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20030723 Open new window with today’s pictures.
July 23, 2003
Wednesday
Start: USAF Seward Rec Ctr, Seward AK
End: Oceanview RV Park, Homer AK
Miles: 167
Hi Temp: missed it
Lo Temp: missed it
We took off out of Seward and came to an immediate stop at a construction zone. The wait wasn't long (they're widening the bridges in preparation for widening the road), then up the valley and over Moose Pass. Then down the long Snow River valley to the turn-off for Homer.
Immediately after the turn-off, we stopped at a turn-out for the Tern Lake viewpoint (one good tern deserves another).
It's a big marshy lake and a favorite location to see moose, but none today.
Then we continued west, over a shallow pass and down the Kenai River. This part of the Kenai peninsula is Anchorage's playground. There are hundreds of cottages, many motels and inns and B&Bs and RV parks. The big deal is salmon fishing, and the big time for doing that is now. It was slow going through much of this resort area, what with caravans of RV's and people turning into resorts and so forth.
When we could see the Kenai River, we would see people on it (rafting) or in it (waders and poles). Nobody was scared off by the bear incident, it appears. We passed through Sterling, the supply point for this area and kept going. The next town down the road is Soldatna.
Soldatna was hard to get through. The main drag goes to four lanes, but local traffic combines with through traffic and lots of turnoffs to really get slow. For a place with fewer than 2,000 people, it's long (or perhaps it just seemed that way).
After that, the road to Homer was less hectic as we ran along the bluffs overlooking Cook Inlet. This Cook is the same explorer who eventually got himself done in by the Hawaiians on the Big Island. He cruised this inlet and named geographic features, as was the custom. In Prince William Sound, for instance, he named an island Bligh Island, after the English captain of the Bounty. That's where the Exxon Valdez went aground.
There are a goodly number of cottages on these bluffs; on a really clear day they can see across the inlet to the lower end of the Alaska Range on the far side.
There's a welcoming viewpoint as you enter Homer that is full of flowers and gives a good overlook to the southeast of the Kenai Mountains across Kachemak Bay (a bay off Cook Inlet) and the Homer Spit that juts into it. We took flower pictures, then went down the hill into town.
We missed our campground and had to turn around to come back to it. We checked in and found we have a fairly good view of the mountains across the way and have a steep path down to the beach (the campground is on a little bluff, maybe 40 feet above the water at the edge). The campground is terraced up to the road, so most everyone has a decent view.
We went next door for lunch. As it turned out, they served it ready-to-travel, so we brought it back home. I had a huge chef's salad that filled me totally.
We picked up brochures in the campground office and headed out, first down to the spit to see it. It shelters an anchorage and the port's deepwater dock and the USCG pier. There are loads of people camped along it, both in campgrounds with facilities and on the beach. Fishing is the name of the game here, and the small boat harbor is on the spit, opening to the back (north) side of it (the sheltered side). Many fishing charter boats operate out of here, some for salmon, most for halibut. The place prides itself as the Halibut Fishing Capital of the World, although you can find bumper stickers that say, "Homer - a great drinking village with a fishing problem!". The Salty Dawg Saloon is part legend, part watering hole out here on the spit.
There are commercial fishing boats operating out of here as well, and commercial fish-handing places that will process the fish and ship them, in any size shipments. There are also some restaurants and gift shops, and one pressed-wood manufactory that takes small trees, chips them, and presses them into plywood-like slabs.
Then we went out East End drive, along the water first but then up into the trees along the part of Kachemak Bay that is behind the spit. We went just about to the end of this drive (gravel, bumpy). Dolores shot pictures of flowers and of the glaciers in the mountains across the bay. The day was gorgeous, near 70, but a little windy. It felt like an alpine environment with the cool, sunny, day and glaciers and blue water. Just beautiful.
We eventually made our way back and to the little house. We stayed in the rest of the evening and took it easy. I felt really tired for no good reason and just rested.
20030724 Open new window with today’s pictures.
July 24, 2003
Thursday
Start: Oceanview RV Park, Homer AK
End: Oceanview RV Park, Homer AK
Miles: 0
Hi Temp: 72.5 (yesterday)
Lo Temp: 50.0 (for two days)
Awakened in the night by wind buffeting the trailer and rain. It was calmer and raining lightly when we got up and ate.
We took the truck down to the visitor's center for suggestions on things to do and got a bunch of them. First, we stopped at a couple of buildings on the historic list, but for modern reasons. At the Mercantile, we bought a card and looked at all the neat stuff. We looked in at Nomar (Northern Marine wear) next door and bought a couple of cute things. Very high-quality items, even the cell-phone holder.
Then we headed out to do Skyline Drive, a drive that runs along the top of the bluff overlooking the spit. We went up East Hill Drive to it, then east on it.
Skyline Drive is gravel; the sand component of it today was mud. So we splashed mud all over other trucks as they did to us. The truck is a mess. We located flowers on our way to the end of the road, then came back taking pictures of them.
Then we stopped at the Wynn Nature Center and walked into the woods to the cabin. There, we found Jill and six other tourists warming by a wood stove. Jill was about to lead a walk through the woods, so we joined. She gave some background, then asked what we were interested in. It turned out that everyone wanted the wildflowers given emphasis.
So we took about a one-hour hike slowly through the woods as Jill pointed out various plants and give details on what they might be good for (medication, etc.) and warnings if they're poisonous (monk's hood) or dangerous (devil's club).
It was a very good hike and we enjoyed it thoroughly. Dolores bought a wildflower book and I took a tee-shirt to remember it by.
We came back to the little house for lunch (chicken, potato, salad, wine). Then we loafed a bit before we went down to the spit and arranged a salmon shipment to our kids.
After that, we came back to downtown Homer and the Pratt Museum, a small one but interesting, emphasizing things local to Homer. One of the more interesting things was a camera on Gull Island remote controlled from the museum so the naturalist could observe nesting birds. There was a botanical garden out front, with mini-environments of alpine and other levels and their plants. Dolores shot more pictures.
There's an old cabin next door, the Harrington cabin, that's been in Homer for years and is now part of the museum. Unfortunately, it was closed.
We came back to the little house and took it easy (I'm feeling a little off today). Later we ate little things and did the e-mails and photos.
20030725 Open new window with today’s pictures.
July 25, 2003
Friday
Start: Oceanview RV Park, Homer AK
End: Oceanview RV Park, Homer AK
Miles: 0
Hi Temp: 60.3
Lo Temp: 54.1
This was a cool, cloudy day with occasional misty rain.
We got up late and ate in. We hopped into the truck. We stopped at the post office to mail a card to friend Tony Maloney to help cheer him along. We ran down to the Homer spit to correct some paperwork on the fish. Then we walked on the Ferry Terminal dock and took pictures for a bit. We went to the wildlife viewpoint that overlooks a marsh between the airport and town; no moose, no squirrel, no nothing.
We went back up to town and sniffed around for things we imagine we need. We went to the library and bought books from their surplus rack (50 cents each). We bought used paperbacks at another book store. We went to a shop called Wildberries and came out with some chocolate treats and other goodies.
Then we went back to the little house to take it easy for a while.
In the late afternoon, we went back to the spit for dinner at Captain Pattie's. We got a great table with a good view of the water and mountains. Dolores had grilled halibut and salmon, I had baked halibut, with a Riesling. It was quite good, but Dolores's was better than mine.
As we were paying, we noticed a mommy with child (kid in adult tee-shirt with hood) walking toward the water. Soon, mommy took a small white kitten out of the hood. Then the kid took off the tee-shirt, leaving a nightshirt. Then the kid took that off, too, and ran around on the beach for a while. She was running into the wet sand left by the waves and receding tide, and that kitten was chasing her a good bit of the time. Mommy pretty much just stood there and watched, although she may have been talking to the child - we were quite a ways away.
Then we stopped at Safeway on the way home to get Benadryl for D's mosquito bites. Then home, and settle. We're off to Anchorage in the morning.
