Oh Homer...you are beautiful!

The trip down to Homer was one of the prettiest yet! chugach mountains in one side ofthe Seward Highway, Cook Inlet on the other and sunshine all around!

Then we switched to the Sterling Highway as we made our way down the Kenai Peninsula. With glacier fed rivers and lakes and the Chugach National Forest, I don't know how Wayne kept the coach on the road it was so pretty!

When we arrived in Homer and got our first look at the Kachemak Bay and Gulf if Alaska, we knew it was going to be special. 

Finally, we reached the Homer Spit, the beach always draws us in, this was a different kind of beach, lots of dark sand and rocks, but stunning!

Our campsite, while rock and gravel had the most exquisite view of the Bay and Mountains!

And a fire pit to boot!

We may just sit right here all three days!

A glorious day for...glaciers!

Yesterday we set out from Anchorage to Chugach State Park for a nice hike on our last day in Anchorage. That morning we visited the Aurora Nights Display, a movie of Aurora photos set to music, the life work of a local photographer. The images were copyrighted so no pics from us!

The trip down the Seward Highway with Chugach Park Forested mountains on one side and Turnagain Arm of Cook's Inlet and the Alaskan Mt range on the other...

The drive was so pretty we kept going and soon came upon a glacier off in the distance...

We were intrigued to know where it was and got out a detailed map where we noticed an area called Portage Glacier that perhaps we could get close. Well, we stumbled across a beautiful State Park with a little $34 boat ride with a Forest Ranger that could have been worth 3X that amount! The Ptarmingan, named after the state bird took you in a boat ride past 7 different glaciers on Portage Lake off of Prince William Sound. Portage was the largest, it used to extend well into the lake but was receding as much as 20ft a year! Still, Portage is 1/2 mi wide, 20 mi long and 600 ft high!

After the fabulous boat trip narrated by a ranger originally from Nags Head, NC, we went on a 1 mi hike out to Byron Glacier, so cool!

it was a great day and we started home, we had dinner reservations to make and what do you think we saw...Mama Moose and her calves...

Our great day was topped off by dinner at this little restaurant, only 14 tables where their specialties are Macadamia Nut Encrusted Halibut and Table Side Caesar Salad. the owner was from Boston originally but like many, came to Alaska and never left! It does draw you in! 

After a great time in Anchorage we are off to Homer, AK, the trip should be pretty, down the Seward Highway!

Anchorage...we hear seagulls!

Our trip down to Anchorage was spectacular. It started with a clear as a bell view of Mount McKinley...wow, only 9000/300,000 annual visitors see it completely clear, we are sooo lucky! Mom had Dad stop the RV and make pictures, but Cinder and I just stayed onboard!

We saw lots of beautiful scenery and the road was excellent!

We passed through the town of Wasilla...why this terrible picture of a fence with the US and Alaska Flags?  Hehe...that is Sarah Palin's house, we understand she got a ticket last week driving the highway we are on!

When we arrived at the campground we heard two distinct sounds we hadn't heard in a while, seagulls and the beautiful Thunderbirds! The seagulls are whiter than ours, quite pretty!

Last night and this morning we heard the train, right next door, we loved hearing it! Of course Reveille at 6:00am at nearby Elmendorf AFB wasn't so appreciated😊. Anchorage feels about like the size of maybe Richmond, but with <300,000 people it is much smaller!

This morning Mom and Dad went down to Ship's Creek to watch the Salmon running. They are nearing the end of their time down here, but still plenty of salmon to catch!  mom will tell you all about their day!

Next we went to the Ulu Factory, these are the knives made by Eskimos that look like an herb chopper!

Up next was the Anchorage Museum, a huge museum that covered a lot of ground.

The top floor had a whole exhibit on Mars with a NASA funded study of the Arctic Sand Dunes to see correlation with Mars, of course, I had to recognize NASA!

The rest of the floor was all about the problems with plastic (a little too much lecturing on the evils of plastic for us), the sculptures were all out of plastic things from the water, so that part was inventive...

The next floor had nice videos and displays of different native tribes. The costumes were amazing and the Asian and Russian influences were prominent!

The last area was a sweeping view of history, particularly the fishing industry, the 1964 magnitude 9.2 (2nd greatest in world) earthquake, and WWII.

As we walked downtown to grab a bite to eat we noticed there are beautiful flowers everywhere, their season may be short but folks make the most of it!

Lunch at the Glacier Brewing Co included a nice smooth Amber Ale and Reindeer with Bleu Cheese pizza, sounds weird but delicious!

Finally we hit a local seafood market to purchase some fresh Off the boat salmon and halibut. I don't know if we will do a fishing trip (I do get seasick fishing), but this was a pretty good way to go!

Then the rain started so Wayne got a MUCH needed haircut, mine needs it too, but I am much pickier on where I go!