By Chinups_and_Cupcakes | September 2, 2017

Journey to Homer

The mountains here are endless. Literally, they just KEEP going. It’s beautiful. It was about a 4 hour drive to Homer from Eagle River (Minus the several stops for beef jerky and trail mix). It rained on and off the whole way there. We took a little detour at one point to check out a 19 mile scenic loop. It was a whole lot of dirt road with some pretty spectacular views. Rounding the corner to pull out onto Homer Spit was breathtaking to say the least. The size of the mountains and the glaciers in between were just incredible! It’s COLD.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Staying in the Wheelhouse

My aunt Wendy found the ‘Wheelhouse’ on Air BnB. It was an adorable little house right in the middle of town! It was right on the water, again, with incredible views of glaciers, mountains and the sea. Conna, the lady who owned the Wheelhouse also owned the coffee shop next door. She was great! She even gave us free coffee the next morning!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salty Dawg Saloon and The DEA Agent

The Salty Dawg Saloon is one of a kind. It’s been featured on the Discovery Channel’s ‘Deadliest Catch’ as a place where the captain’s and crew hang out while in town. Inside, there are dollar bills EVERYWHERE with all sorts of signatures of visitors past. Even though there were lots of tourists in the bar, there were even more locals. I noticed a woman taking a photo of 2 men and got up to offer to take a picture of all 3 of them together. That opened the door for an hour of conversation with a very interesting old man.

He was 91, almost 92, and of completely sound mind. He told me all about his time in the military as well as his time as a DEA agent. He worked the Texas border for years and was stabbed multiple times and even shot in the head. He began to talk about the legalization of marijuana and how he couldn’t believe after spending his entire lifetime waging a war on drugs how now it’s just legal in many places. He said once he was transferred from Texas to Vermont, his work expanded to the entire United States. Most of his work was then focused in Florida where the drug war was alive and well. He told me to never go to Florida. LOL… No, I didn’t tell him. He was a Gem. His son and daughter and law had taken him to Alaska because he had never gotten to go but always wanted to. I’m so glad I got to meet him!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner at Captain Patties

I had never tried Halibut before but now I can say I’m a huge fan! It was delicious! We also had crab and artichoke dip as an appetizer. It may have been the tastiest food I’ve ever eaten! I tried the Moose Drool, it was a brown ale. I actually really liked it, and I’m not even a beer drinker! After dinner, I got the chocolate cake with raspberry filling cause clearly I wasn’t making the best decisions by that point in the night LOL. It was great…obviously.

 

 

 

Rainbows Galore

The next morning we woke up to a beautiful sunrise. The amount of rainbows in Homer are just astounding. There was literally one somewhere across the sky at all times. We picked up our free coffee from Conna’s coffee shop next door and spent the morning on the beach and walking through the shops. I got Mike something REALLY cool and I can’t wait to give it to him! We skipped breakfast, so by lunchtime we were all starving and went to grab something at the Harbor Bar and Grill. I wish I could say i ordered an awesome piece of fresh fish, but I was craving a hamburger so that’s what I got! It was fantastic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homer Marina: Saga and the Kona Kai

After lunch, we went to walk the marina. Last time my aunt was there I believe she got to see the Time Bandit from Deadliest Catch. The Time Bandit wasn’t there this time, however the Saga and the Kona Kai were! It was so cool to see them in person. I snapped a few more ‘artsy’ marina pictures before it started to rain. We hopped back in the truck for the ride back to Eagle River.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fred Meyer’s

Once we got home, we were all pretty tired. We hung around the house for a while and decided to drive into town to walk around the Fred Meyer’s. This store is like Publix, Target and Walmart all rolled up into one. It’s great! I wish we had one near us! We picked up some binoculars for our hike we’d be going on, as well as some breakfast for the next morning (pre-hike fuel). As we were leaving we realized we didn’t have anything for dinner so we’d stop and get some on the way back up.

Pizza Man and the Deadliest Catch

We pulled into the local pizza joint, the Pizza Man, to order some to go. I went to sit in the car because I was freezing, while my parents waited on a bench outside. Not too long after I got in, I heard shrieking laughter coming from the direction my parents were sitting in. When I turned around I saw my aunt getting out of her truck. It turns out my aunt and grandparents had the same plan and went to pick up a pizza also! Once we got back to the house, we turned on the Deadliest Catch on demand and ate our pizza. It was so funny to watch the boats that we had just seen earlier in the day! I tried to stay up late enough to see the Northern lights but it was just too cloudy and I was just too exhausted.

That sums up everything from the last two days. In the next post I’ll write about what we did yesterday and what we’re doing today! Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed as much as I did!

Until next time…