Alaska Road Trip

the wandering chick

An Alaska Road Trip

Alaska's Kenai Peninsula - Homer

We finally reached what was to be our final destination: Homer, on the Kenai Peninsula. Little did we know that 75% of our 10 days here would be rainy. But we still treasured what we saw and took advantage of the days that were sunny.

There's a lot on this peninsula to explore: a few First Nation towns that were extremely interesting, Anchor Point being our favorite.

We also took a couple of excursions from here: Halibut Cove and Seldovia. We made good use of our time, hit every shop in town, almost every restaurant and enjoyed our evenings in a wonderful airbnb that had all the comforts of home.

Homer's small-boat harbor on a dreary day, above, and on a sunny day, to the right. What a huge difference the sun makes!

The Salty Dawg Saloon is a well-known landmark on the spit, enjoyed by tourists and locals alike. It was many things before it became a saloon: it was the first cabin to be built, in 1897 soon after Homer became a town. It served as a post office, a railroad station and a grocery store, among other things. It was purchased in 1940 by an entrepreneur who used it as a business office until 1957 when he opened it as the Salty Dawg.

An overlook on one of Homer's highest streets offers an excellent view of the Kachemac Bay and the Kenai Range across the bay.

I can't say this sea otter looks happy, but he does look comfortable floating in the waters of the small-boat harbor.

The Old Inlet Bookshop is family-owned and specializes in rare, used and out-of-print books.

The Two Sisters Bakery, a comfy place for coffee and pastries.

The shops and eateries lining the sides of the spit

Nothing is more popular in Homer than The Spit. It's a tract of land that travels 4.5 miles into the Kachemac Bay and is lined on both sides with shops, eateries and businesses offering adventure/travel/fishing excursions. There is a beach at each end of the spit, both filled with wonderful pieces of driftwood, most too large to cart home.

Homer has an old town section that has a few shops, but it has seen its better days. Seems the focus these days is on the spit.

We heard that someone actually lives in this old ship, but upon asking a few shop keepers, they all say the same thing, "Yeah, that what I hear, but no one knows for sure."

Lupine lines the bike path on the spit.

It was fun roaming around in this old ship graveyard that's located at the beginning of the spit.

The clouds and Kenai Range compete for beauty.

Bishop's Beach is Homer's most popular beach, 1.25 miles along the Kachemak Bay coastline.

A starfish and jellyfish (photo on right) found at low tide on Bishop's Beach

We took a drive out the east end of Homer, away from the town, just to see what was there. Nothingto write home about, but we still managed to find beauty in the area. I guess the highlight was the moose that halted traffic. More pictures of the area are way below.

We had lunch a couple of times at the Boat Yard Cafe, a place few tourists know of. Very small eating area, good sandwiches and seafood plates; we were probably the only non-locals in there both times.

The only half-hour of our 10 days in Homer that was totally miserable was when we started out on the Calvin & Coyles Trail in town. It's touted as a beautiful walk, and normally it would be. But the day we went, it was wet and muddy and mesquito-infested. We gave up after a quarter mile or so, saying, "This is not fun; why are we doing this?" We couldn't get back to the car soon enough.

This sign marks the end of the spit. Beyond it is a beach filled with pretty rocks and driftwood.

Does anyone else see Ernie standing over this huge piece of driftwood?

Continue the Alaska road trip to: Exploring the Kenai Peninsula

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I'm pretty sure I see a camel hidden in this piece of driftwood.

Somebody had a good day! Probably not the fish, though.

The airbnb we stayed in was out of town a short distance and had a field between it and the neighbor's house. Each morning for the first several days, we'd look out and see this family of sandhill cranes. It was a nice way to start the day, but after a week or so, they had evidently moved on to another location. We missed watching them with our morning coffee.

Here's the traffic-stopping moose.

Way,way back on a back road at the east end of Homer we studied this structure, trying to imagine its history. Oh, if time could tell....

She eventually made her way across the street, nonchalantly, and disappeared into the trees.

In all of the Yukon, British Columbia and Alaska, this was the only moose rack we saw. Having researched why we didn't see more bull moose, I read that the male moose lose their racks each year, then grow them again in the spring. With that said, we were visiting in the middle of summer, so by then, the racks should be growing. Or, maybe the bulls hide until the fall rutting season. Oh, well, I guess I have better things to ponder.