Day 15 and our ride down to Homer, Alaska began the same as the last three days, rainy. Fortunately after about an hour we were treated to sunshine which lasted the rest of the day. To get to Homer, one must travel the Seward Highway. I think this is one of the most beautiful and scenic routes in Alaska.
Our first stop was at the visitors center for the Portage glacier. This visitor’s center is one of the best that we’ve ever been to. It had tons of interesting exhibits, most of which were multi-media.
A movie about the glacier was shown and at the end of the movie, the screen raised and the drapes opened giving the audience an absolutely breath taking view of the glacier. These are some of the many photos that we took from the vantage point of the visitors center. The first photo is the Portage glacier.
Next we ventured to and through the town of Kanai to see an Alaskan state recreation area. This turned out to be a 78 mile round trip waste of time and gasoline. Boring and ugly! From here we returned to the route of our original destination, Homer, Alaska. On the way Babs spotted this early 1900's Russian Orthodox church so we stopped ad looked around.
On the premises was this still functional "out house".
Homer is located on a peninsula which is surrounded by beautiful mountains loaded with glaciers. The peninsula narrows down to a strip of land approximately 500 yards wide and two miles long called the spit. The spit ls very commercial sporting restaurants and other tourist oriented businesses. The water surrounding Homer is blue and clear as glass. The area is loaded with bald eagles. On large eagle was walking around in a mud puddle in a busy parking lot. Unfortunately we couldn’t stop to get a photo. We also saw a cow moose jogging along with traffic but on the other side of a guard rail.
Tonight we ate at a restaurant called the Homestead. We both had broiled Halibut which was great. The restaurant also offered an excellent view of the water and mountains. We are staying at a B & B called Stellar View which lends a great view of the snow covered mountains.
Tomorrow we have our longest day of driving yet, about eleven hours to Copper Center, Alaska which is east of Anchorage.
Babs Says: Not so funny in the retelling but… I got out to take a picture at Beluga overlook where the whales are sometimes spotted. Three older men (my age) were looking through binoculars at cliffs behind us. I said, “see anything?” One guy answered, “Na, I’m just not sure what those Belugas look like!” I had just a second to wonder whether I should tell him he was looking in the wrong direction when his buddies cracked up. They got me! We couldn’t stop laughing.
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