Tot pulls fire alarm - daycare gets evacuated - firetruck comes - tots wear space blankets

It was awful. We drove into the parking lot of the daycare center where Kalib now goes and there found a firetruck, obviously called to action, and a bunch of toddlers huddled nearby, wrapped in space blankets.

That's not what was awful. That was kind of cute. What was awful is that Margie and I had not seen Kalib for several days. His Mom and Dad had been housesitting for some friends in Anchorage and they had taken him with them.

We had told them not to take him, but to leave him with us. They disobeyed.

Now I had to take Margie to town to get some X-rays so that we would know how well the breaks in her knee and wrist were healing.

Since we were in town, we went to see Kalib, but we arrived during an emergency.

We studied the faces of all the little toddlers huddled by the firetruck.

None belonged to Kalib.

And then the firetruck left.

We spotted Kalib! He was being carried in the arms of a daycare worker. He and the littlest toddlers had all been evacuated to a nearby building, but now she was bringing him back.

There never had been a fire. One of Kalib's more advanced and skilled daycare mates had found the emergency fire alarm and had pulled it.

Hence, all the excitement.

Too bad we did not get there earlier, when people still thought there might be a fire.

Once he was safely back inside the daycare center, Kalib completely ignored me. He wanted only to go to his Mom, who I had picked up at work and brought over.

Once he was safely in his mother's arms, Kalib wanted to come to me.

Kalib, coming to me.

And look at that! It's right there on his sweatshirt. It is he who is coming to the rescue, not me. 

As for Margie, I haven't the time or energy to post the experience tonight, but I will try tomorrow, if nothing prevents me.

Three fellow photographers at the Iditarod Restart - for one, Governor Palin rides to the rescue

If I had searched, I could have found several more tons of my colleagues as they wielded their cameras at the Iditarod Restart in Willow, but I didn't, so I only photographed the three that popped up in front of me.

This is Jim Lavrakas of the Anchorage Daily News, who I first met 28.5 years ago. He was shooting for the Daily News then as well. The Daily News has always had an extremely talented photo staff and Jim is one of the best.

If you doubt this, then please take note of the extremely difficult technique that he uses here to photograph the race. It is called the "Lavrakas Two-Gun Technique" and he spent over a decade perfecting it, but finally mastered it on July 22, 1994.

Jim's theory is that the photographer should always hold two cameras in his hands, on either side of his vision, but never bring the viewfinder of either to his eyes. He then focuses each eye on a different subject. Then the photographer, like the two-gun gunslinger who, with dead-on accuracy, simultaneously fires in multiple directions, shoots both cameras at the same moment.

In this case, a Super Cub was flying overhead while down below a little boy was reaching over the fence to high-five a passing musher.

I did not see the results myself, but I understand Jim caught both moments grandly, in perfect unison, as he always does.

I have tried this technique myself, but have never succeeded at it.

This is Wayde Carroll, a fine architecture photographer who also conducts photo safaris not only in Alaska but Costa Rica as well. As you can see, Wayde also employs some pretty sophisticated technique. He asked if I would pose for a portrait so I did. He threw in some light with the umbrella held in reverse.

Then I shot this portrait of Wade.

We photographers like to go around shooting portraits of each other.

We want someone to remember us when we're gone.

And this is Al Grillo, who shoots for the Associated Press. He is a most likable guy and I often come upon him anywhere in Alaska, and I also see his pictures from all over the state published regularly in the news. This has been the case for many years.

I commented on this. "You've got a really good job," I complimented.

"If it wasn't for all the interest in Sarah Palin, I wouldn't even have a job right now," Al answered. As AP does its part to keep our governor focused in the national eye, they tend to send Al anywhere in Alaska where she does something that might be noteworthy.

And there I find a second reason to be glad that Sarah Palin is our governor.

I found Al kneeling in the snow at a gap in the fence. A bit later, an official hall monitor came by and told him to move, that he could not be there.

Al protested. He told the hall monitor that he was with AP, had press credentials and was acting within his right and duty.

"I don't care who you are or what credentials you have," the hall monitor fired back. "You have to move, now."

But Al didn't move, and for this I was mighty proud of him.

The hall monitor walked away, murmuring threats that Al had better have vacated that spot by the time he came back.

Then a lady who was standing behind the fence (that's her elbow in the upper left corner), piped in and told Al that she knew Governor Palin personally. "I've got her phone number right here in my cellphone," she spoke authoritatively, "I can give her a call right now and she'll straighten that guy (the hall monitor) out for you."

Al gave her a polite smile and kept on shooting.

This is not a photographer, but a kid named Ian, who lives in Palmer. I took this picture as the second musher to come out of the chute passed by, waving at the friendly crowd as he did.

Ian told me that he loved the Iditarod. "It's lots of fun," he said. "It's exciting."

When it was all over, and after I had visited and photographed Rose Albert, as seen in yesterday's entry, I discovered that I was hungry and wanted to eat. Given the setting, only a hot dog would do.

I found this stand, selling "Reindeer Dogs," made of genuine Alaska reindeer.

I ordered one, plus a bag of Lay's Classic Potato Chips and a super-chilled Pepsi that the lady pictured above pulled from the ice chest that had protected it from freezing altogether.

I bit into the reindeer dog and discovered that it was mostly gristle and fat. It was hot, so that fat oozed out in great drops of oil.

Oh, geeze! It was good! Scrumptious! Just what I needed.

When I think back upon it, I wish that I had bought two.

There were still mushers leaving the chutes as I pulled away, hoping to beat traffic that I knew from experience would come to a standstill. As I did, these two tiny kids, towed by a snowmachine, zipped by.

As I neared Miller's, where I bought the chocolate-dipped ice cream cone recently pictured on this blog, I came upon this scene and found that someone had been pulled over by a state trooper. 

How I love this place! How could I not? Can you see how beautiful it is?

It is an honor to get ticketed in such a place as this.

Still, I was glad that the honor went to someone else, and not to me.

A little further down the road, I turned off the Parks Highway and onto Pittman, towards home and on that corner passed by this familiar roadside tourist shop. It was a great reminder of the thrill of the Iditarod.

Soon, the tourist season will begin. Many tourists will pass this shop and they will gaze upon it with proverbial wonder; they will realize what a majestic and beautiful state they have the privilege to pass through.

Here come the dogs: Iditarod Restart; Mike Williams, who runs because he lost his six brothers; Rose Albert - artist - first Native woman to race

What is it that thrills people so, just to see dogs run across the snow that covers a frozen lake as they sprint away to begin a 1300 mile race from Willow, Alaska, to Nome?

I don't know, but damn, it is thrilling. It thrills me.

Now, please, click on this photo so that you can see a larger copy.

I can't stand it, thinking that you might only see all these faces so small as they appear here.

Two of this year's Iditarod dogs.

A team comes charging.

Here come the white dogs who pull Jim Lanier of Chugiak.

And this is Mike Williams, Yupiaq Eskimo of Akiak, being pulled by his dogs. Mike is a rehabilitated alcoholic who runs to encourage all those who battle that same disease to try sobriety. Once, he had six living brothers and he loved them all.

All six are dead now, and all were killed by alcohol.

Mike draws closer to the camera. 

In the year 2000, I followed Mike along the trail in my little airplane, the one I called "Running Dog;" the one that sits broken at the side of the house, now.

Mike passes the camera.

When I first started this blog, I stated that I would mix pictures and stories of the present up with those of the past. 

Yet each night when I sit down to do this, time presses, and so I have yet to do that. 

I think I will start with Mike. Sometime between now and when the race ends, I will post a few of the images I took in 2000, along with a little bit of his story.

And there Mike Williams goes, off to Nome.

I photographed many other mushers at the restart, and many dogs, but for the sake of space and time, I have limited this to my friend, Mike Williams.

I had another good Iditarod musher friend at this year's race, namely Rose Albert of the Yukon River village of Ruby, who now lives in Anchorage. In 1982, Rose became the first Alaska Native woman to run the race.

In February of 1983, I visited her and her late brother, Howard, at Howard's trapping cabin, 50 miles upriver from Ruby. Howard was a veteran of the race and Rose had ran with his dogs. In 1983, Howard was running again.

Rose is a full-time artist and, no offense Jon Van Zyle, but in my opinion, she is the best Iditarod artist out there. She paints her life, and her natural talent is great.

And some come to the Iditarod not just to watch dogs, but to make snow angels atop the lake.

Come back tomorrow, and I will introduce you to a few of my fellow photographers who were at the restart.

They call it "the restart" but it is actually the real start. What happens in Anchorage is all ceremony, done for show.

The race starts when the dogs leave Willow.

Coming home from Iditarod: big cone, little cone; instead of the promised dogs, you will find a cat (the promise is not broken, just delayed)

On the way home from the Iditarod restart in Willow, where I did indeed photograph a few dogs and people too, I got a hankering for an ice cream cone from Miller's - vanilla, dipped in chocolate. 

So I stopped and got one and this is it.

As for the big cone in the background, that is Miller's "billboard." Not so many years ago, it was declared illegal under Alaska's billboard law.

When you drive the limited highways of our beautiful state, you do not see billboards, because they are illegal. Against Alaska, they are officially deemed to be an ugly blight.

One day, someone passing by Miller's decided that the cone, which had beckoned passers by for untold centuries, was a billboard. So they were ordered to remove it.

I stopped in a bit afterward, and the guy who owns Miller's was not happy. He was angry.

The cone disappeared for just a little while after that, but then it came back, closer to the store.

I think that's how they got around the billboard law, by moving it close to the store.

I don't know for certain, that's just what I surmise.

Yes, I had planned to put dogs on this blog tonight, and instead, here is a cat, Juniper, formerly known as Deborah by Default and then, for just a little while, as Jubilee. 

And this why the dogs have to wait.

I arrived home from the Iditarod about 5:00 PM and found both of my daughters here, along with Juniper.

So, instead of downloading my pictures, editing them, preparing them and blogging them, I hung out with my daughters and the cat.

Now, it is just too late to do all that editing, preparing and placing. Thank's to the fact that we went on Daylight Savings Time today, it is even later than it is.

And I am even more tired than I am - so the dogs will have to wait another day.

As for the cat and the daughters, they wanted to go out for coffee. For Lisa, that usually means Kaladi Brothers, but they do not allow cats inside Kaladi Brothers and she did not want to leave her cherished buddy in the car, so we decided to go to a Kiosk.

We were headed to Mocha Moose, also known as "Palin Fever," but the daughters decided that we should try a kiosk that we had never been to before.

So I head toward one and they said, "not that one," because it was too close to the house.

"You need to broaden your horizons, Dad," Melanie said. 

So I picked one out that I had never been to that was many miles away but when we got there, it was closed, too.

From there, we drove past a few that we were already familiar with and then the daughters suggested that we head down Knik Road. We did. The first kiosk that we came upon was closed. Melanie was certain the next would be open. It too was closed.

She then spoke of a kiosk on a certain corner - she said that was the original kiosk, the kiosk of all kiosks and it would be open because it is always open.

So I drove there. There was a sign on the door... "We closed at 4:00 PM today. Sorry for the inconvenience," or something close to that.

Well, we tried at least five more and they were all closed, so we wound up at Mocha Moose, anyway.

As you can see, Juniper had the cash, so she bought.

She was also the source of a fair amount of contention. Lisa's boyfriend and co-caretaker of Juniper originally did not like the name. After suffering some confusion and consternation, the name "Jubilee" materialized from somewhere and so that is what she was going to be named.

Then Bryce decided that he liked the name, "Juniper," after all.

So the cat is now "Juniper."

However, Melanie now claims that she had planned all along to name her first daughter "Juniper." "I can't name my daughter Juniper if your cat is already Juniper!" she scolded. "And its your fault, Dad, for putting the story in your blog. I liked "Jubilee."

"Yeah? Well, Lavina is always calling Kalib 'Muzzy,' and it works out okay."

And that's how life is around here.

Before the trio left, Juniper got to see an adolescent moose run across the back yard. "That's her first moose," Lisa said proudly.

Of course, we don't really know that. No telling what wonders Juniper saw in the ten months of her life that transpired before she came into ours.

Come back tomorrow for some real Iditarod pictures. I am pretty sure I will post them tomorrow.

Iditarod began today, but here is a mask and a bride; tomorrow there will be dogs here

I just returned home from Anchorage, where the Iditarod sort of began today and even though it is earlier than my normal bedtime, I am exhausted beyond all reason and want to do nothing but to go to bed.

Think how exhausted those mushers are going to become.

I did not go to Anchorage to see the ceremonial start, as I did not have time for it. I went to photograph a wedding. Before I got to the wedding, I stopped where the Iditarod began so that I could see my friend, Rose Albert, who had some of her paintings on display in a coffee shop on Fourth Avenue, right in front of the starting line.

I plan to see Rose again tomorrow, at the real Iditarod start in Willow and afterwards, I will put her on this blog. In 1982, she became the first Alaska Native woman ever to run the Iditarod.

After I said hi to her, I stopped to visit another friend, Othniel Oomittuk of Point Hope, who also had his artwork on display.

This mask represents Point Hope, the mountains nearby, and a rainbow that he once saw when he was atop those mountains. Look at the corners of the eyes, and you will see the tails of bowhead whales, upon which the whole culture and life of Point Hope is based.

I am not going to say much about Othniel right now, as I need to get to bed.

Sometime soon, I hope to go visit him and then I will put up more pictures and share a sliver of his story with you.

This is the bride, Emily Frantz of Barrow, who was about to become Emily Caldwell. I was going to post one scene from the actual ceremony, but the images are still downloading from the card and have not even reached the ceremony yet.

So, as quick as I could with no study to determine which was the best one, I grabbed this shot of the bride.

God, she's beautiful!

And so is her wedding parka, which she made herself from the skins of white rabbits and red foxes.

Let's get this straight - I am not a wedding photographer. I do not photograph weddings, except for photojournalistic purposes and, occasionally, very rarely, for a good friend or relative.

There is a story here to explain how I wound up photographing this wedding, and it involves airplanes and helicopters, cross-country flights across Alaska, search and rescue of lost and injured people in the Arctic, body recovery, polar bears, whales, and a grand trip across the Bering Sea into Russia.

All made with the father of groom, Chuck Caldwell, pilot  extraordinaire. 

Now I must go to bed.

If I can get there.