August 1, 2007 – Travel to Homer

Can you believe that today is August 1?? Time is just going too fast. As of today, we have been on the road 95 incredible days – what a journey!

Our travels today took us to the other side of the Kenai Peninsula, along the Cook Inlet to Homer. What scenery!!!

We are camped at the Homer Spit City Public Campground and our MH faces Kachemak Bay. Behind us is the Cook Inlet that leads to the Gulf of Alaska.

The Homer Spit juts out 5 miles from the city of Homer with the Bay on one side and the Inlet on the other. We are about 3.5 miles from the city. The Kachemak Bay has the second largest tides in the world and right now they are ~ 20 feet. Here is a picture of high tide (this was taken from the front of our MH):

Across the bay is the Kenai Mountains and across the inlet is the Aleutian Mountains:

There are three nearby volcanoes (in the Aleutian Range): Mt. Iliamna; Mt. Redoubt (last major eruption in 1989-1990); and Augustine (last eruption in January 2006). I wonder if any of them will erupt while we are here.

So after we settled, we went to the visitor center and then stopped at the Salty Dawg for a beer - J. The Salty Dawg Lighthouse Tower is an official NOAA marker on the marine charts.

When we came back, we started a campfire on the beach and were joined by fellow Escapees – Karen and Jim (also a ham operator) and then by Larry and then by Yvonne and Peter. Peter had just caught a salmon and we cooked it over the fire – WONDERFUL – You cannot get any fresher than that! We all had a great time chatting and telling our stories – it was so much fun.

Our group:

Jim, Karen, Yvonne
Larry, Peter

This area of the Spit has resident eagles. Here is one that appeared a couple times tonight to grab the scraps from the fisherman.


And we stayed up much later than our normal bedtime and realized it now does get dark!!!

A word about the weather – in the Peninsula this time of year it is almost always cloudy (it is a rare day to see the sun all day). There is not a lot of rain but lots of clouds. (And there is a part of us that does miss that sun!!).

Miles Traveled: 175
Routes Traveled:
Alaska: AK-9 (Seward Highway); AK-1 (Sterling Highway)