Today, part 2: We get ashed by Mt. Redoubt

Melanie, wearing her ash mask in the parking lot of the Arts building at the University of Alaska, Anchorage.

When I left Wasilla for Anchorage, the sky was clean and pure, deep, blue, the mountains gleaming stark and white against it. I thought about taking some pictures, but I had already taken quite a few pictures today and I expected to take several more at the play.

I did not want to spend the time editing and processing the white mountains against the clean blue sky pictures, since that is not an uncommon scene around here.

Now, I wish I had taken those pictures, just to show the contrast. It happened so fast. 

As I neared Anchorage, the sky suddenly darkned, the air in front of me became hazy, fine dust - ash - swirled about cars as they drove through it.

Mt. Redoubt has been blowing off and on for days now. The ash has gone here and there, but has always missed us.

Now, all of sudden, it had hit us. 

Or at least Anchorage. I did not know if it had hit Wasilla.

The tower at Merrill Field. No planes were flying.

I wanted it to stop, all right. I hate to breathe this stuff. Imagine glass ground to the consistency of powdered sugar. That's what ash tends to be like. It hurts to breathe the stuff.

Flags near Merrill Field.

I did not want to drive the car through it, either. Ash is not good for cars. I hope my filters all did their job. Better replace them soon.

When I got back to Wasilla, it was even worse.

It was simply awful in Wasilla. In some zones, almost like a blizzard.

I had no choice but to breathe the stuff.

Jacob and Lavina reached the house at the same time I did. They had been out shopping. They reported that when they stepped out of Fred Meyer's, they got struck in the face by tiny rocks falling from the sky.

That must have been one hell of a boom.

If this keeps up, I am going to have to get some masks for Margie and me.

Today, part 1: Before the ash fell - Scenes from my walk; hot water heater ruptured, replaced

I had barely begun my walk today when I came upon this moose. If you look closely, you can tell that it is the very same moose that I came upon yesterday, the one that inexplicably scared me. Well, today I redeemed myself. The moose did not scare me at all. I hung out with it for awhile and we visited. I learned that its name is Gertrude. 

Gertrude has a calf nearby and I photographed it, too, but I want to get this done and get to bed, so I will leave the calf out of the post.

A little further on my walk, I saw this kid on a four-wheeler.

Please note that this is not a state trooper, but a Wasilla police officer who is taking the driver's license from the poor sap in the van. (Should you ever happen to read this, poor sap, please do not get offended. Sooner or later, frequently or infrequently, we all do our time as poor saps.)

Even though they call this area Wasilla, and the mailing address is Wasilla, it is just beyond Wasilla city limits and the Wasilla police did not used to have jurisdiction here. Remember how I told you about the time I had to make a citizens arrest on the drunken ice cream lady and hold her as my prisoner for one hour while I waited for the Alaska State Troopers to come, because the Wasilla police would not?

Or did Wasilla finally incorporate my neighborhood and I just didn't hear about it?

I hope Wasilla did. I am tired of paying all these sales taxes to Wasilla and not getting any direct benefits back.

So maybe this cop who has pulled this poor sap over is finally a direct benefit.

As I neared home, a Tahoe stopped on the road beside me. It was Jacob and Muzzy.

After that, somehow, I wound up walking the rest of the way home with a St. Bernard.

As I neared the house, I saw Jake pulling someone who had slipped into the culvert directly in front of our yard out of it.

Jacob and the guy he pulled out.  Jacob told me that this guy is new in the nieghbor and has three big dogs.

If I were to tell this full story, it would take all night, so I won't. Suffice it to say that, this morning, when Margie got up, she heard the sound of rain hammering plastic, but it was not raining.

The sound came from the crawl space beneath our house. It was hot water, pouring out of our ruptured hot water heater through a vent in the floor down into the crawl space.

So here is this Don, putting a new hot water heater into the laundry room.

Don attaches the natural gas line to the new hot water heater.

As for us, we were $1000 poorer than we were when we woke up in the morning.

That was a pretty hard blow to take.

Don lives in Anchorage where he has a plumbing business. We did not hire Don, Sears did. They keep him on contract just so he can help people like us out.

Don has been coming out to the valley to install water heaters and do other plumbing work for 20 years.

Besides Sears, we also checked Lowes, but they would not have been able to install until maybe Tuesday - and their installation fee was higher, even after the $90 emergency fee to have Don come out on a Saturday was added into the Sears installation fee.

Kalib with pan that he wants us to fill with hot water. He wants to boil a fish in that pan, that's why.

This post is for you, Lavina, beloved daughter-in-law, wonderful mother of my grandson

Lavina, I hope that you are enjoying Vancouver and learning much that will help you in your work. I especially hope that your presentation goes well. I know you miss Kalib terribly, so this blog entry is for you. Here is Kalib, this morning, at the back door, when I returned from my walk.

This is from yesterday's walk. Your husband just hurled the sled as hard as he could, to see how far Kalib would slide.

I had to jump out of the way.

Then we all went back into the marsh.

Jacob and Kalib headed home from there. I had not walked far enough, so I continued on. "Bye, bye!" I waved to Kalib.

He raised his hand and waved back.

Then I walked through the snow. For just a little while, it really snowed. Then the sun came out.

So here they are, your dog, your son and your mother-in-law, who you call, "Mom," just like you call me "Dad." This gives us a warm and good feeling, Daughter.

Lisa brought Juniper out. Kalib and Juniper had a good time. Grahamn Kracker has posted more pictures from that visit on his No Cats Allowed blog. If you go there, you will not only see more pictures of Kalib, but the moment when Juniper discovered herself in the mirror.

A wider shot, from my return this morning, of Kalib, in Caleb's arms. Very similar to another I did awhile back, except that I made a point of including my reflection in this one.

I suppose that I ruined it, by including myself in it.

I know that you have heard about the latest eruptions of Mt. Redoubt. Today, the flights going north toward Fairbanks and Barrow were canceled, but the flights going and coming from the south mostly flew.

We sure do hope that the planes all fly on the day of your scheduled return.

I have no time for this blog tonight, none at all - but what the hell, here it is

So here we are this morning at IHOP, Margie, Lavina, Kalib, me and our waitress. There's a pretty dramatic story behind that cup of coffee, and I thought I would tell it tonight, but I'm on deadline and haven't the time.

Someday, I will tell the story, if I don't wind up in Hell, first.

Pioneer Peak, from the stoplight immediately before the Taco Bell turnoff. No matter how crazy it gets around this place, guess what?

I can look any direction I want and Alaska is still out there.

And that feels good. I cannot tell you how good it feels.

Only Alaska feels that good.

Did you know that I love this place?

The place they call Alaska?

Damn, I love it!

A late afternoon drive on Schrock Road.

Lavina barbecues pork chops. They were damn good, scrumptious.

Muzzy invades and marks the red dog's territory. Red Dog can't do anything about it.

It's free, but I was afraid that if I took it, someone would shoot me, anyway. People are always getting shot around here for taking free TV's. Afterward, the shooter removes the "free" sign and claims he shot in defense of property.

Not a single shooter has ever been convicted.

I never take these free TV's.

That's why I'm still alive today.

Jacob turns Kalib's stroller loose on a hill.

Jacob and Lavina get into a game of "catch the stroller." It's Lavina's turn to catch.

Now it's Jacob's turn.

The game of catch is over, but the fun isn't.

Jacob, Lavina, Kalib and Muzzy.

Cell phones: I am about to get the coverage I demanded, but am surprised at what I will lose

When we first bought cell phones, I was especially pleased that now I would be able to make free calls to various dear people in distant cities and states who happen to have the same carrier. And then I discovered that the coverage in our neighborhood is so weak that, half the time when I get a call, my phone does not ring and when I try to call, the call fails. When I do connect, I typically lose the signal a minute or two into the conversation.

So I made a complaint about that. I demanded that they improve our coverage.

And now, all of a sudden, Jake, Muzzy and I discover that ATT is about to put up a new cellphone tower, just off Wards Road, on the other side of the Marsh. The tower will be about 400 yards from our back yard. We will get all the bars, all the time.

And now, when I walk up Wards Road, I will see this big, huge, ugly tower just off to the left, rising high above these spruce trees.

And when I come down Wards, I will see the tower standing to the right. I have taken many pictures on Wards. I will continue to do so. My pictures will look different, once they stand the cell tower up.

When I lodged my complaint and issued my demand, I never imagined this.

Still, I will be glad to finally have good coverage inside my house and office, right here, in Wasilla, Alaska.