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.

A short Expedition on the Beluga Trail

After dinner, and before the Roes came up, we took a short walk on the Calvin and Coyle Trail that takes you to the Beluga Lake Overlook.

It was a pleasant woodland walk:

 with some nice meadows, in which we had hoped to see moose.

We looked and looked for moose.

We did see some huge plants

And we never saw Moose.

But we did see Squirrel.

An Expedition on the Homestead Trail outside of Homer.

The Homestead Trail is a pretty easy four mile hike just outside of Homer:

That is the route back.  I use Runkeeper to track my walks, and sometimes it forgets, so I have started cutting most hikes in two.

There are disadvantages of that, however, as if we get lost, it will not help us get back.

We prepared rigorously for this hike:

and we plotted our course carefully:

and were ready for wind or sun:

It turned out to be another beautiful day in Alaska

and stayed that way all day long.

We did not see many birds. Some Little Brown Jobs, and some birds that looked a lot like Robins.

Some of them were robins but this one:

was a Varied Thrush. Nice!

You can see that there is a lot of fireweed and other long weedy grasses that we had to walk through.

Doreen liked to go first through this, earning a new nickname, "Dew Catcher" as she cleared the dew off the grasses so I wouldn't have to get wet.

You can also see that there were s number of places where we had to walk through trees.

Doreen earned another nickname in these areas, "Spider Catcher" as she liked to go first and tear down all the spiderwebs that crossed the train. Sometimes she didn't get the high ones though. It wasn't nice when I had to walk into them with my face.

It was a beautiful walk through the meadows and the copses of trees.

We did see the eponymous homestead:

and the big payoff was at the top of the trail, that was setup as an overlook of Kachemak Bay:

We bought some nice new Nikon binoculars before we left Houston (10x25) and have been using them plenty.

Quite a place.

There were many plants that we didn't recognize on the route. Some with interesting berries:

and some that looked like little forests.

with my finger for scale:

We saw a baby bird on the way out, and were fussed at by the momma:

and caught the glimpse of a bald eagle (we have seen plenty already) as we got back to the cabin.

A Quick Expedition to Homer.

Alaska is so big that a five hour drive doesn't even come close to touching the scale of the place:

That little blue line between Anchorage and Homer was our route.

 We did see a train.

and some Dall Sheep. See it?

Now you see it.

The view from  the cabin deck was worth it, though.