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Homing in on Homer
Day 33: Saturday, July 25th
Woke up early, put the wet tent away very carefully, trying to keep as much as possible of the great outdoors, well, outdoors (and not inside my Jeep ;-). I planned to drive to Homer, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be staying there, because hotels and campgrounds on the Kenai Peninsula tend to book up far in advance on summer weekends, not just with tourists from elsewhere, but with people from Anchorage. I still wanted to go, regardless.
Due to seasonal road closures (snow, mud, road construction, etc.) some of the maps displayed in this thread are not displaying properly or you might see pop-up windows reporting errors found with the route. Unfortunately, the map data used to create these maps enforces these "Time-outs" if a particular road segment is closed. In the case of the pop-up windows (alerts), please click the "OK" or "Close" button and the rest of the page will display properly. In the case on some of the maps where the route seems all jammed up -- reloading the page where the map is displaying seems to solve the issue. All of these problems go away once the winter closures of the roads end. So, everything will look fine in the North American summer months.
Click here for this RTA Library Map
(This map shows Rick's route between Anchorage and Homer, Alaska. Exit Glacier Road is closed in winter, so the map doesn't include this.)
The day started out cloudy and gray, and I anticipated a rainy drive, with limited vistas. Leaving town, I passed a side road, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a sign that read Kenai Fjords National Park?! I’d been under the impression that the only access to the park was by boat, so I was instantly intrigued, and turned around to follow that road, just to see where it would take me. About halfway along, the sun came out, highlighting a beautiful scene: steep, snowy peaks with verdant green slopes and a great view of a glacier in the near distance.
Exit Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park
It was about ten miles back to a visitor’s center, and the beginning of a trail system that allowed hiking to two glaciers and the big ice field that fed them. I wasn’t up for the long hike, which would have taken all day, but I did a short hike, less than three miles, and got right up next to Exit Glacier, which was quite beautiful, and the closest I’ve ever been to a thing like that. That was an unplanned, unexpected interlude that was absolutely delightful, my favorite kind of surprise!
The continuously melting “toe” of Exit Glacier; from such simple beginnings, mighty rivers are born
By the time I got back on the road, the Seward Highway, the sun came out in a major way. Instead of continuing all the way back on the road I'd taken from Anchorage, I turned west at the junction, toward Homer. It was quite a long drive—close to 200 miles from Seward, but incredibly scenic, and I took some fabulous pictures along the route.
By the side of the road on the Kenai Peninsula (complete with fireweed)
Finally arrived in Homer, and was determined to camp (as if I had a choice, with all the hotels booked to capacity months in advance). First, I drove out along “the spit,” a long, rocky breakwater that leads out to the deep water docks and the ferry terminal.
Car ferry approaching the dock in Homer
In summer, hundreds of RV’s line up on either side of the road and make a small transient city, with a spring-break style party atmosphere. That’s where most of the camping was to be found, but it wasn’t for me—not with all the noise and hoopla and the lack of shelter from the cold wind off the water. I used my Alaska App to search for other campgrounds in and around the town, and found the perfect spot, where there was just one space still open. Unfortunately for my purposes, it was an RV space with hookups that I couldn’t even use. I wasn’t planning to set up the tent—the forecast called for lots of rain, so I just wanted to park the Jeep and sleep in it. Even still, I had to pay the full prime season RV hookup rate of $55, and all I got for that was a parking space with a picnic table, and access to a bathroom and shower. A poor value, but the location was great, right across the street from what’s considered “old town” Homer, an area with shops and a couple of restaurants.
I ate dinner at the Steak House Tavern (or something like that). The special was fresh caught salmon, so that’s what I ordered—probably the best, definitely the freshest salmon I’ve ever eaten. Delicious! Rigged up the Jeep for sleeping, with the plastic tubs set outside on a picnic table, covered by my tarp, and the inside of the vehicle arranged just so, filling the gap behind the driver’s seat so that I could fully extend the air mattress and stretch out full length, not with my knees tucked. I sat up front in the passenger seat making notes on my laptop until late. It was raining steadily at that point, so I crawled into the back, careful not to drag wet, muddy shoes into my bedding. I used my dorky sleeping mask, as it was still light outside despite the storm. This time, I fell right to sleep. I had an amazing déjà vu experience, lying in my old sleeping bag in that confined space, listening to the rain drumming on the metal roof of the vehicle. In my mind, I was transported back in time more than 40 years, back to when I used to sleep in my camper on rainy nights in the mountains of southern Colombia, burrowed into that very same sleeping bag. The sounds of the rain, the slightly musty smell of the bag, the sense of confined space in the back of the vehicle, all those things combined to create a visceral experience that was very powerful, and left me feeling more than a bit wistful at the thought of all those years that have passed since my time in South America, a whole lifetime ago.
Day 34: Sunday, July 26th
Packing up after a rainy night in the Jeep is much quicker and easier than putting away the tent when it’s wet! I had a nice shower, in no hurry to go anywhere. I went to breakfast at the other restaurant across the street from the RV Park, a little delicatessen/bistro. Mournful old French pop songs were playing on their sound system, and I had a delicious crepe with fresh farmer’s cheese and local blueberries. Great way to start the day! Then I drove around Homer a bit. While taking pictures of fireweed near the beach, a large, raucous bird landed in a nearby tree. I focused in with my zoom lens, and staring back at me was a Bald Eagle!
Alaskan songbird
The regal bird posed like an artist’s model, and I got some great shots, including a couple of stop motion action sequence shots of him taking off into the air.
I took more photos of boats and mountains and clouds and, needless to say, fireweed, and then made my way, in no hurry, to Soldotna, gateway to the Kenai River, and the world’s best salmon fishing. With close to 5,000 residents, it’s the big city, Alaska style.
In most areas fireweed merely lines the roads. In the Kenai, it blankets the meadows and hillsides like a pink carpet
Salmon fishing in the Kenai; world record beauties weighing close to 100 pounds have been caught in this river
When driving through that area the day before I’d taken note of all the options for lodging that were there, and I figured I’d find a room and take care of the stuff I’d planned to do in Anchorage: laundry, banking, getting the Jeep serviced and so forth. I ended up paying $200 for a fairly ordinary room at the Quality Inn—the most I’d paid up to that point, but it was the peak of their peak tourist season, and the best price I was likely to find. At least it was clean--and extremely convenient! I got my laundry done, had lots of time to fool with photos. After camping two days in a row, it was nice, treating myself to a comfortable spot indoors.
Next up: Palmer, Glennallen, and the largest National Park in the U.S.
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