We like Homer!

We've been having a good time here in Homer.  Scenery and weather have been awesome, lots to do, people in the campground are very friendly, and it just feels good here.  As we travel about, some places feel welcoming and comfortable and some not so much, hard to quantify, but believe me it's very real.   

We wanted to get out walking and heard about a bakery that had high reviews and really good sticky buns.  Now it's not like we have sticky buns very often, once a year or so maybe, but it sounded appealing.  So Jan and I at 0700 walked 3/4 mile down to the Two Sisters Bakery to get some coffee and the famous sticky buns.  Looking through the display they looked good, gooey and fresh, so we grabbed two and some coffee and went down to a picnic table that sits on the edge of a slough, and........not so good.  Unfortunately pretty dry and overdone, just like the majority of the sticky buns you get:-(  Oh well, in another year or so we'll try again.  The good side was the view and the company were great!

Breakfast

We walked the beach back and Jan was able to get another few shots of eagles.  Probably getting tired of these by now, they're like pigeons up here:-)

Soaring through the campground

Ready to launch

Regal

We met our campground neighbors who gave us some fresh salmon they had caught earlier in the day, so we had a delicious dinner.

Yup, that's the color of fresh wild salmon!

We went down to the spit to wander around and have lunch.  Now the Homer Spit is quite something.  It is a piece of land that juts out into the water 4.5 miles, and is covered with shops, restaurants, businesses, campgrounds, harbors, etc.  So to say it a busy place in the summer is an understatement.  It's fun to poke around the shops and look at all the boats.  We had an amazing lunch at the Little Mermaid.  Excellent chowder, rice bowls, rockfish sandwiches, and a delicious and unusual cole slaw!  After lunch as we were walking around they were just hanging up a catch from one of the boats.

Fresh caught halibut

Now you may notice these fish are not so big, turns out they have changed the fishing regulations to limit the catches.  It used to be you could catch and keep 2 halibut of any size, therefore as you caught a fish you had to decide to keep it or not, so once you had kept 2 fish you were done for the day.  So obviously you kept trying for a bigger fish, now you may keep 1 fish of any size, but the other has to be below 29" long.  Keep in mind halibut have been caught over 400 pounds!

We took a ride out the East End Road and could not believe the amount of development since we were here 9 years ago.  There are hundreds of homes dotting the hillside overlooking the Cook Inlet, and it is out that road where the Kilchers live.  I don't know how many of you have seen the TV show,  "Alaska, The Last Frontier", but it is about a family that came over to Alaska from Switzerland and was granted 160 acres of land to homestead on.  The family is now in their 4th generation and still homestead on the property which has grown to 600 acres.  We enjoy the show, and although they never say too much about their surroundings, they give the impression of being in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by nothing, turns out their place is actually only 8 miles out of Homer in the midst of all that development I'm talking about.  We were curious to see their place, but found out it is very secluded and is hidden from view, and although they accept visitors, we weren't compelled to do so, but this is what we finally found.

These are a couple views from the highlands up East End Road.

Head of the bay

We booked a trip by boat across the bay to Halibut Cove, a small community partly on an island to have lunch and walk around.  We went over on this small, very well cared for boat, the Danny J.  The trip took about an hour and went around a tiny, rocky island, Gull Island that is a rookery in the summer.  The island looks dappled in color from afar, but as you get closer you realize that there are thousands of bird nesting there, in fact our captain told us over 17,000 birds!

A puffin on the way

Gull Island

Start to pick out individual birds

See the babies?

A sea otter swimming by

Buzzing around the corner

The trip over was nice but when we pulled into the harbor, we were blown away by how picturesque Halibut Cove really is!  It is a tiny community, 150 people live there in the summer and that goes down to 10-20 in the winter.  It is mostly harbor and docks with wooden walkways here and there.  It is also the site of a gourmet restaurant, The Saltry, perched at the top of the dock.

Salmon fishermen outside the harbor

The small lighthouse marking the harbor entrance
You can even rent it by the night!

Little cabins

Big time real estate

The Saltry

Another view

We had a delicious lunch on a beautiful day surrounded by incredible scenery, it was about perfect!

Gourmet fare

Happy campers

We had a leisurely lunch then walked around.  There are several art galleries there, but we pressed by as time was growing short and went to a knoll over the harbor for the views.  It was like a post card or maybe the Sound of Music.

Post card, right?

Awesome!

Another shot of the lighthouse

All in all a wonderful day.  So we've been busy, we'll probably do some chores today, while tomorrow Jan and Karen head out on their fishing expedition.