It’s Homer Time

Today was another travel day. It took us longer than we expected to get from Anchorage to Homer Spit. It is a spit just outside of the town of Homer, hence the name.

We spent last night in the same RV park in Anchorage that we used before flying home in June. Only this time there were two large caravans staying there too. Each caravan had over 20 vehicles with most of the vehicles being very large. They took up a lot of space, physically and metaphorically. One group was particularly loud, using a microphone to discuss the next day’s agenda followed by a couple of flute players playing Beatles tunes until late. We have some words of wisdom: Let It Be. Most people come to Alaska to get away from this type of circus. They were heading to Homer as well, but to a commercial campground. We really hope to not run into them!

The roads today were in great shape. Probably the best we have seen since leaving southern BC. But the roads were busier than we expected. You can follow us on the map. The first part of the drive we headed towards the town of Seward.

We took a side trip to the town of Girdwood. It was a cute town with a lovely bike path that we took a stroll on. It had a lovely view from a glacier-fed river. They had a Sunday farmers market that we checked out. Unfortunately it wasn’t nice like the Issaquah farmers market. There were just a handful of stalls and only one had actual food for humans, consisting of unappetizing pastries and home canned goods. The few other booths had crafts plus one with homemade dog treats. So we left empty-handed.

We continued towards Seward. The drive was stunning. It is the destination for one way cruises. In the northbound direction, we saw a lot of buses heading from the cruise terminal as well as a train. In our southbound direction, there were a lot of cars heading to Seward to embark on cruises.

We expected the traffic to lighten up when the road split and we turned off towards Homer. After all, thousands of cruise ship passengers were taking the other road towards Seward. To our surprise, the traffic was just as busy. There were a lot of people heading to the Kenai Peninsula for fishing and boating. We saw many poeple wading in the rivers to fish.

When we reached Homer Spit, we truly understood the traffic. This is not a hidden gem in the Alaska wilderness. Rather, Homer is a fishing village, and Homer Spit is filled with fishing charters, T-shirt shops, coffee stands, fish-and-chip shops, bars, etc. Think San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf but with actual fishing boats. We did see some of the fishing charters return to the dock, where crews were cleaning their catch: knife goes in, guts come out, knife goes in, guts come out...

We entered two different fish shops to ask about buying fresh fish. Fresh fish, you ask? No, we only sell frozen fish!

It took us some time to understand why one of the centers of Alaska wild seafood only sells frozen fish. It turns out that the local market for fresh fish is very small; most people come to Homer as tourists, who ship their fish home as a souvenir. We have one more place to try in the morning, but we may be disappointed.

The path along the spit has a very nice paved path. We walked towards the end, and Greg is looking forward to running along the path in the morning.