Airplanes fly as dogs run and I miss it all; visitors from France; Gordon; Kalib is snatched away from his grandparents

Maybe the pilot of this plane is on his way to follow dogs - Iditarod dogs - all the way to Nome. As anybody who pays any attention to the news knows, the ceremonial start of the Iditarod was held yesterday in Anchorage, the restart - the real beginning of the race - today in Willow, about 35 miles up the Parks Highway.

I did not go to the ceremonial start yesterday because I wanted to stay here and edit Kivgiq pictures. I thought I would probably take Kalib and drive up to Willow and see the dogs go today, like I usually do. But I didn't. I stayed here to edit Kivgiq pictures and to remember the two times when I flew the Iditarod Trail with my own dog, The Running Dog, the wreckage of which still sits at the side of the house as I fly nowhere, except in other people's planes.

When I was in Barrow, covering Kivgiq, and the musicians from Aklavik in the northern Yukon Terriotory played the fiddle and guitar and caused people to jump up and dance the jigue and the two-step, a very clear image of a new airplane came into my head, with me sitting in the cockpit, gripping the stick, flying all about the north not only as I once did, but more so.

Zoé Lamazou and Victor Gurrey stopped by today, on their way to the Alaskan Arctic from France. Last year, they thought they were going to be part of a scientific expedition to Russia's Wrangell Island, but things went awry and they wound up stranded there for 12 days with a couple of Russian military men. They showed us a story she wrote and he illustrated with sketches and art work. The sketches were wonderful. Zoé wrote in French and I couldn't read it, but I am pretty sure it was wonderful, too.

Their story is big and spans the globe, but for now I will note only that Jim liked them, and they liked Jim.

Those familiar with Thomas and his friends will recognize Gordon - the biggest and strongest of all the train engines on the island of Sodor. Given the fact Kalib came home for weekend with us, readers who fail to take note of the chubbiness in the hand might think it is he who carries Gordon.

No - it was Jobe. Jobe, Lynxton and their dad came out and got Kalib today. Early tomorrow morning, I must drive Margie to town to babysit. True, she could have gone in with them and then I could have just stayed home, but we needed one night where it was just the two of us.