July 14, 2009

July 14, 2009

Aimee and I have really come to like Seward. On our first visit five years ago, we spent a couple hours looking around town before embarking on a cruise ship and we were not impressed. For a small town it has a lot to do and it can be pretty when the clouds clear. I was a little annoyed last night though. We went searching for a small piece of fresh fish to grill and we were stymied. The local grocery store only sold frozen, and the fish dock would only sell a whole ten-pound fish. Aimee made a dinner omelet instead.

We left Seward, driving north and then west across the top of the Kenai Peninsula. Along the way we followed the Kenai River to Soldotna. The Kenai River is popular for salmon fishing. Unfortunately too popular. I checked out a few sites and it was crowded despite being in between salmon runs. The next surge is supposed to hit in a couple days. For now we head down the western shore of the Kenai Peninsula. From Ninilchik we can see forty miles across the Cook Inlet to Lake Clark National Park and the volcano, Mt Redoubt. This volcano reawoke just a few months ago. I am hoping it stays quiet till we leave. We also stop and see an old Russian Orthodox church that is a reminder of the era when Alaska was not US soil.

We stop for the night at the end of the road, literally, in Homer, AK. We are camped on the beach, a 4-mile gravel bar, called “The Spit”, that juts out into Kachemak Bay. Parts of Homer look like the stereotypical Alaska town. Lots of water, trees, surrounded by high snow-capped peaks. Where we are camped is not so idyllic. We are on the ocean but just feet away from a very commercialized fishing harbor.