Last day in Homer, on the way to Kachemak Bay Wilderness Lodge

Our last day in Homer was an easy one. We took a little hike around town, ate at the Sourdough Express (great sandwiches, and it is for sale! Seems like a business opportunity. They make their own sauerkraut! Bake their own bread! It is in Homer!) and then headed over to the marina for a quick 30 minute boat ride over to the lodge.

Very nice place:

 We have our own little cabin, with quite a view. I am convinced there is not a bad view in the whole state.

And we when for a short (about 3 mile) hike just to break ourselves in.

We are close to Gull Island, and you see Kittiwake eggs that have been eaten by ravens.

And many Bald Eagle feathers. We let them lie, however, as they are illegal to possess, even if you find them in the woods.

Looking around is a good thing to do.

Because sometimes you will see an eagle on a rock, being watched by two sea otters.

Or an eagle in a tree:

And with just a little glance in the water, you see starfish.

Plenty of them.

 A nice place to stay.

A Hike to Diamond Gulch. A Hat plays a Key Part in this story. Burying the lede.

We had a very easy going Sunday morning since the Roes had to drive back to Anchorage that day.

Before they left, we had a nice lunch at the Harbor Cafe. The food here is surprisingly good for a town of only 5,000 souls. I suppose that part of that is the easy access to fresh seafood. Part because there are plenty of tourists, and part because of all the hippies and hipsters.

We don't complain.

We had a hard time coordinating the head shots, but there you go. I'm in the upper left, J Noel in the lower left, Josienne in the middle, and Julius on the upper right. Can you see us?

Later in the day, we decided to take a walk down to the beach via the Diamond Creek Trail. This is an interesting trail, as it had many warnings about checking the tide before you go. You can get trapped by the tide as it rises rapidly, and cuts off access to the trail to let you get out.

There should have been a warning about hats as well.

As we were leaving, I asked Doreen, "What hat will you be wearing?"

She replied, "My Pink One" (A new hat from Rust Flying Services we bought in Anchorage. A nice looking hat, by the way)

And off we went.

This was sort of an ominous sign:

But do we care? NO!

and right about this time I ask Doreen where he hat is.

She says, it is in your backpack, can I have it?

I say it is NOT in my backpack. She insists that it is. As I was the one who packed the backpack, I knew it was not in the pack. Doreen, being the skeptical sort, asked to look through the backpack.

It was not there.

Remember my comment above? Good. Not everyone does.

Luckily, the day was not too sunny, or as Brother-in-Law Frank pointed out to me, someone could have had heatstroke in a matter of moments. If we were in Africa.

You may also recall that Doreen's nickname is The Spider Catcher. This is particularly useful as we walk through the woods, and there are many spiderwebs crossing the trail.

Doreen is nice enough to walk with her arm raised to get the webs that would hit me in the face.

Diamond Gulch is really steeper than it appears in these photos

But we made it through anyway. Even though Doreen did not have a hat.

And there were not many moments that Doreen did not let me forget that she did not have a hat:

even though she is the one who preaches from the pulpit of responsibility.

But it was a spectacular beach.

that was fortunately marked with a TeePee of wood at the trail head:

We had a fantastic walk down this beach. The pebbles on the beach were very friable. You could pick them up and shatter them in your hands:

The weather was great, the view was spectacular, as always. It is hard to have a bad view in Alaska:

You can see the coal seams in the hills (the black lines below). The coal mines here did not last very long - only about a couple of years. They would ship the coal to San Francisco. It was not economic.

Here is a detail of the coal:

and one of the seams:

Very brittle:

What a beach!

But someone still didn't have a hat:

Contemplating the vicissitudes of the coal trade:

Lots of this big kelp around here:

And The Dew Catcher leads us home:

To see her hat (the pink one) was right were it was supposed to be. On the hat rack.

A Walk on the Beach, Eagles, and a Ukulele Band

I think that these stories are starting to get a bit redundant, but I will write them anyway. I am a little behind, but that won't matter much.

We decided to walk down to the Saturday Farmer's Market with the Roes last Saturday. We started at the Nature Center, and the walk was a couple of miles. I have to say, Josienne and Jared do not ever hesitate to tackle any hike, even with Julius and J Noel. The kids are good, though they do want to be carried sometimes. I think that is why J&J are in such good shape - toting  the nippers!

There really are a lot of Bald Eagles here. If you spend more than a nominal amount of time outside you will see plenty.

Here are a couple of we saw on  the beach:

There was one that flew right over our heads, mere feet above us, but neither my nor Josienne's cameras were out.

We think it was trying to snatch J Noel.

Luckily, D Noel had a good hold on her:

We walked about a mile down the beach:

But the tide was out. T he tides here are huge - over 20', sometimes more. So we were really walking on the beach, as you can see here:

The Roes were spending time in the water. Those kids are really water babies, and seemed to want to take their shoes and socks off at the drop of a hat and jump in. They are fearless.

Homer was originally a coal port. There is still a lot of coal on the beaches. Folks collect this coal and sell it for heating and making pizzas:

We had to climb up through private property to get to the road, which made me a little nervous:

but the bearded, old, chubby Alaskan merely asked (Loudly, and with a loaded gun* on his hip) "May I help you???" Luckily, we had the kids in front (who shoots kids? Especially sweet ones like the Roes?) and said , "Um, We're lost, and looking for the Farmer's Market..." He told us how to get there as his son was taking target practice with his bow and arrow.

Once we got up, we noticed a sign:

Tough.

Another eagle was pointing our way to the market:

where we found a Ukulele Orchestra! What could be better?

On the way back, we noticed an old horse drawn grader, that I am sure was used to remove snow.

Then, finally, when we got back to the cabin, we felt a small earthquake.

A Good Day!

*he didn't have a gun

An Expedition to the Pier One Theatre in Homer to see Johnny B 88!

When we arrived in Homer the owner of our cabin gave us a few suggestions of things to do. Hikes he liked, some museums and nature centers, restaurants, and "Oh, Yeah! There was this guy doing a one man piano show about Alaska down at the community theater - Pier One Theatre. It is a lot of fun! Pictures, music, you'll enjoy it"

We are really like local entertainment (see here) so we decided to check it out.

The show started at 7:30, so we headed down about 6:45. Tickets were still available, and we gladly paid the $20.00 per to get in. ($5 went to the local hospice non-profit. Always a good charity).

We waited and waited, not really know what to expect, and finally Johnny B hopped on stage and started ripping it up with some very fun Boogie Woogie.




He did a great job at the piano, and had some wonderful images shot by a friend of his that was well worth watching.

Then he told his story. Johnny graduated from the Berklee School of music sometime around 1981 and decided that to get back home to California, he would put a piano in the back of a white step-side van and play his way across America. He liked it so much that he too three years, and visited all 49 continental states!

Since then, he has been making music and living the dream here in Homer, Alaska. Who wouldn't want to be in Homer if they had the chance?

He had some fun audience interaction during the show, one of which was encouraging us all to take our photos and send them to him. He put them to music and up loaded the video to Facebook. (I think if you click here you will get to his page. Look for the video from July 22, 2015. You will see our smiling faces!)

One of his stories was how he weed-whacked the US-Canada border for a month, and consequently lost 30 pounds. A very funny story.

I love stories about people who do what they love. That is what makes this country great!

An Expedition with Cap'n Charlie to Gull Island and Halibut Cove

Sometimes when we travel we have extensive plans, and plenty of reservations for places we want to visit.

Other trips are more ad hoc, where we find local customs and events are exploit them as we can.

Homer is more of an ad hoc trip.

Even  though there are many tourists and summer residents here in Homer, we were lucky to find a boat operator who would take us out on a couple hours notice to Gull Island, a popular sea bird rookery where currently Common Murres are hatching. 

We walked into the first charter outfit we saw, "Custom Charter" and were able to arrange for a two hour tour with Cap'n Charlie. That gave us time for a delicious lunch at Captain Patty's (Stop there if in Homer) and  then amble down to the marina.

Because of the bears, most of the fishermen coming in off the bay clean their catch in the cleaning shed just up from the docks:

The guy filleting that halibut was making sharp, swift cuts and ended up with beautiful fillets. We even volunteered to help the two women cleaning these king salmon:

but I don't think they took him up on it, though.

Here is the Anna B, Cap'n Charlie's boat:

There was not much chop, nor much swell on the bay as we got out on open water.

It took about 20 minutes or so to get to Gull Island.

There were plenty of birds, gulls and murres. We did see both horned and tufted puffins, a real treat.

Of course we really wanted to see sea otters.

We were not disappointed.

They look like little old men.

The Roes were all very good sailors.

and for Doreen it was like she was born on the water.