Homer Alaska August 2006

As we said when this blog was started we would recap some of many adventures from the start of retirement travels. This is the first entry of our Alaska trip revisited.

8/15/2006: As we got up and prepared to leave for Homer it was raining lightly. The Lord gave us a chance get the trike loaded, (never took a ride), and the outside stuff done. We left rainy Seward in the rain and headed to Homer on the other side of the Kenai. Light rain fell during the entire 160-mile trip. We arrived at A Fisherman’s Resort in Homer it is a small but very nice park, seven sites total.

Now the real fun began. We tried to back into site #7 but there were 2 metal posts in the way so we couldn’t get in. They said we could probably use site #2. As we backed into site #2, the trailers’ left side tires started across the corner of the grassy portion of the lot. All three tires sunk to the axles immediately. Lynn hollered on the walkie-talkie, “PULL OUT! PULL OUT!” And then reached up to stop it from falling...DUH! She quickly realized she'd better just get out of the way. It all happened so fast...! The trailer listed at about a 30-degree angle with the dump valves also stuck in the mud, we were stuck real good. This time we were glad it had been raining because all the dump valves dug into the ground, but just sank in the soft mud, not too much damage.

Thank the Lord we did have a good hitch setup, so we twisted but didn’t break. But we were stuck and it was beginning to rain harder. Fellow RV’ers to the rescue... the park manager and several of the guys at the park came over and we began to dig and use bottle jacks to raise the left side up so we could get timbers under it.

They weren’t too receptive of a woman’s opinions until Bruce gave them the same answers. Lynn gave them a few GOOD ideas, (which they finally used after she said, “ What do I know? I’m only a woman and this is my trailer.”), then went into another RV for a cup of hot tea with one of the wives of the men who were helping. She decided she didn’t need to be out there in that rain anyway.

With only the left hydraulic jack holding up the rig, (Lynn's idea), we had to disconnect the trailer and that was very scary. It was still tipped so far, and we had to remove the rear tire on the left side. This crew helped us to remember why we have RV’ed for 30 years.

After about three hours the trailer was shored up with timbers and ready for a pull. The trailer was hooked up so Bruce put it in low and we pulled it out leaving a very large hole in the ground quickly filling with water.

The park manager wanted us to stay and we felt we owed it to him to stay after we had wrecked his grass. Everyone involved watched, coached and Lynn prayed as we backed into site #2 and finally setup... level. We made the needed connections, had a bowl of chili and went to bed after thanking the Lord for keeping us all safe and the Alfa (our trailer) livable. AMEN! What a day!

8/17/2006: Today we had made plans to go to Seldovia, AK, a small town that is southwest of Homer across the bay and can only be reached by plane or boat. We took the boat that gave us a small tour of the bay on the way over.

Seldovia was first established by the Russians in the late 1700s it was the only all weather port in this part of Alaska until the 1900s when Homer was established. Seldovia is a nice small fishing village; We have decided that if and when we want to get away from it all, this is the place.

Again we had a delicious lunch of fresh grilled salmon at the Mad Fisherman Restaurant. We walked the village, ate wild berries both raspberries and salmonberries as we watched salmon jump in the river. Sure wish we had a large baggie to put some of those berries in, but it was fun just to eat them recklessly and not worry about carrying them home. When picking berries in Alaska, you always keep an eye out for bears.

The very best thing about this day was THE SUN CAME OUT! After returning to Homer we completed arrangements to go bear watching over Cook Inlet at Katmai National Park next Wednesday, a day with Alaskan Brown bears, guided by Chris and Ken Day who guided the Alaskan portion of the movie “Bears” for IMAX.

We had a nice dinner; Bruce had a hamburger and Lynn had fresh Halibut. Then we went home to do laundry and take out the trash.

What more is there to say? It was a very pleasant day on the boat, watching sea otters and all the other sea animals along the way. The Puffins are so fun to watch. Lynn said they are much smaller than she had imagined.

8/19/2006 A spectacular sunset over Beluga Lake, Bruce kept taking pictures and it kept changing. This picture is a favorite.

8/21/2006: Woke up to sunshine trying to come on through and it did. Downloaded the trike ready to take a ride. Rode out to Anchor Point via the old Sterling Highway, nice Alaska countryside but no critters of note.

Had lunch at Anchor Point and then we rode out to the point that is the farthest west you can go on a road in all of North America. We had a good view of Cook Inlet and some of the volcanoes that make up the Pacific Ring of Fire.

We rode up the coast to Ninilchik a town established by the Russians during their occupation of Alaska. This town had a very interesting Russian Orthodox Church, (still having services), and cemetery, a very picturesque village.

We returned to Homer and cruised down the spit for dinner. At Land’s End we got to see a Bald Eagle teach flying and hunting to her fledgling, very cool.

8/23/2006: What a beautiful day we woke this morning to sunshine, not a cloud in the sky. Today is our bear watch day!

We went out with Emerald Air, Chris and Ken Day. We flew out of Beluga Lake in their 1960 DeHavlin Otter over to the Alaskan Peninsula on the west side of the Alaskan Range to the Katmai National Preserve. We flew past the most active volcano in Alaska, Mt. Augustine, which had a minor eruption in January and had a building lava dome. It has ash and steam output all the time.

Bear viewing in a beautiful remote area with a blue sky and stream full of spawning red salmon is just unbelievable! We walked and watched for about six hours. The closest bears came within maybe fifty feet. We got some great pictures, it was a day very hard to put into words.

It was a great day and it gave us a different concept of Brown Bears in the wild. They are intelligent, playful, and very curious about everything. These bears are not confrontational when they don’t see us as a threat or a food source. The worst thing that we can do is leave any trace of ourselves, especially food, in their place.

God created bears as he has all other things, some we can put to use for our well being and others we endure or enjoy, depending on perspective. Hunting is good when fulfilling the need for food and clothing, but to come into an uninhabited area just for the sport of killing these animals is wrong. This is their space, we have even called it a National wildlife preserve, and we the citizens of the USA gave them this space. It is our obligation to see to it that they can always be safe here. (There is a push to open this area up for trophy hunting.)

We walked about 5 miles in those 6 hours. We were pretty tired at the end of this day, but it was a good tired! What a fabulous zip-a-dee-doo-dah day!