The other day at Metro Cafe - a bunch of serious, intellectual, studies

Now that I am riding my bike to Metro Cafe most days, it is hard for me to shoot "Through the Metro Window" studies because I am mostly inside. Still, I can shoot studies of various inside kinds. Studies are, by definition, intellectual works of art and some might think it would be easier to shoot intellectual works of art from the outside and that is true, but when one is shooting intellectual works, "easy" does not factor into it.

One must really work the brain, and it is hard and challenging. Still, I am up to the task. So, I now present you with a bunch of serious, intellectual studies that I shot the other day after pedaling my bike to Metro Cafe:

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #222: Study of the young writer, Shoshana, Branson and Diane, #4: The place was hopping.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #422: Study of the young writer, Shoshana, #670: Carmen puts earrings to her ears. Branson strikes a serious, intellectual pose. 

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #622: Jeweler Leah, of Leah's Designs, who brought her work to Metro Cafe to put on display and sell. She did pretty good, Leah said.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #822: As Carmen struggles to get all the ladies present to pose with Leah for a group picture, Nola gets distracted.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #1022: Just before we were ready to shoot, Carmen had to put a scarf on the Young Writer, Shoshana, Study #12.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #1222: After a great struggle that lasted 2.46 hours, the serious, intellectual photographer succeeds at getting all the participants, including the three on the TV, to pose seriously and smartly for the study.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #1422: Branson and his dad, Scot, who had just returned from the Arctic Slope.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #1622: Branson poses with his red-headed friend known to the world as "Cash"... as in, "Hello, my name is Johnny Cash." I am told that this Cash has been a big fan of that Cash since he first became conscious of such things. Cash's grandma was one of Carmen's wedding attendants.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #1822: Through Nola's lens - Branson and the red-headed boy.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #2022: Through Nola's lens: Branson.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #2208: Cash.

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Lisa Kelly, Ice Road Trucker and driver of India's most dangerous road, pulls up to Metro Cafe on horseback - followed by CNN

In answer to Saturday's quiz, I was hanging out at Metro Cafe on Friday when I heard someone shout, "horses are coming!"

I stepped out the door and this is what I saw - five women on horseback, coming down the bike trail. One of them, the second one from the left, looked like a truck driver. In fact, she looked like a truck driver who I had seen but a few nights before, on TV, facing terror on a narrow, windy, highway twisting through the Himalaya Mountains in India.

I seldom watch much TV, but this show caught my eye, because I have experienced the deadly madness of the Indian highway - although never in the Himalayas - and also because the truck driver was a beautiful, petite, young woman by the name of Lisa Kelly who lives right here in Wasilla, Alaska.

In fact, what I did not know at the time is that she lives right here, in my own neighborhood.

She gained her fame as one of Alaska's Ice Road Truckers, which has evolved to encompass the Deadliest Roads of all the world.

Now here Lisa was, riding her horse down the bike trail that passes by Metro Cafe.

Would she turn in?

Would she pull her horse right up to the drive through window and order hot chocolate for herself and a biscuit for her horse?

Lisa Kelly did pull in! And here she is, waiting in line at the drive-through with her friends and horses while Nola delivers an order to the customer ahead of her.

Sure enough, the horse ordered a biscuit. "Do we have any horse biscuits?" Nola shouted, "There's a horse at my window who has just ordered a biscuit!"*

Nola found a biscuit and served it to Sky, the horse.

"Damn good!" the horse neighed, after devouring the biscuit. "Now give me that one, too!"** Nola did. The horses behind would also all get their biscuits.

Camera and production people working on contract for CNN were following Lisa. I don't know when, but CNN plan to do a little story in which they follow Lisa as she takes them to her favorite places in Wasilla.

One of those favorite places is Metro Cafe. Another is Fat Boy's Pizza, which sits in the opposite direction from my house.

I bought a pizza there on the day Fat Boy's opened. If Fat Boy's is now one of the favorite places of the famous ice road trucker, Lisa Kelly, they must have figured out how to do it.

Sometime after I get back from my next trip to the Arctic Slope, I will go back and give them another try.

"Wasilla is MY city," she tells the camera people here, "and Metro Cafe is one of my favorite places!"

If one is going to sip on hot chocolate at Metro Cafe, it is more pleasant to sit and sip inside, rather than outside, in the saddle, on horse back.

Lisa... I will not tell you to stay safe out on those roads you drive. That is impossible and would defeat the whole purpose of your adventures. But please, always, do come safely home.

Outside, I had chatted briefly with photographer David A. Van Amber of Mankato, Minnesota. When I asked him who he was working for, he answered, "I'm hers," and nodded toward Linda Kelly.

I inquired a little further, and learned that this meant he was her photographer only, and that she is married.

Inside Metro, in what appeared to be an inside joke, he touched her on the shoulder and then they broke laughing.

Lisa autographs a baseball cap for David.

The cameraman depicts hard-working barista and writer in the making, Shoshana, making a smoothie.

When not out on the ice roads or the Himalayan highways, Lisa says she drops into Metro Cafe about three times a week. Hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls are her favorite.

She likes to come to Metro, she says, because, "sometimes you just want to go to a place where everybody knows your name."

When she said that, for some reason, I began to hear the theme song from Cheers in my head.

And it was a fact - every single person in Metro Cafe knew Lisa Kelly by name.

Lisa and Carmen.

Scott's dad is a truck driver and he drives Kenworth - the same kind of rig that Lisa drives. When he learned that she was a regular at Metro, he asked Scott to be sure to get a photo of Lisa with Carmen and him and send to him.

So, Scott's dad, this is for you.

My printer is broken and I am about to leave to the Far North for a couple of weeks or so, so it will be awhile before I can make a print.

Then I went back outside and to create one of my famous "Through the Metro window" studies with Lisa, Carmen, Scott, Nola and the crew that recorded her visit for CNN. I am afraid I did not get everybody's name, but the fellow at right is Russell J. Weston, of Weston Productions out of Anchorage, who contracted with CNN.

It had been decades since I had last seen him, but I first met him nearly 30 years ago when he was working as a photographer for the Anchorage Times and my family and I were living in two small tents, which we pitched here and there, trying to find a way to survive in Alaska.

There were three newspapers in Anchorage then and so whenever we would run out of money to buy gas for the Volkswagen Rabbit that had transported us from Arizona to Alaska, or food, I would stop in at the different papers.

If they had any extra assignments that staff had been unable to fill, I would take them and then they would pay me $25.00 per published shot.

That's how I met Russell, who is now an independent "An Emmy Award Winner" producer.

He gave his card and it says so right on it.

So here you have it:

Through the Metro Window Study, #3,444,899.23: With Lisa Kelly and CNN

And here is Scott.

Regular readers will recall the post when, after learning that he had cancer, Scott told me that in building Metro Cafe, he had created a stage for Carmen, that it was she who worked the magic that brought the stage and the plays that unfold therein to life.

On this day, another such play had unfolded on the stage that Scott had built for his beautiful and vivacious wife, Carmen.

So here is Scott, alongside the stage that he built.

As for Carmen, when I returned to the drive-through window at 4:00 PM for my regular, we talked a bit about the flurry of activity from earlier in the day.

"It will be very good for Metro Cafe," I assured her.

She remembered when Scott and she had opened the cafe, how much fun it had been and that now, what she wants, more than anything, more than publicity and success in business, is for Scott to get well.

That's it. She wants Scott to be well.

*Sometimes, when a quote cannot be precisely remembered, it must be made up. I am not saying that this is the case here, only that sometimes it happens.

**This is a definite, definite, quote, not made up at all. These are the very words that Sky the horse spoke.

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Looking for Lisa on the Rachel Maddow show; iPhoning it with Carmen, Scott and Shoshana at the Metro Cafe

The day before yesterday, I answered my iPhone to hear the very excited voice of my daughter, Lisa, whom I have not seen since before I left for Kaktovik at the beginning of the month. "Dad!" she exclaimed. "Did you know that Rachel Maddow is going to be doing her show in Anchorage tomorrow?"

It was the first that I had heard - although right after the call ended, I saw it plastered all over the Alaska blogosphere.

Only 200 tickets would be given out, first come, first serve, and Lisa had put in her name. If she was successful, she would get two tickets only.

So it was agreed that if she got the two tickets, her mom would drive into town and go with her.

Sadly, Lisa was not successful.

Happily, Charlie's mom was and she invited Lisa to go with her.

Trouble was, Lisa's car is out of commission. She had no transportation. So her mom volunteered to go into town, pick her up and take her to the Taproot Cafe in Anchorage, where Maddow would be doing the show live.

This meant that I would have no car in the afternoon, which was fine by me, because I would have my bike and I needed to do some bike-riding.

Still, I wanted to venture out in the car at least once that day, so Margie and I drove to Arby's for a sandwich.

Here we are, in the car, along the way, at the corner of Lucille and Seldon, where I have stopped at the sign until this vehicle passes by.

At about the same time that I would normally have gotten into the car to drive to Metro, I plugged the headset into my iPhone, tuned the radio to KSKA, put on my helmet, climbed onto my bike and pedaled to Metro.

In some ways, it was a horrifying pedal. I had not ridden my bike since before I left for Kaktovik and I have not even been taking any good walks. I have had no exercise to speak of all month long and I felt it - in my lungs, in my muscles.

Still, I pedaled resolutely on and soon I was in Metro, where I found Shoshana and Carmen in Halloween dress.

I cannot find my pocket camera, which I think might be under the bed somewhere, I did not want to carry my 5d II, so, again, the only camera that I had was my iPhone and the lens was extra smudged.

That's okay, because when you shoot pictures with a cell phone, you do not look for technical perfection. You look to see if you can capture some kind of feeling, even through the smudge and motion blur and if you do, that is good enough.

So here is Shoshana, photographed through my smudged iPhone. I get a good feeling when I look at the picture - just as I always do when I pull up to the Metro drive-through window and see Shoshana smiling, ready to take my order.

She is just the kind of person who gives one a good feeling.

Carmen, with Scott in the background, as seen in the mirror. In this blurry image, I get the feeling of energy, vivaciousness, friendly warmth and slightly devilish mischievousness that Carmen always brings to Metro Cafe. Although he occupies but a small part of the frame, I feel the absolute, determined, doggedness of Scott as he battles to defeat his horrid cancer.

I believe this is one of Scott's brothers, washing the Metro windows. Scott sat down with me and we talked for a long time - not much about cancer, but about other things, about America, Alaska, where we are, how we got here, what the future looks like.

It would all be worth expounding upon one day.

Afterwards, I pedaled home upon pavement coated with a thin layer of splotchy, frost ice. I wondered what would happen if the bike slid out from beneath me and I came down upon my artificial shoulder.

I did not really believe there was much chance of that happening, but soon, if I keep riding my bike, the chance will be fairly high. In the past, when this would happen, it was never a big deal, because you slid on ice, went down on ice and slid across ice - but now...

I had no cover on my ears. They got a little cold.

The Rachel Maddow show was nearing its end when I arrived home. I scanned the crowd, looking for Lisa.

I could not find her. As it turns out, when Margie picked her up at work she forgot her driver's license, left it behind and so was barred from entering the Taproot Cafe. Lisa did not get to be part of the crowd. To help make up for it, she plans to go do some volunteer work for Scott McAdams.

Later in the evening, I watched the repeat of the Maddow show. What I saw was Alaska, bursting with energy across the political spectrum, some of it rational, some of it irrational and a great mystery to me, given what has been made so obvious - all of it passionate and heartfelt. It looked like yesterday would have been a fun day to have been in Anchorage. 

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On the day of his dad's first Chemo, Branson brandishes a hockey stick; Metro Cafe is one year old; moose, dog - truck for sale on trail

When I turned off Lucille Street into the drive-through lane of Metro Cafe, I saw a tiny, heavily- bundled and padded figure run across the parking lot on the blade protectors of his hockey skates. It was five-year old Branson, who then posed for Through the Metro Window Study, #2081. True, he was outside the window, but I could still see through it to the customers behind.

Branson's father Scott had just undergone his first chemo treatment as part of his fight against the colon cancer that he is determined to beat. Today, Branson will attend his first day of kindergarten. While he is trying to prepare himself early, his first official hockey practice will not happen until late September.

I had not seen Carmen since before I left for Barrow, but she was here when I pulled in and so she came to join in with Branson. She let me know that today also marks the first anniversary of Metro Cafe's opening. She pondered all that has happened in that short year, from the family efforts to create a new kind of place in Wasilla to Scott coming down with cancer to Branson now entering kindergarten.

It has been quite a year for Carmen, Scott, Branson and Metro Cafe.

And on top of all this, Alaska buried Senator Ted Stevens yesterday.

As I drove home the long way, sipping my Metro order, this moose crossed the road in front of me. See how summer's colors have begun to give way to fall's?

Very soon, the colors will all be fall. And then, once again, it will be white... I hope. The weather just keeps getting stranger and stranger and that which we could once take for granted can no longer be counted on.

I had not walked down this way in a long time, but now I did. Tequila greeted me just as she always did in the past - barking, growling, acting tough, but I knew better. She didn't scare me.

This is one of those situations that my daughters would derisively describe with the phrase, "That's so Wasilla!" As you can see, this truck is parked across the trail that borders Seldon Street, with a "For Sale" sign on it. Another sign faces the road, so that those driving by can see it. 

This is a busy trail, used by many. Pedestrians use it, adults and children pedaling bicycles, mothers and fathers pushing baby strollers, people on four-wheelers.

It is a very busy trail, but what the hell. Someone wants to sell a truck.

So, if perchance you are looking for a truck and you are interested in this one, here is the price and phone number. Give a call, make the deal, take the truck. You will be doing many trail users a favor.

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Back in Wasilla, where a moose ran into the trees and Branson caught a fish, I glimpse back at Cibecue Creek

It is a beautiful Saturday here in Wasilla, Alaska. The sun shines brightly upon foilage, lucious and green. The air is pleasantly warm, leaning towards hot but not quite there yet. A light breeze rustles the leaves and the aroma given off by all this new greenery and blossoming flowers is sweet.

So I don't really want to spend the day inside, yet I have spent the past two-and-a-half hours doing just that - editing my take of May 27, when several of us took a hike up Cibecue Creek from the place where it empties into the Salt River. This, of course, took place in the homeland of Arizona's White Mountain Apache Tribe, of which my wife and children are all enrolled members.

It was a hike that began in desert heat intense enough to cause me to wonder if it was such a good idea for all of us to take off into it with a two-and-a-half year old boy walking along, but our destination would be one of magic, if we could but reach it.

Do you think this little boy, Kalib, could handle the six-hour hike that lay ahead of him?

I can't spend anymore time on it right now, but please come back tomorrow and I will show you.

I have a great deal of catching up to do - from my trips to Arizona and to Anaktuvuk Pass. I hope to get all caught up within a week, possibly two, certainly no more than three, because three weeks from right now the plan is for me to be on my way to Greenland - I MUST be caught up by then.

Kalib, by the way, is enrolled not in the White Mountain Apache Tribe but in the Navajo Nation. Both the Apache and Navajo are matrilineal societies, hence Kalib and Jobe belong to their mother's tribe and clan.

Just to make it clear that I truly am back in Wasilla, where I am attempting to slip back into my "normal home routine" for the three weeks that it might be possible to do so, here is a moose that I caught with my pocket camera as I drove down Shrock Road.

Even as I catch up on Arizona and Anaktuvuk Pass, I will drop in images from Wasilla, just to keep up to date.

Just before I came upon the moose, I had made the usual afternoon stop at Metro Cafe, where Carmen showed me this picture that she took of her son, Branson, her husband Scott and the fish Branson had just caught. As you can see, it is a special moment, but it is even more special than you likely realize, for there is a bigger story here.

I will tell it when time and circumstance permit. Carmen is going to throw a big five-year birthday party for Branson on the 27th. She thought that this would be a good time for me to come, take pictures and tell the story, but I will be Greenland then.

I am excited to be making my second trip to Greenland, but I hate to miss this party.

That's how this life is, though. To experience one thing, you must miss out on another - no: a trillion-plus others. An infinite number of others.

I find this very frustrating.

In keeping with tradition, I now title this image: Through the Window Metro Study, #6699.