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.

I can't believe I'm seeing green; blue and orange train wreck at the window; poet tells me of the generation that grew up not reading comic books

I really can't believe it...

...yet there you have it...

Green!

I zipped into town tonight, grabbed Margie and zipped right back home. Just before we left Anchorage, Jobe caused a train wreck in the window.

Today, I had my at least-once weekly breakfast at Abby's, the breakfast Arlene picks up for me in exchange for shooting the December wedding of her daughter, Aurora. 

You will notice that Allie, the poet and advanced student who, at the age of 16, graduated from high school with high honors, is no longer a blonde, but a red head - a bright red head. If there is a ever a slow moment when I am at Abby's and Allie is there, she will tell me a story or two or three or four about being a teenager in today's world.

Today, she told me about going to Blockbuster all winter long to check out and watch movies, but now that the darkness is gone and we are definitely into the season of light, she doesn't check out so many movies anymore, because who wants to sit or lie around in the living room watching movies when it's light outside?

So I asked if she had seen The Avengers, because to watch a movie in the darkness of a theatre rather than a sun-lit living room is quite a different thing. Yes, she said, in 3D and she had loved it. Fun movie. She asked if I had seen it. I told her how Margie and I tried on Sunday, but got shut out because it was sold out. I told her we will try again. She said we would enjoy it.

I told her I was sure we would, but I also said I doubted that any comic book movie could ever surpass or even equal the experiences I had reading comic books as a kid growing up. It was absolute Magic. "My generation didn't read comic books," she told me. Instead, she explained, they grew up watching movies and reading Harry Potter - but not comic books.

Allie very recently turned 17. She was very pleased. She got to go to an "R" rated movie. She told me which one, but I can't remember. It wasn't that bad, she said, but still... a bit surprising...

Note: As I put together my Return to India series, I continued to make my regular stops at Metro Cafe and Abby's and I shot quite a few pictures. Sometime within the next week, I will catch up with a major post, maybe even two, on both Metro and Abby's.

Just before I jump back into and complete the Master Chef piece, here is a local, near-present, update: Grandkid and mom; Pioneer Peak; bunny rabbit; Allie pours coffee

I promised that even as I blog my Arizona/India trip, I would keep posting little local blurbs, just to keep this blog in the near present. On Monday morning, I drove Margie into Anchorage so that she could spend the week babysitting Lynxton. Jobe and Kalib are both enrolled in Day Care now.

When we arrived, this was the scene at the top of the stairs.

The view as I sipped Metro Cafe coffee from my car, Monday afternoon.

This was a tough winter and it killed hundreds of moose. I don't know how any of the dozens of bunny rabbits that proliferated last summer got through it, but, as already noted, from what I can learn, at least three did and now there are four - yesterday.

This morning, Allie, the poet who waitresses at Abby's, served me sourdough pancakes, eggs over easy, bacon and coffee. She said I looked sleepy. I said I was sleepy - always sleepy in the morning, I said sleep doesn't come easy for me. She said she loves to sleep, but thought maybe that was just because she is a teenager and teenagers love to sleep but maybe when you get older, you don't love to sleep so much.

No, I said, you always love to sleep, it's just that sleep doesn't always come easy.

She said she thought if I got a certain kind of pillow, then I would sleep good every night.

No, I said, I am just a person that sleep comes hard for - it's genetic, I told her. I sure do enjoy it when it comes, though.

She said she just got a new bed, a queen bed, and now she sleeps better than ever because she can spread out any old way she pleases. She can sleep on one part of the bed for awhile, then shift to another part. That way, she said, the bed will never sag in the middle.

Abby cooked the sourdough pancakes, eggs and bacon. Very good of course.

Within ten seconds after this posts, I will pull up my Master Chef Nephi Craig draft post and interview notes and get back to work on the story. Right now, I have about 45 pictures processed and placed in the draft post, but even though I think they all work, that is way too many so I must remove at least half of them. I have yet to write the first word. It will take me awhile yet to figure this all out, but, barring calamity, it will be up today.

Allie at Abby's writes a poem and takes my order

Saturday morning, I took Margie to breakfast at Abby's and was surprised to be waited on by a new waitress, just recently hired - Allie.

Allie of Abby's.

Allie is a poet and she is not only strikingly beautiful but quite bright. She is only 16, but has graduated from high school and is enrolling at the Mat-Su branch of the University of Alaska.

She is a writer and poet and plans to continue her studies until she herself is a college professor, teaching students who, for a couple of years, might not be much younger than she will be.

Although I brought my camera with me, I had forgotten to put a memory card in it and so I had to fall back on my iPhone 4s. I was a little worried, because there was a broad spread in dynamic range between the highlights and shadows and I knew that the iPhone could not handle that spread.

Even so, it did pretty good for a phone.

I took more pictures today and I really intended to include them in this post, but I shot them in my regular camera and it is just too late and I am just too tired and jetlagged to download, edit and process them. 

So I will save them for later.

And don't forget - there is still plenty left to come from the five-week trip I just completed, both from India and White Mountain Apache, Arizona. It will be at least a couple of days yet before I start again - maybe even a week.

Allie has a poem hanging on the wall at Abby's, decorated by her own art work. I took a picture of it and was going to run it, but then I suddenly realized I would be publishing her poem without her permission, so I held off.

Breakfast, by the way, was truly excellent - way better than the greasy spoon breakfast I had in Phoenix.