June 26, 2014 - Touring Homer, AK

Yesterday, after getting to our cabin, we pretty much just had cocktails, dinner and bedtime.  So, here are a few pictures of our cabin.  It is so beautiful here (except for the mosquitos!).  We’re very pleased with the place.

It rained all night and was still raining when we woke up.  Neither of us wanted to ride the 75 miles to Homer in the rain.  What to do?  Spend the day in the cabin reading books or watching TV?  Nope.  We called a cab, went to the airport, rented a car and pointed it to Homer.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We took our time taking showers, having some brekkie and checking email, hoping the rain would stop.  No such luck.  As I looked out the window, what did I spy?  A moose, a baby moose and his mama right outside our window!!!!  I said “MOOSE” and then I said, grab a camera.  We managed to get a few shots through the window.  Too bad Mama Moose didn’t give us a profile but only her rear end.  Wow, she was so majestic and baby was simply adorable.  Oh my heck!!!

What a great way to start the day especially since the rain was really putting a damper (pun intended) on our plans for the day.  So, we got the rental car and started down the highway to Homer.  Not long into our drive another moose jumped up on the highway, trotted across and stopped on the other side to take a nibble of some delicacy.  No pictures of her but it kept me alert.  There were lots of signs about braking for moose and X number of moose killed on this highway this year so far.  Lots of moose here.  We learned that there aren’t any deer in this area because the winters are too harsh.  So, not to worry about deer strikes but heck ya, watch out for the moose!!

The rest of the drive was non-eventful except it rained almost the entire way.  Heavy rain for the most part and I was glad we were in a cage and not on the bikes.  As we pulled into Homer, the rain stopped.  Lucky us.

We stopped for the obligatory Welcome to Homer sign and then drove into town.  We stopped at a family restaurant for a real brekkie and then drove down to the Spit.  We were told the Homer Spit at about 5 miles long is the second longest natural spit in the world.  We drove all the way to the end and then came back to stop at the places that interested us.

There is a boardwalk with shops, restaurants, tourist traps and fishing charter places and bear touring spots.  It was fun to peruse the shops and see the folks who had been fishing admire their catch.  We took lots of silly pictures and had a great time.  Fortunately, the rain held off while we were strolling along.

We spent several hours in Homer doing nothing in particular.  I think we spent a total of $10 (not counting our brekkie) on stickers, magnets and silly stuff.  We’re not big knick knack or t-shirt buyers.  We usually gets some stickers for our bikes and magnets for our garage freezer to commemorate our travels.  Well, we do buy fudge sometimes but that doesn’t usually last too long.

On our way out of Homer we stopped at the Alaska Islands and Oceans Visitor Center.  What a pleasant surprise!  They had a great exhibit of marine life, preservation efforts and how human encroachment in its various forms has changed the environment.  It was very well done and we thoroughly enjoyed it.  And, bonus, we got FOUR stamps!!!  We also found another Veteran's Memorial here.  That was very special!

We continued our journey back to Soldotna and the rain started again shortly after leaving Homer.  No critters on the way back, just lots of rain.  We got back to town, made a quick stop at the Fred Meyer to pick up something for dinner and took the car back to the airport.  We grabbed a cab and arrived safely at our cabin.

Even though we didn’t ride the bikes today, it was a great day!  I was happy to be in the cage considering the weather and it all worked out just fine.  I’m glad we were able to visit Homer since it’s unlikely we’ll be back in Alaska anytime soon.

Tomorrow we backtrack on several road we took to get here and hopefully it will not rain on us!  We have about 400 plus miles tomorrow and plan on getting an early start.

Cheers,

Cletha