The mountain, the haircut; daughter and I embibe in Devil's drink, #2 and other stories from an exquisite day in the magical Season of Light

Afternoon had now slipped into early evening. I was getting no work done at all and I

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Charlie's raven show; Margie returns to Alaska; Thomas and the boys; biker in the rain; sky warrior remembered

I had to go to town to pick Margie up from the airport. I had not yet had a chance to see Charlie's raven show, so, an hour before Margie's flight was scheduled to arrive, I picked Charlie and Melanie up and we headed over to the Midnight Sun Brewery to take a look and have dinner.

I remain amazed at what Charlie has done with his raven photos. Everybody who reads this blog regularly knows that I photograph ravens when I happen upon them, but Charlie has gone beyond that. Some time ago, he gave himself a mission: to photograph a raven and a stranger every day.

He has done good.

Charlie had a little placard up and in it he gave me the credit for inspiring him to take up a camera and do what he has done. That was nice. He and Melanie should now be driving south, towards Homer, where they are going to join Rex and Cortney on a boat ride to Halibut Cove and then camp out in a cabin for the rest of the week. I hope they catch lots of fish and share with us.

Rex made a kayak and they are taking it, too.

I have written a few times before about how desperate Margie gets for Arizona during the winter, how badly she wants to go back. As always, when I picked her up at the airport, she was happy - no, thrilled - to be back in Alaska.

Of course, winter is over. The sun shines. She would soon greet her grandsons.

Big Thomas was on the go.

The sun does shine - today. But not yesterday, not when I drove to town to see Charlie's ravens and pick Margie up.

Yesterday, it rained.

Dad, top row, third from left, who died on Memorial Day five years ago. May you, your fellow B-24 crew and all the others who fought alongside you for this nation, in this war and others, so many to die in the fight, never be forgotten.

I break away from my India coverage just long enough to go meet Margie, Lavina and Lynxton and spend a few brief moments with my family

On my way to Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage, I found myself behind this fellow on Fifth Avenue. It was one of those situations when I sorely wanted to remove the dirty, cracked, windshield in front of me so I could take a crystal-clear picture. But sometimes, you either get the shot through a dirty, cracked, windshield or you don't get it at all.

I was on my way to meet Margie, Lavina and Lynxton when they got off the final flight bringing them home from Phoenix.

I had wanted to meet them as they came out from the secure area, but I didn't make it in time. Jacob, Kalib and Jobe did, though.

And here they are, all of them getting off the elevator near the baggage claim area.

And here came Melanie, who had just arrived home from Kuparak on the Arctic Slope, very near to Prudhoe Bay. Lynxton was overjoyed to see her.

"How does the cool air feel?" I asked Margie. On their last day in the Phoenix area, the temperature had reached 107 degrees (42 C).

"Good!" she answered.

"How does the warm air feel feel?" I asked Melanie. During her stay at Kuparuk, temperatures had ranged from -25 (-32 C) to a warm 10 (-12 C) at the end.

"Good!" she answered.

Here, the temperature was about 50 (10 C) - just about as pleasant as it could be.

The youngest boy: Lynxton, in his Aunt Melanie's arms.

The second youngest boy: Jobe, in the arms of his mother, whom he has not seen for a week.

The oldest boy: Kalib, in no one's arms, walking about on his own two feet.

Lavina had brought Margie to Phoenix with her so that she could babysit Lynxton while Lavina attended her workshop. Now that they were home, Margie would need to spend the rest of the week, at least through Thursday, babysitting the boys in Anchorage.

So the plan was for me to drive home and spend the rest of the week alone, just as I had the previous week, and the week before that, etc.

But instead, I brought Margie home, then got up early in this morning and drove her back to town. Then I drove back alone.

Tomorrow, I will return this blog to India. Some very neat things happened between the time we got off the train in Pune and the wedding functions began, but I really need to get Sujitha and Manoj married, so I will jump ahead, straight into wedding related functions.

One raven feasted, the other complained; Kalib battles Melanie over her cake; train wreck - Friday, I will begin my gray whale rescue series

This morning, I saw two ravens in the road. One was eating something. What could it be?

It was a toad! One of those famous Wasilla Anti-Freeze toads! As the raven gobbled up the toad, the other raven grew upset and began to shriek at it. "Share the toad! Share the toad!" the second raven screamed. "I always share my toad with you! Share the toad! Share the toad! Mabel! Share the toad!"

But Mabel did not share. She gobbled down that toad and didn't even care that the other raven had none.

Thereafter, I went out for my daily bike ride. I have riden every day this week. I am kind of sad, though. I have just over two weeks left to ride and then I leave for Arizona and from there on to India. I will not be back until March 23. My winter bike riding will be over, so soon. Maybe I will be able to get in a little more winter biking after I return, but not much.

I might not be able to get any more at all. March 23 could be cold, March 23 could be warm, with slush everywhere. There is no way to know just yet. If I have my way, I will go to the Arctic Slope not long after I return. It will still be cold up there, but I won't be able to take my bike with me.

And I don't know if I will be able to go, anyway. I have no contracts with anybody right now. I have no paying work lined up. I do not know what will become of Uiñiq. Maybe its day is past. Our cash is just about gone. I am expecting one more check for another project I did and I am hoping that can carry us through until I get back from India and can figure out how to carry on, but I don't know.

Still, I am optimistic I will get paying work and I will get up to the Slope this spring. I have to. I must. The Slope is in my DNA.

As I drew near to home on my bike, this dog came chasing after me, barking. The dog that I believe was the mother to this dog once teamed up with another dog, who might also have been a forebearer to this one, invaded our yard and killed our wonderful orange and white tabby, Thunder Paws.

After that, I had a lot of hatred in me for that dog and its people for awhile, but I have pushed that hatred away. At their core, the people are good people and the dog was just being a dog - albeit a mean dog. Plus, after it raised some bloody hell with someone else's pet, it got put down.

It does one no good to carry a grudge against a dead dog.

In the early evening, I got in the car and drove towards Anchorage. There had been a super warm up. The temperature was a couple of degrees above freezing. The roads were treacherously slick. Lots of cars had slid off.

I drove kind of slow, but not real slow.

I went to town because it is Melanie's 31st birthday. Kalib tried to prevent her from blowing out her candles. He wanted to blow them out. Funny - on his last birthday, he did not want to blow out the candles at all.

Finally, Kalib let Melanie blow out her candles. Except for Caleb, the whole family was there, but I am lazy tonight.

She failed to blow out the last candle. So Kalib blew it out for her.

Jobe got tossed almost to the ceiling. I was tired and lazy, and did not want to move from the couch where I sat, so I didn't. Then I felt kind of bad about that, because I could see that picture was directly below, where I could have caught Jobe rising into his own shadow.

So I moved to the floor to get it, but Jobe ran off. The opportunity had been lost. Photography is like that.

Baby Lynx seems to be all better now. He has put his viral infection behind him.

Just before I left, bringing Margie with me, one night early, I found Kalib, Thomas, Thomas, Thomas and Thomas's friend, James, pushing Thomas over the edge of a cliff.

This is why I do not let Kalib and Jobe play unsupervised with the electric HO Thomas the Train that Sujitha gifted to us at Christmas.

Tomorrow, Friday, February 3, the movie Big Miracle will be released nationwide. I also plan to start blogging my own experience. I usually don't get my post up until late at night or even after midnight, but I will try to get my first post, which will start out where the movie starts out, up fairly early.