to the dining area and watched airplanes take off for awhile.

About 3:40, I decided I had better go back to the gate anyway.

I returned to the "C" corridor and I had not walked far down it before I heard a voice on the intercom read the names of a number of passengers on my same flight - including my name. "Last and final boarding call," the voice said.

I still had several gates to go, so I started to run as fast as I could with my camera gear and computer.

I saw a couple of other people running as well.

As I approached the gate, the arrogant fellow saw me and turned away.

"You told me to come back at 4:00," I told him as I puffed past. "You almost made me miss my plane."

"I also said to stay in the area," he spoke in the same arrogant tone as before.

"No, you did not say that," I answered.

He didn't either. He was just trying to cover himself.

Had I have lingered in the dining area for one more minute, I would have missed my flight to Newark.

But I didn't. It all turned out good - that's Newark, down below, as our jet comes down on final.

Now I am on the shuttle going from the airport to the hotel I had booked for one night near the airport, becauuse it would be cheaper - MUCH cheaper - than a New York City hotel.

This is John and Maureen. They stayed in the same hotel and were outside when I went out to catch the shuttle back to the airport so that I could catch the train into New York City. They hired a cab to take them to the train station in Newark and invited me to join them.

They insisted upon paying for the whole thing. They are orginally from Burma, but now live in San Francisco, where she works at Macy's and he drives a cab. Burma, they said, is a beautiful place with warm, friendly people - but a horrible government, one of the most repressive on the planet.

They had come so she could attend a Macy's convention. The convention was over and they were going to do some sightseeing.

So we rode the train together into New York.

When I walked out of the train station and onto the sidewalk, I saw that New York is a city where people and balloons freely mingle on the same street.

This gave me new hope for the future.

Melanie and I climb the Twin Peaks trail, where I find the July 4 photo of freedom, which I share with you on behalf of a certain civilian: Part 3 of 4

Melanie met us at the house at almost the very moment that we arrived home from the parade. I fixed a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, filled up a couple of water jugs, stuffed them into my little backpack along with 100 to 400 mm lens and then we finally left, sometime between noon and 1:00 PM. I had it in my mind that we would hike in Hatcher Pass, but Jacob and Lavina had invited everybody to their house in Anchorage for an evening cookout so instead, we headed towards Eklutna Lake, which is right one the way to Anchorage.

As we drew near to Eklutna, we saw this truck, hauling a bunch of new cars to the north - maybe to Wasilla, maybe to Fairbanks.

No other options, really. It pretty much had to be Wasilla or Fairbanks.

Two trails take off from the Eklutna Lake parking lot in Chugach State Park - one follows the northern shore of the lake for several miles, another heads off up the mountains towards the Twin Peaks. We wanted to climb and neither of us had done this trail before.

The park sign said the trail was 2.5 miles wrong, rose 1500 vertical and was ranked "difficult." That would make it a round trip hike of five miles and I wanted to hike more than five miles. Yet, if we were going to make it to the cookout, five miles would be okay.

And since we would be hiking up a mountain on a trail that was ranked, "difficult," it might feel like we had hiked more than 5 miles at the end, and it might take longer than walking five miles on an "easy" trail. So, off we went.

We pretty walked side by side, but near the beginning, I dropped back a bit so that I could get this picture of Melanie as she walked through the trees in her red rain jacket.

There were many flowers to admire.

I did not believe the hike would be all that "difficult," as it had been ranked. I had been on many hikes that I knew were much more difficult. And I had been riding my bike just about every day, usually ten to 16 miles, sometimes more. I had been taking regular walks.

Yet, in a very short while, I began to feel this hike. It strained my legs and taxed my breath. Maybe because it was my first hike in a year or so. Maybe because I am getting older. Maybe both. Despite all the biking I have been doing, the hike strained different parts of me.

So it was a little more work than I had anticipated.

My first thought was, "if this easy hike is this hard, there is no way I can climb Denali next year. I should just forget it."

My second thought was, "if this is this hard, I MUST climb Denali next year." Well, then, I had better get work on that project right now.

Generally, if I go hiking in a place where the trailhead can be reached from the road system, especially this close to Anchorage, I avoid the weekends and go on a week day, to avoid the crowd. This was not only a weekend, it was a holiday - the Fourth of July.

I figured we would see lots of people on the train - maybe two or three hundred, even.

But we didn't. All the way up and all the way down, we saw maybe 15 people, including these two. It must have been grueling, for them to push their bikes up the trail, but they did it and now they were speeding down.

And the trail was steeper than it looks.

Hanging grass alongside the trail.

After a bit, we reached a good overlook of Eklutna Lake.

Kayakers down on the lake.

Melanie had brought a plastic bag. As we moved up the trail, she plucked the tops off of dandelions, an invasive species.

"It probably won't make any difference at all," she said.

Yet, she stopped the flowers she plucked from maturing into several thousand seeds and those are seeds that now will never grow.

Yet, the dandelions will continue their invasion.

Even so, it looked the only place they could really find a place to grow was right on and along the edges of the trail.

Unbroken country seemed to be inhospitable to dandelions.

We found bear poop on the trail - really big turds. They weren't steaming hot fresh, but were still moist. For awhile after that, Melanie started calling out to the bears as we walked, to tell them we were here and meant them no harm and so they had no need to harm us.

Way up on the mountainside, I spotted what I at first though were Dahl sheep. Upon closer inspection, I think they were goats.

A tiny butterfly - maybe a moth.

These little worm-or-caterpillar like characters were hanging web-like threads from alder trees. They seemed to have taken a hard toll on the alders.

They also found their way onto necks and into our hair. It did not feel good when they did that.

The hiking was much steeper at the end than it had been at the beginning, but my body got used to it and it wasn't as hard. It had rained earlier and the trail was slippery.

This is one of the other 15 or so people that we saw. She came along as Melanie and I were sitting and admiring the country we had climbed over.

And then she took off on a run. Now... Civi has stated that he does want me to take a picture just for him, but I cannot change the fact that when I saw her jog across the mountain side, it looked like real freedom to me, Fourth of July kind of freedom, it looked like the very picture that I had been looking for and I thought about Civi and I took it.

But okay, Civi - this picture is not for you, it is for everybody who reads this blog, taken on behalf of both you and me.

After my first trip to India, I gave a camera that I no longer used to my new nephew, Vijay. He then went out and won an award in an Indian photo contest - that award was this little green backpack. He sent it to me.

Because I tend to carry so much equipment when I travel, I had a much bigger bag but I hated it. 

After Vijay gave me this bag, I figured out a way to leave that bag home and just take this one.

It has proven to be an exceptionally good gift.

Thank you, Vijay.

Melanie kept asking me if she could carry it for me. I was fine carrying it, but finally did let her carry it for awhile. She is always looking out for me like that.

On the way down, we found this beautiful Alaska wild rose.

Down at the bottom, we got back into Melanie's car and drove toward Anchorage and the cookout. I have related no details about the climb and the conversation and the company, because it would take a long time for me to that.

But it was good. The company was good, the conversation was good.

I wish we could do something like this every week.

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Katie John, champion of traditional Alaska Native fishing and hunting rights and wisdom bearer, becomes Dr. Katie John: Part 2 - Graduation in Tok

Katie John, champion of Alaska Native fishing and hunting rights, wisdom bearer and teacher of her culture, was twice honored this past weekend with an honorary doctoral degree of laws from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. The first honoring came on Friday, at UAF's Interior Aleutians Campus in Tok, where she joined 14 graduating UAF I-A students.

The ceremony began when 95 year-old Katie led the procession of graduates with an assist from her granddaughter, Kathryn Martin, who was about to receive a bachelor's degree. 

The red sashes designate students and faculty of Native heritage.

UAF Vice Chancellor Bernice Joseph and Miranda White, Director of the UAF Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development, during opening remarks. The ceremonies took place in the Tok community center.

Along with Kathryn, Katie was also joined by another granddaughter, Sara Demit, who would be receiving an associate degree.

Katie smiles as a graduating student is hugged by her daughter as she receives her diploma.

UAF Chancellor Brian Rogers congratulates Kathryn.

Kathryn Martin with her diploma.

Katie waits as Vice Chancellor Joseph and Chancellor Rogers prepare to place the sash upon her that will tell the world that, although Katie John had very little formal schooling and never attended college, she has always been a student of her land, the animals upon it, the culture fostered by it, and has obtained a degree of knowledge easily worthy of a Ph.D.

Dr. Katie John.

Chancellor Rogers congratulates Dr. Katie John.

Vice Chancellor Joseph, also Athabascan, congratulates Dr. Katie John.

Graduate Kathryn Martin explains how it was her grandmother who always taught her and encouraged her to learn and make the most of life.

After the degrees and honors, the Ahtna Heritage Dancers drummed and sang their way onto the floor to honor their Matriarch and the graduates.

Ahtna Heritage Dancers.

Ahtna Heritage Dancers.

Katie observes the dancers.

Katie is congratulated by a young dancer.

Katie with the Ahtna Heritage Dancers - about half of whom are her direct descendants.

Then the dancers brought the ceremonies to an end.

Before I make my post from the ceremonies that followed in Fairbanks, I need to do a phone interview with Kathryn Martin, who has been tied up in meetings all day today, so I am holding that post until tomorrow. I will also ask Kathryn to help me identify the young dancers and add their names in later.

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(Note - Slide show contains contains additional images not included in post)