I return to Wasilla and then kick about around town

It's about time this blog just kicked around Wasilla for bit. I begin in the parking lot outside Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, where this little American flag fluttered in the breeze from the back window of someone's car.

And this was one of many scenes inside, where the ham, eggs, hashbrowns, toast and coffee were all very tasty. Margie won't return from being snowed in down in Arizona for another full week yet. I will probably wind up here again a time or two between now and then.

In the afternoon, I took a walk with a half moon above.

I had not walked far before this dog came trotting down the street, eager to meet me. I was afraid that it would want to follow me, but it only wanted to say, "hello." Then it turned around and returned from whence it came.

This dog's name is Sampson. He was walking with a woman named Summer, and a black and white dog named Cher.

A little further along, I came upon a young man sitting on a four-wheeler going nowhere. "You're not broke down, are you?" I asked.

"No," he said. "I ran out of gas and then my battery died." Someone had gone to pick up what he needed to get going again.

"Bill is my name," I said.

"Good to meet you, I'm Eric," he said, as he extended his hand.

We shook hands.

"Good luck," I said.

Then I walked away, leaving him to sit on his machine to wait for gas and a battery.

An airplane flew overhead.

On my coffee break, I took the car to the gas station. As I was filling the tank, I heard the whistle and the clacking rumble of the train coming down the tracks.

"Damnit!" I said, because my camera was buried deep in my pocket and I did not know if I could get it out and turned on before the engines passed by.

It was a big challenge, but I did it and here is proof.

As always, when the train rumbled by, it gave me a thrill.

Then I was back in the car, and as I approached Kendall Ford, I began to pass a long truck, with a flatbed at the back. On the flatbed were two vans, both of which claimed to have fire extinguishers inside.

This is the trailer of the same truck. As you can see, it is an Alaska truck.

And this is the cab, now falling behind me.

And here I am in the parking lot outside of Pet Zoo, where I have stopped to buy Royce some good, healthy, soft, cat food. I did a self-portrait of myself, with this dog.

He must have been scraping ice. It's been so long since Wasilla has had anything but a token snowfall. Early December, maybe.

I passed these kids on their snowmachines.

I saw these people walking down Spruce Street.

Late at night, just before they closed, I drove to Dairy Queen, where a young woman named Ashleigh sold me a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate. The temperature was right about 0 degrees (-18 F); much warmer than when I made my first trip to the new Dairy Queen last January.

Then, the temperature was about -30 (-35 C). Last winter was much colder than this winter, all over Alaska. This has been a warm winter for us, even as it has been a cold winter for people down south.

Poor Margie. Snowbound and freezing in Arizona.

Review of the Kabab and Curry, part 2: Melanie, Charlie and I dine; I see a familiar face from the Great Gray Whale rescue; we visit two cats

It was Melanie who invited me to come and join her and other family members at the Kabab & Curry, Alaska's newest Indian Restaurant. She told me to arrive at 5:15 PM. As I prepared to leave Jacob, Lavina, Kalib and the unborn baby's house, I was a little worried, because I could see that I would be a few minutes late. I got into the car and then received a text message from Melanie, instructing me to ask for a table for four, should I arrive first.

I did arrive first - at 5:20 PM. Look how light it is, when so short a time ago it was total night at this time.

The Kabab & Curry had not yet opened, but I did not know this and the door was not locked, so I entered anyway. Everybody inside was surprised to see me. The waitress who greeted me seemed to feel self-conscious that I had entered early, before they were quite ready, but she let me stay inside.

I picked a table, sat down, and then Melanie and Lisa arrived. The waitress apologized, informed them they would not officially be open until 5:30, but allowed them sit down with me, anyway.

Charlie sooned joined us. By then, the restaurant was open and nobody felt self-conscious anymore. As we studied the menu and discussed what we wanted, I ordered a cup of Chai Tea.

Then, for some reason, I started to think about Dillingham, about what a pretty village it is. I wondered if the Yup'iq lady who I found giving away kittens in front of the AC store there was able to put them all in good homes? I remembered visiting Jacob there once, when he was overseeing a water and sewer project, and how, in his spare time, he was making a model replica of the B-24 that his grandfather, my father, flew in World War II.

He would later give that model to me.

I remembered putting him in the back seat of my airplane and then flying him out to Aleknagik, where people were catching salmon. I had planned to buy gas there, and then take him on a more grand tour of the Tikchik Lakes, but it was a Sunday and there was no gas to be had. 

I barely had enough gas to make it back to Dillingham, where it wasn't easy to get gas, either. By the time I did, it was too late to take the tour.

I remembered how hard the wind once blew, and how cold the driving rain was, and how I had to go to my plane and turn it around because the wind had shifted 180 degrees from the breeze that it had been when I first tied down. It had been a big challenge to turn that plane around in that wind and driving rain, but it had to be done and I did it.

God, I loved living like that! You cannot know how much I miss having a working airplane. I want to live like that again - before I grow too old and it becomes too late. This will be the case, all too soon.

I don't know why I thought about Dillingham after Charlie sat down, but I did.

I was shocked when, instead of Chai Tea, the waitress brought me a cup of Charlie Tea. "Take it back! Take it back!" I protested. "I refuse to drink Charlie Tea! I ordered Chai Tea."

"Oh, I'm sorry," the waitress apologized. "I thought you asked for 'Charlie Tea.'"

She quickly dumped the Charlie Tea and then brought me the Chai Tea, as Charlie came staggering out of the kitchen, shaking hot water out of his hair and wringing it out of his beard.

The chai tea was good. No, it was excellent. It was superb. It was savory. I wanted to drink 39 cups of it, but I knew this would not be a good idea, so I restrained myself.

As you can see, Lisa sat to my left, which happened to be to Charlie's right.

And Melanie sat to the right, which means that she also sat to the left. From her perspective, she sat neither right nor left, but at that ever-present place from which right and left extends.

This is our waitress. I forgot to get her name. Sorry about that. I will just call her, "Our Waitress."

I had planned to order South Indian food, like that that Vasanthi and Soundarya and the cooks at Soundarya's wedding had prepared for us, but the waitress informed us that, new as the restaurant is, they do not yet have their South India menu in place yet. She promised that they soon will.

Our Waitress then noted that several items on the Tandoori menu were not available this night, along with a couple of other items. This, she said, was because those items had proved to be more popular than expected and they had not ordered enough to meet demand, but would remedy the problem in the future.

I immediately decided that the unavailable items were exactly the dishes that I wanted to chose from. I didn't want anything else - only the absent Tandoori dishes.

"But don't worry," Our Waitress promised, "Everything on the menu is delicious. We haven't had a single complaint about anything. You can't miss, whatever you choose."

Truth is, when we were in India, we would not have eaten Tandoori, as Tandoori is "marinated meat cooked inside a tandoor (Clay Oven)." Our Indian family is Hindu, vegetarian, and everything that they fed us was vegetarian. And all the time that we were there, I never missed meat. 

Maybe because it was so hot in India that you don't need meat the way you do in a cold climate - but also because they prepare it so well that when you eat it, you have the sensation of eating a dish with meat, even though there is no flesh in it.

For the sake of my brief India times, I ordered off the vegetarian menu: Daal Makhani, "whole urad beans simmered with kidney beans at a very slow fire bringing out exotic flavors and are finished with a tadka of ginger garlic and tomatoes." That's what you see in the brass pail.

Charlie ordered Adraki jhinga - one of the available items from the Tandoori menu: "Smoothered with a marinade made with ginger, this is a delectable prawn apetizer. Is flambe' and served with tingling peanut chutney."

Chutney. Vasanthi makes that - and it is good stuff. Hot, and very good.

Now I am getting a little confused, but if I remember correctly, Lisa ordered Makhani,* from the curry menu: "Best Seller - Creamy Tomato curry flavored with house blended spices and fenugreek leaves from North India." It also came with her choice of meat and she chose chicken.

Melanie - I cannot remember the name of the dish that she ordered. I just can't. 

Actually, we had all ordered for each other, as we agreed to eat "Family style." We would share each other's dishes. We also ordered three servings of plain naan bread and two bowls of rice.

What can I say to describe the meal that followed? How do I communicate the ecstasy in which this fine food engulfed the tongue and sated the belly? It was superb, it was exquisite, it was sumptious, it was delicious, it was succulent!

It was pretty damned good.

Outside of India, it just may be the best India Indian meal I have ever eaten.

It just may be. Melanie and I had a pretty good one in Washington, DC, once.

Our Waitress was right. It seems you can't miss on this menu.

I can't wait until Margie returns from Arizona, so I can bring her here and let her sample all this delicious goodness. Kabab & Curry just may be my favorite restaurant in Anchorage now. Hard to say for certain. There is a Mexican restaurant on the corner of Northern Lights and Boniface that Jacob and Lavina took us to, once, which is heavenly.

And then there are a couple of sushi places that must be in the competition, too.

But right now, at this moment, with the taste and aroma so fresh in my memory, Kabab & Curry is my favorite restaurant in all of Anchorage.

Yet, I predict problems for Kabab & Curry. It is a very small restaurant. Five, maybe six, tables. Once people figure out how good this place is, they are going to need more tables, but I didn't see any place to put more tables. In fact, even before we finished eating, every seat in the house was taken. More and more diners will soon be coming.

Toward the end of our meal, I saw a face enter that reminded me of one I had once known. I had last seen that face close to 22 years ago. I wondered if it could be the same face, with a couple of decades of wear added to it?

The man who owned that face looked directly at me, but showed no sign of recognition. So I figured maybe it was just someone who bore a close resemblance to that man with whom I had shared a momentous experience 22 years ago. I thought this because I look exactly the same as I did 22 years ago, just like the young kid that I always feel I am, so he would have instantly recognized me, had it been he. 

That man was Jeff Berliner, a reporter for United Press International. It was October, 1988, and Berliner had come to Barrow to cover the Great Graywhale Rescue. He needed a place to stay and so he stayed with me, in the quonset hut that I rented for several years. And every day, he sent my gray whale pictures out over the wire and they appeared in newspapers all over the world.

All readers old enough to have been aware of the larger world at that time will recall the Great Gray Whale Rescue. For two weeks, even though a Presidential Election was less than one month away, it overshadowed every other story in the universe.

I won't say much about it, now, because Hollywood is making a big film based on the Great Gray Whale Rescue and when they release it I plan to run a series of posts that will show you how it unfolded in front of my eyes. Some of you have read about it in my book, Gift of the Whale, but I only had so much space to tell the story there and so gave an abbreviated account.

When the movie comes out, I will present a more complete account, spread over several days, right here, on this blog.

I could not leave without asking and, as it turned out, the familiar face did belong to Jeff, who went on to work for several years in Russia, and then came home to serve as an investigator with the Alaska Public Office Commission, better knowns as APOC. It was his job to keep Alaska politicians honest in their financial disclosures.

Man. Talk about a tough job!

Here he is, Jeff Berliner, who experienced the Great Gray Whale Rescue with me, standing alongside his wife, Michele Brown, an attorney who served as the Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation under Governor Tony Knowles.

Charlie went off to join in a low-stakes card game and the rest of us went to Lisa's, to visit her cats. Here she is, with Zed.

And here is Melanie, with Juniper.

Juniper, in front of Lisa.

Melanie, Juniper, and Lisa.

And then I came home, exhausted and full.

And I am exhausted now, too.

Once again, I have overdone a blog post. I should edit, tighten up, trim it down, seek out and destroy all typos and such.

But I am too exhausted. Blogs are works of great imperfection - and this one rises to that standard.

I will leave it as it is and go to bed.

*If you look in comments, you will see that Lisa has corrected me. She actually ordered chicken tikka masala: "Chunks of marinated boneless meat roasted on skewers in *Tandoor* finished in creamy tomato based curry."

While I am humiliated to have made such a flagrant error, this does give me an opportunity to add another adjective to describe the superlative cuisine to be had at Kabab & Curry. That would be, "piquant." I have no idea what "piquant" means, especially in relation to food, but its a damn-fine-sounding adjective and deserves to be used. Now I have used it, and can move on with my life.

I should also add the address: Lois at Spenard.

Review of the Kabab and Curry, part 1, preface: The drive to town, the brief visit with Kalib

So here I am, crossing the Palmer Hay Flats, just outside of Wasilla, on the drive to Anchorage to dine at the Kabab and Curry with Melanie, Lisa, and Charlie. The temperature on the Flats is -4 degrees (-20 C), which is a little cooler than it will be in town.

I roll my window down and then, without looking to see what the camera is focused on but knowing that whatever it is, it will be beautiful, I point the camera out the window, keep my eyes on the road and push the shutter.

Thus you have it: the Palmer Hay Flats, with Pioneer Peak and the Chugach Range rising behind.

By the way, nobody grows hay on the Palmer Hay Flats. They once did, before the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake. That quake lowered the elevation of the land here, so that at high tide, salt water creeps in. That's why the trees are all dead.

The hay that once grew here is dead, too.

As beautiful as it is, this is really tough world, one that kills tree and hay alike, with no remorse. All it takes is a simple, indifferent, slippage of earth against earth. The result was a 9.2 magnitude earthquake, the second most powerful ever recorded.

I was an adolescent living in Eureka, California, at the time and I had persuaded my Sunday School teacher to take our class on a beach party at Moonstone that Saturday, but a tsunami came to us from Alaska and closed all the beaches. We could not go near them.

Crescent City, a short distance to the north of us, took the wave straight on and 15 people were killed. My friend and next door neighbor, Mike McDaniels, had just gotten off the bus in Crescent City when the wave smashed into town.

He reported that he saw a baby get ripped out of the arms of its mother and then disappear in the swirling, cold, dirty, water.

So the Alaska quake that killed about 131 people in this state, totally destroyed the village of Chenega (which, not long after it was finally rebuilt was oiled by the spill of the Exxon Valdez), dropped the Palmer Hay Flats into tidal waters reached far away and gave me a direct link to my home in Alaska long before I actually came home to live here.

The Palmer Hay Flats is now a State Game Refuge. Many moose live here year round and each spring and summer ducks and geese come to raise families, as do many other birds. Salmon swim in to spawn and fishermen and women pull them from the water.

A bit less than half-way to town, I saw this ambulance speeding in the opposite, northbound, lanes of traffic, rushing to an emergency. I reasoned that perhaps there had been an accident somewhere behind me.

Actually, the accident had happened a short distance ahead of me. I soon reached it and passed it. By that time, the ambulance had exited out of the north-bound lanes, entered the south-bound and was just reaching the accident scene.

Later, I looked at the online Anchorage Daily News, but found nothing about the accident. This does not mean that someone did not receive a significant injury, but it does mean that no one was killed.

Not far from Eagle River, I saw the half-moon, teasing the clouds who, even as high up as they are, can never touch it. Sometimes, clouds get so frustrated by this fact that they start to cry and then they rain all over everything.

If its cold enough, their tears turn to snow.

I know this to be a fact, because my father was a meteorologist.

Jacob, Kalib, and Lavina were not home when I reached their house, but they soon arrived. As you saw in my last post in a picture just one frame away from this one, Kalib had fallen asleep in the car and had to be carried into the house.

Muzzy came to greet me, then fell down submissively upon the floor. As big and headstrong as he is, he can be a submissive dog.

Jacob gave Lavina a foot massage. There has been no change in her status. She is still experiencing mild contractions about one-hour apart, still hoping the birth can wait until the grandmas arrive.

I did not know that labor could be like this - so long, drawn out over many days or even weeks. It never was with Margie. She was in labor with Jacob for about 13.5 hours and that was the longest she was ever in labor. It was intense, all the way through.

Before I left to go meet Melanie, Charlie and Lisa at the Kabab and Curry, I sneaked into the bedroom to take a peek at Kalib. He was fast asleep.

They had laid him down still fully dressed in his snow suit, so as not to wake him. I gave him the softest of pats, then drove off to meet those other three at the Kabab and Curry. The full review will appear at 12:00 noon Alaska time, 4:00 PM East Coast time, which is 2:30 AM India time.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been getting hundreds of hits from India - not just from my relatives, but from many others. Pretty amazing.

There will be a couple of cats in the Kabab and Curry post, too.

Kalib is carried, sleeping; new-baby-in-waiting waits a little longer

Even though Margie remains in Arizona, at her sister's house which is buried under four feet of new snow, unable to get to her mother's house 45 miles away because the roads have been impassable, unable to communicate with her mother because the cell phone service is down in her village as is the power, it was a family day for me today.

I went into Anchorage and did all those things that I earlier told you I would do.

Yet, even though by my usual standards it is still fairly early, just 14 minutes after midnight, this is one of those nights when my lifestyle has caught up to me.

I am simply too tired to make a full post tonight. I can't do it. I must go to bed.

But I know that some of the Kalib adorers among you were counting on seeing him, so here he is, being carried into his parent's home in the arms of his father.

Now that you have seen him and know that he is fine, I will go to bed. I will still make a full report on the day, perhaps first thing after I get up, eat breakfast, read the paper, take a walk... including my full review of our dining experience at the Kabab and Curry - Alaska's newest Indian Restaurant.

Or I might just take a little break from it all and hold it for tomorrow.

Maybe. We will see.

Goodnight!

Wait! Wait! Wait!

It would not be right for me to go to bed and not provide an update on Lavina and our new-baby-in-waiting. Lavina continues on as she has been - experiencing light contractions, about an hour apart, still hoping that baby will stay put until the grandmas can get here.

But we don't know.

Baby could get serious about getting out and into the world at any time.

Flying home, part 2: Study through Window Seat 1D, Alaska Airlines Flight 52: passengers boarding in Fairbanks

Study through Window Seat 1D, #1:  Many people got off the plane in Fairbanks, but all passengers traveling on to Anchorage were asked to stay on board. 

So I did, and then I noticed these two guys through Window Seat 1D.

Thus I began my study.

I am pretty certain that within 45 minutes of when I post, I will begin to receive calls from the most prestigious museums in the world, from places like New York, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo, London, Rio De Janeiro, Delhi, Dubai, Adis Abeba, Rome, and Winnemucca.

They will all want to hang this study on their walls. And they won't even have to frame the images, because they're already framed.

"Thank you, Bill," the curators will praise, "for saving us the cost of the frames."

Study through Window Seat 1D, #2: Alaska Airlines employees remove the trash that accumulated on Flight 52 during the Barrow-Fairbanks segment.

Perhaps the empty bag that once contained the pretzels and nuts that was given to me free of extra charge by Alaska Airlines is in that bag.

If so, then this is a truly historic moment.

If not, then, so what?

Study through Window Seat 1D, #3: One of the two guys from Study #1 returns - the one with the long bill on his cap.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #4: The guy seems to feel slightly self-conscious about his tie - or maybe its cold out there and he is trying to cover a little more of himself with his jacket. Except for the cap, he looks like a pilot. 

Maybe that's a pilot's cap and I am just behind the times, and didn't know.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #5: The first of the Fairbanks passengers comes down the chute - and she is mighty cute.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #6: The woman who appears to be her mother guides her along her path. This is what mothers do.

I see another little hand behind her. Who could it belong to?

Study through Window Seat 1D, #7: Why, it's The Little Boy in Blue! He is well-prepared to take a nap.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #8: The woman who succeeded in boarding with three carry ons.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #9: If the situation had been reversed, had it been me walking down that chute towards the door and this gentleman sitting by seat 1D with a camera in his hands, then he could have taken my picture.

But that's not how it was.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #10: Some people carry their bag into the plane, some people roll them. This lady is one of the rollers.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #11: Not long ago, she was in the cold. Now she is about to enter the warmth of the airplane.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #12: You first. No, you first. No, you've got a rolling bag - you first. No, you - you're tall, and you might bump your head, so please go first!

They were both too late. It was the little girl in Study #5 who entered first.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #13: I thought that she should have brought one for every passenger on the plane and the pilots and stewardesses, too.

I wound up ordering cranberry juice. Even on the short hop from Fairbanks to Anchorage, you can do that in First Class. In coach, you have a choice of water or orange juice.

And to think, I wound up in First Class by chance, with a coach ticket, and got all this extra service that I was undeserving of.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #14: The girl in blue; the man in the green vest. For some reason, I think the man in the green vest likes to hunt ducks. But maybe he doesn't. Maybe he is a vegetarian and only eats tofu, asparagus and lentil beans.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #15: As do all studies, this one must come to an end and so it does, right here.

Yet, when one study ends, a new one can begin. Right after I took the final picture of the previous study, a couple, who looked to be in love, entered the plane. The woman sat down beside me, in Seat 1C, where I had been originally. The man sat down in Seat 1A, by the window on the other side of the aisle.

This did not seem right, so I offered to trade places with the man.

Once I took his seat, I lost the view of passengers exiting the chute to board the plane.

After all the Fairbanks passengers had boarded, this scene appeared before me:

Study from Alaska Airlines Flight 52, Seat 1A: Stewardess on the Other Side, After the Door Has Been Closed

Rex picked me up in my car, then he drove me to the driveway of his basement apartment and we sat in the driveway and talked for quite awhile.

Above, in Melanie's house, the lights were on even though it was after midnight. So I went up and visited Melanie and Charlie.

Then I drove home, got to bed about 3:00 AM, took a few hours sleep and then had breakfast at Family Restaurant.

As I waited for my food, this girl walked by my window. At the moment I took this picture, she is looked straight into my eyes, but the camera was out in front of me a ways.

I wonder what she thought of me?

I probably looked old and frightening.

This fellow must have been thinking about something happy.

Now I will post this and then drive to Anchorage to see my family members there.

My next post will include a Kalib/new-baby-in-waiting update.