As horse shadows prance across the wall, Allie, Abby's teenage poet waitress, tells me about a camping trip where she and her friends got in trouble with the law

As shadows of horse statuettes fell upon the wall, Allie, the poet who graduated early from high school, who recently turned 17 and went to her first "R" rated movie, told me another story about being a teenager in Wasilla.

This time, she and some of her friends, boys and girls, decided they wanted to go camping at Ninilchik, on the Kenai Peninsula.

Her dad didn't much like the idea. He said he didn't think so. She reminded him that she had graduated from high school, didn't live at home anymore, had a job of her own and was free to go camping with her friends if she wanted to.

He said, okay, but be sure to text him every day to let him know she was ok.

Ok, she agreed.

Concerning the diners above, it was an even larger group than it appears to be. I have two favorite tables and always try to sit at one or the other. They had pulled both tables together and so I had to sit elsewhere. I was glad, though, glad to see all the business at Abby's. I told the big group of diners about my ongoing essay on Abby's and asked if they would mind if I took a photo of them - as they were the largest single group I had to yet to see there (although one night when I was working on my India series I came in and every single table in the restaurant was occupied).

They were all good with it except for one lady, who had a baby on her lap and she thought her hair didn't look good, even though it looked fine and she looked good and so did the baby. I positioned myself behind the lady and the baby so the lens wouldn't see them and then shot a picture that showed everybody else, but not the baleen on the wall, or the picture of the chicken. There was no way to include the baleen and chicken without also showing the woman. It was a decent enough picture, too, but after awhile the lady and the baby left. I shot this picture with them gone and liked it better, because it shows the baleen and the chicken.

Did they catch any fish? I asked. No, she said, they just went to camp. It was a cold night. They built a fire and sat around it, visited, and told stories. 

Did you cook hot dogs on the fire, roast marshmallows? I asked.

No, she said. There was a lodge nearby, so they ate their meals there - but they brought a lot of junk food to camp - chips, pop and such. They ate a lot of junk food. A huge amount - she stressed. So much so she stuffed herself and it hurt her tummy.

There were some posts adjacent to the campground, along with a sign that said not to park beyond the posts. But they had gear and provisions to unload and carry to the fire and their tents. It would be easier to do this if they parked beyond the posts, closer to the camp, so they did.

(In recent months, I have begun watching "Thomas and His Friends" on TV with Kalib and Jobe. This sounds to me like the very kind of thing Thomas and his friends might do.)

As to what is going on here, the big group has left, others have come in, and Allie is telling this gentleman that he had better behave himself and not call her a 12 year-old again or she will make him go to the counter and pick up his own food.

He enjoys the scolding.

The young campers stayed up late, visiting, laughing, talking, eating junk food, having fun - but at some wee hour of the morning (which, as a reminder to you folks down south, would not be dark here the way it is down there.) they became too sleepy to last anymore.

Allie left the fire and crawled into her sleeping bag - and that sleeping bag was COLD! It practically froze her to climb inside it and then it took about 20 minutes for her body heat to warm it up and for her to get comfortable enough to sleep.

At a horribly early hour for teenagers who had been visiting and eating junk food all night by a fire, but who were now all fast asleep and wanted to stay that way, someone came in to camp and woke them up.

No - it was not a bear or moose someone - it was a cop! A lady cop!

She didn't even give them a warning, either - she just got right to business and wrote two tickets - one to Allie - because they were illegally parked. 

$110 tickets!

She scolded them pretty good, too.

To make it even worse, if Allie wanted to sleep some more - and she did - she would have to subject herself to the whole, terrible, 20 minute ordeal and climb back into a freezing sleeping bag andwarm it up all over again.

Still, she was very glad she went. It was fun, she said, and she drove all the way home without anyone spelling her at the wheel. She was pretty proud of that. She did it in good time, too. 

I had never seen these horses prancing on the wall before and, until I took note of it with my camera, not Allie, not Abby, not anybody there had previously noticed the horse shadows, which are a bit behind and to the side of where they would normally be looking. The sun has to be in just the right place and once they appear, the horse shadows don't last long.*

Abby was very pleased. "It looks just like at home!" she said.

So I pulled her in for a picture.

And speaking of home, that couple in the frame to her left?

That's the late Paul and Iona Mahoney, Abby's homesteader parents, both of whom now lie in Grotto Iona.

(For anybody who might have read the post I put up two hours and twenty-six minutes ago - I struggled a bit more, but the words just did not come. I hope they come tomorrow. I must finish this piece and send it out to where I have promised to send it. It has to be good, too. This is what they call "writer's block." I hate it.)

*Update, 12:39 PM May 17: Ever since I posted this, I have been bothered by the question of how the sun could possibly have come through the window at just the right angle to cast these shadows, so I went back this morning to check it out and to eat again. I discovered that, indeed, the sun could not shine directly through the window at such an angle. Instead, it was reflecting off the windshield of Abby's truck.