There's no place like ....... Homer!

Woke up to another sunny day.  We have had such great weather since we came to Alaska.  Someone told me that spring came about a month earlier in Alaska this year.  She had a big smile on her face.  We left Wasilla and are heading to Homer, 

262 miles away.

We went through Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city.  Even though it’s not the capital, Anchorage has almost half of the state’s residents living in or around the city. We reminisced as we passed through about the emergency root canal Bill had to have there the first time we came to Alaska.   

Little did we know that shortly after going through Anchorage, there would be about 200 miles of road construction!  Most of its construction areas had the sign…”BE PREPARED TO STOP!”    One of the stops turned out to be interesting.  Here’s a picture showing construction workers doing their job as a big moose is up on the roadside bank… chomping on some fresh grass.  No one seemed to even notice the moose or maybe they are so used to working around them.  The moose didn’t seemed disturbed by the constructions workers either, including the line of vehicles waiting to get on their way.  Along the way we did see more moose close to the highway.  There are yellow signs on different highways that show how many moose have been killed since last July.  By Wasilla, their sign showed 263 moose killed.  This sign near Sterling showed 193.  That’s a lot of moose hit by vehicles!

Even though the ride today turned out to be longer than planned, interesting things were seen along the way besides moose and scenery. 

The Kenai Peninsula is separated from the mainland by Cook Inlet on one side and Prince William Sound on the other side.  When we were in Valdez, we were on the Prince William Sound side and today going to Homer, we will be on the Cook Inlet side.  Here are a few pictures of the Cook side.  The tide was out so the muddy or sandy bottom was exposed. 

 Homer is nicknamed “the end of the road” – for a good reason.  It is call a “spit” because it’s a long, 4.5 mile piece of land on the southern tip of Kenai Peninsula that juts into the Kachemak Bay. This is the farthest we will be from our home in Wisconsin, about 4,000 miles.  It doesn’t look that far until you look at the size of Alaska on top of a map 

of the lower 48 states.

As you drive down the spit to Homer, you see the boneyard of old ships.  If you go further into town you will see fishing boats; tour boats, sailboats, yachts, and gigantic tankers in deeper waters.

The tiny town of Homer has lots of tourist things to do…marine wildlife watching, a good collection of galleries and craft shop of local artists, the Pratt Museum for a showcase of local artifacts and art, and many restaurants of all kinds, with their specialty of local fish.  We ate at one of the restaurants.  I had a fish sampler of different kinds of fish, some I never heard of.  I thought I didn’t like salmon until I had the salmon here in Alaska, it was delicious!  Bill had a steak.  Great dinner!

While writing this, Bill said to look out the window towards the water where the ships are.  Now there is another thing to do in Homer.  Not for us!  We’re in the motor home keeping warm on this cool, extremely windy evening. Burrrrr!