Moose in wrappings; moose wrappings minus the moose; the man who made me stop on the road

I took this from my bicycle as I pedaled by a little after 10:30 PM, under heavy

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Brief appearance by the boys; Thomas the Train friends and the real train; yellow moose drives down Lucille; marsh moose gets spooked

I back up two nights ago, to when I dropped Margie off to babysit the grandsons through Thursday. We had tried to go to the 6:00 PM showing of The Avengers at Tikatnu Theatres, but it was sold out, so we went over to the new Olive Garden about two blocks away, but there was a huge waiting line and the lady told us we would have to wait 45 minutes to be seated. We said to hell with that and ate at PHO Saigon instead.

PHO Saigon is good, so I was not disappointed.

Then we went back to Jake and Lavina's at about 7:30 PM. Lavina and two boys greeted us as we got out of the car. 

We will see The Avengers another time.

Inside, I discovered that the love affair between Kalib, Thomas and His Friends and all things train still rages.

Pretty soon, I was on the highway, headed home. About 8:30 PM, I came upon a train. When I saw where it was, I was hopeful that I might catch the engines crossing the train trestle - a very rare and blessed sight to catch when driving randomly back and forth between Anchorage and Wasilla.

Oh, hallejuah! Praises be!

I caught the train on the trestle, crossing Knik River! But, damnit, I had my shutter speed set at 1/125, doing 70. I could have caught this rare and blessed moment in a bit crisper detail had I have bumped it up to 1/800 or something, but, oh well.

I don't really care. I'm not shooting for a tourist brochure. I'm shooting to the catch the moment, and this was it and it was glorious. To me, anyway.

Had Kalib been with me, he would have been thrilled, too.

He would have seen details in the train that I did not see.

Then I was in Wasilla, on the final stretch to the house. A yellow moose came driving in the opposite direction. I was so amazed I almost forgot to take the picture.

Come morning I took a walk. As I came home through the marsh, I spooked a moose. I apologized to the moose. I really didn't mean to spook it at all. I tried to be quiet. I tried to be stealthy. I think it heard the click of my camera. I think that is what spooked it.

I fall off schedule, so, here is springtime Wasilla: backyard moose, I stop to photograph a train before pulling into Dairy Queen and wind up in line behind "Tripp"; dog, boulders, fourwheeler

At a certain point this evening, I realized that I was not going to be able to make my goal of editing, preparing and posting my final Sujitha-Manoj wedding take tonight, so I decided to throw in a few Wasilla pictures - starting with this moose, who I found in our back yard. I will finish the wedding tomorrow.

As you can see, it is truly, finally, spring. The snow has mostly melted. Not completely - that's melting snow hanging from the moose's belly hairs, but it's mostly gone. Soon, it will be all gone.

A little before 9:30 PM last night, I felt like I just had to have a Dairy Queen ice cream cone, dipped in chocolate. Margie's sugar count had been high, so she declined to come. As I pulled into the turn lane off the Parks High to go to Dairy Queen, I saw this train coming down the tracks. There were no cars in the turn lane behind me, so I just stopped, waited for it to draw a bit closer, and then shot.

I was thrilled - overjoyed, you could say.

Damn! I just love trains!

And yet, I have never ridden the Alaska Railroad. I have now ridden the train in India, but not the train whose whistle I often hear from my bed at night, when air conditions are just right to conduct the sound from the tracks to our house - the train that traverses some of the most beautiful and grand country on earth.

Here is that train, right here, passing by me - and I have never ridden it.

After the engine passed, I looked in my mirror and saw a car pull into the turn lane a bit behind me, so I didn't stick around to photograph the freight and tanker cars that it pulled. I turned straight into the Dairy Queen drive-through lane, where I found myself behind a big, shiny, black, pickup truck with the word, "Tripp," emblazoned on the vanity license plate. The face of the driver was perfectly framed in the side rear view mirror. It was a pretty face, young and looked a bit familiar.

I thought about taking a few photos to show the truck, the license plate, the pretty face in the mirror and then the hands and face of the Dairy Queen girl as she reached out to serve her. There could be money in such a picture - and it is not as if the young lady who I figured was likely behind the wheel is not used to having people take her picture all the time, anyway, wherever she goes, her image being plastered on magazine covers and TV screens. Being a public figure, she is considered fair game and could not have legitmately protested - and probably wouldn't have, anyway.

Maybe she would have even been glad.

But damn! I'm not a papparazi!

And, with a few minor lapses, I have kept myself out of this absurd game - although one cannot live in Wasilla and keep himself completely out of it - or, indeed, the United States - and Barack Obama himself got drawn into the game a bit last night during the President's annual press dinner when he said pit bull's are delicious.

Yet, I figured maybe, at this moment, it was just possible the driver might just like to sit there in her truck and be served ice cream in peace. So I, who photograph damn near everything I see and mostly for free, laid my camera down upon the passenger seat and let what could possibly have been a money image - something I sure need right now - pass untaken.

Oh, well.

I saw this dog as I walked up Wards today. Look closely, and you can see the last remnants of Wasilla's dying snow.

Charlie came out today and brought 25 raven photos he had taken on a disk in CR-2 format. He has been invited to hang a selection of raven images in a raven First Friday photo show at the Midnight Sun Brewing Company in Anchorage. He figured he would hang about 15 and he wanted me to help him make the final edit and also to process the CR-2 RAW files.

I figured he was probably optimistic to think that 15 of the 25 would good enough to hang in the show. Maybe 8, I thought, ten if he had really done good.

Damn! We only removed two.

He did damned good.

Damned good!

I could not have put together a raven show like Charlie's!

A while back, he made it a goal to photograph a raven everyday.

The show goes up Friday and will hang for a month. Any reader who finds themselves in Anchorage during that time period and likes photography and/or ravens - go see it:

Midnight Sun Brewing Co. 8111 Dimond Hook Drive, Anchorage.

After we finished the photos, Charlie treated me to a coffee. Along the way, we passed by these boulders bordering this puddle coming and going. Somebody took a lot of trouble to do this.

Just beyond the boulders, we passed this guy on a fourwheeler, kicking up dust for people to eat.

In the dry periods, we eat a lot of dust in these parts. Outside, few people think of Alaska as dusty, but it is. Glacier dust - mixed with fine volcanic ash - the worst kind of dust you can imagine.

Train on the floor, Super Cub over head, bunny rabbits and moose at the window, dog in car, young writer turns 21, boys leaving

Kalib and Jobe have been staying with us for a few days, because their dad was suffering some minor pain that could be major if they jumped on him. Last night, Lavina and Lynxton joined them here, allegedly to give dad even a little more space, but I suspect Mom got pretty homesick to see her two older boys.

This morning, I came out of my office and found them all intently watching something. What could it be?

I was going to run around and take a picture from the other side so that you could see their eyes all focused on Thomas as he rolled 'round his track, but when I tried, Kalib came, too, and took the controls. Then Jobe started to come. Kalib was wary, because Jobe can go into Jobezilla mode at any time and wreck Thomas and his tracks.

It worked out okay, though. Jobezilla did not wreck Thomas. Jobe brought another Thomas onto the scene.

After that, I went for a walk. Soon, I heard pistons pumping and a prop beating the air, the volume and pitch rising. I knew it was an airplane, flying low, coming towards me. I looked and sure enough, it was this Super Cub. I wanted to be up there, not down here, but I was down here.

Two ravens held a discussion in the lower reaches of the sky.

Further on, a pickup stopped beside me. The driver wanted to introduce to his new dog, Juneau. This is Juneau. Sadly, his old dog got sick and died. I have a number of photos of that dog, too, whose name slips me - but it is recorded in my old blog, Wasilla, Alaska by 300 and Then Some.

As I neared my house, I saw Dan walking. Dan lives on the corner of Sarah's Way and Seldon, where the domestic bunny rabbits that proliferated in the neighborhood last summer tended to bunk down. By the end of summer, there were many rabbits. I asked Dan if any had survived the winter. Three had, he told me, and now there was one more, so there were four.

Not long after I returned home, two of the bunny rabbits made an appearance in our driveway.

Lynxton made his appearance inside.

I stopped by Metro Cafe at the usual time. Carmen informed that today was the 21st birthday of the young writer, Shoshana. Twenty-one is still young. She will be a young writer for some time to come yet.

As I drove home, I saw this boy running alongside a hill.

Not long after I returned home, two yearling moose calves took the place of the bunny rabbits in our driveway. One of them had a stare-down with Kalib. Neither frightened the other.

Lavina and the boys had planned to stay one more night and leave tomorrow, but Kalib got lonesome for his dad, so his mom decided to take them home tonight. Caleb said goodbye to Lynxton.

The boys got buckled in...

...and then Lavina drove off with them. I do not remember precisely what the time was, but I believe it was a bit after 8:00 PM. Before I left home, Alaska still had the shortest days of anyone in the country. Now Alaska has the longest - growing steadily longer the further north you go.

India and Arizona never get really long days - although this time of year Arizona gets a longer day than India does. Still, compared to Alaska, Arizona's spring and summer days are short. Even though I have been home for a week now, come night, I am still a bit overwhelmed by the lingering light.

It doesn't help solve this persistent jet lag problem, though. If anything, it just makes me feel sleepier. And I forgot to buy Melatonin today. So I guess I will go to bed pretty soon, then sleep for two or three hours again, then wake up, groggy again, not able to sleep or fully function.

Still, I functioned better today than I did yesterday. Today was the first day that I made what felt like some significant accomplishments. So maybe, despite how I feel right now, I am making progress.

Too lazy, I take Margie to Abby's; moose licks Caleb's truck and then flees; fire on the snowy mountain side; woman gets pulled over by cop; continents drift but gray whale rescue posts loom over me

I woke up lazy today and I didn't want to do any damn thing. Except eat breakfast. I thought about oatmeal, but I could hear that the TV was on in the living room and Caleb was watching golf. I hate to eat breakfast with the TV on, although sometimes I do, but Caleb deserves to watch golf on Saturday morning, too.

Margie was still asleep but at just the right moment, she opened her eyes and looked groggily about. Having just come home from a week in Anchorage, I figured she would want to stay put and eat oatmeal. She doesn't mind having the TV on during breakfast. In fact, if Caleb is not around, she will often turn the TV on herself.

Still, I asked her, "I don't suppose you would like to go get breakfast?"

She looked around. I could tell she was feeling pretty lazy herself. "Yes," she said. "I think I would."

So off we went to Abby's. Margie had an omelette, with hashbrowns and homemade wheat toast. I had multi-grain sourdough pancakes with two eggs over easy and ham. Margie had not been to Abby's in awhile, and she was thrilled. Abby's just keeps getting better and better. I do not say this to put down either of the Family restaurants, or any others, but there is no place else in Wasilla that you can come even close to getting a breakfast so good as what we had at Abby's today.

Superb! Margie remained in a state of bliss for hours afterward.

Here is Abby and husband Andy visiting another customer who is about to depart. Behind the counter is Meda Warrior, who doesn't work there all the time but was helping out today. Meda is Aurora's sister, whose December wedding I photographed - even though I am not a wedding photographer.

I didn't charge anything to shoot the wedding, because if I did that would make me a wedding photographer, but afterward Aurora and Meda's mother Arlene created an account for me at Abby's and so buys me breakfast there once a week and a couple of times even twice. Abby was ready to put our breakfast on the account, but I had already used it one day this week and it didn't seem right, especially since two of us ate. So I paid for it.

I am getting a little worried, though. I have been expecting a check for about three weeks now. On Monday, I was told it would be mailed Tuesday. It still hasn't come. If it doesn't come this coming week, we are going to be in a hard fix. Margie leaves town Tuesday night and I leave Saturday night. We need that check before we go.

Such is the life of a freelance photographer and his poor wife - or at least this one and mine. There are those photographers who are much smarter, economically speaking than I am, who do not always get in the kind of jams I do.

Margie did not have jam on her toast. She was enjoying her buttered, homemade, wheat bread so much that it didn't even occur to her that she had not put jam on it until she only had two bites left to eat. 

"You should have had jam," I told her. "It's usually homemade and its real good."

After breakfast, I remained lazy. I did not feel like doing anything at all, but I decided I would go pedal my bike for five to ten miles anyway - but the front tire was flat. So I went on walk. Coming back, as I neared the house, I was startled out of a daydream when suddenly I heard something crashing about in the bushes right beside me. I had walked right to within a few feet of a moose. It, and the one it was with, charged off a short distance into the trees. I took a few pictures through the branches, then noticed I was standing right in front of my driveway, so I put my camera on the porch and went into the house to get a plastic bag to put it in so that lens would not fog up.

When I came back to get it, the moose had crossed the street and were in our driveway. The cow took off around the side of the house. The maturing calf licked salt off the back of Caleb's truck.

Once it had satisifactorily salted itself, the young moose took off to run across the yard and see if it could find its mother. 

I went back into the house. I had a great deal of work to do, but I still felt very lazy. I did not want to do it. So I just got on my computer and web-surfed for awhile. Then I went out into the living room and laid down on the couch, by the fire in the woodstove. I semi-napped for a little and might have fully napped, but Chicago had also decided to nap, on my chest. She kept trying to lick my beard. I didn't like that, so each time she would try, I scoot her an inch or two down my chest.

Then she would purr,creep back up and try to lick my beard again.

So it really wasn't much of nap. 

I then decided that I was not going to work at all. I was just going to take the whole damn day off and be lazy. It wouldn't matter in the long run. I heard a story on the radio yesterday about how, in a few hundred million years, all the continents north of Antartica, including Australia, will again be fused into one super continent. When it happens, it will be today, as surely as it is today right now and the fact that I got lazy today won't matter one bit.

Margie was out shopping and didn't come back with the car until close to 5:00. I then took a late coffee break. Metro was closed, so I went the Mocha Moose hut. Here I am, leaving the hut, getting ready to pull back into the traffic of the Parks Highway. There was no car behind me, so I took my time.

Now I am coming down Seldon, nearing home. It is drawing close to 6:00 PM. Look how much light there is! The dark season is coming to its end. Up ahead, I noticed that a cop had pulled someone over and was sauntering toward their car.

I pass the cop and the woman he has pulled over.

Finally, in the evening, I couldn't take it anymore. I was still tired and lazy and felt like doing nothing, but this gray whale series is looming over me. So I came out here. I made a huge amount of progress in a short time. You can't see it yet, but I did.

I don't think you will see it tomorrow, either. Tomorrow is Jobe's second birthday. You should see it on Monday.

It is almost midnight and Margie is baking cakes right now. Tomorrow, we will go to Anchorage and see how wet Jobe and Kalib and their guest, including cousin Gracie, who just arrived from Arizona today, get on Jobe's birthday.