Day 111 – June 29 (Alaska Day 20)– Sightseeing in Homer

We drove to Homer again today, taking the old Sterling Highway so we can honestly say we have driven as far west as the road system allows in North America.  In Homer we stopped at a couple of shops but didn’t find much.  They are very proud of their stuff and must want to keep it.  All the shops in Homer seem to work under the principal that the volume of sales is not important, they just have to sell one thing a day to keep the doors open.

We drove to Skyline Drive for an overview of the city, the spit, the inlet, and the mountains.  It is a shame the pictures do not capture what we saw!

Home spit stretching out into the inlet

The plant with the white flowers in the foreground is worse that poison ivy, or so they say.  That is a glacier across the inlet

I had thought the spit was man-made, but learned in one of the pamphlets that it was the result of a glacier deposit and that man has had to fight the sea to keep it attached to the mainland.

We are planning to have seven-layer salad for dinner tonight and had purchased everything in Kenai at Wal-Mart.  Well, we thought we had purchased everything.  As we were driving back towards Ninilchik I remembered we had not gotten tomatoes for the salad.  We stopped at a small store outside Anchor Point and Dorrie went inside.  She was out again after a short wait, empty-handed.  She said the girl inside said everyone must be making salad for Sunday dinner.  They were out of tomatoes, peppers, and mushrooms.  So we drove on, looking for another store.

It is not like back home where you see grocery stores all around.  What they call towns are just settlements with a business or two.  Those businesses are either charter boat places or another business with a charter boat sideline.  Lots of empty road, not that I am complaining.  That is what the Alaskan experience is all about.

We drove pass a small studio called Timberline Creations that featured antler art.  I said I had meant to stop there, and since I was driving, we turned around and went back to the studio.  The door was locked and there was a sign to ring the bell if it was locked.  We rang and waited about 2 minutes and a guy came walking over from the house next door.

It was a small shop full of antler art that included necklaces, baskets and artwork on antlers.  No carving but the work was beautiful and reasonably priced.  He also had ivory stuff, which claimed to be from mammoths.  I just have a thing about anything made from ivory,  I fear it is actually from elephants and will not buy ivory of any type.  We made some purchases and headed back towards Ninilchik.

I got myself an antler(moose) for my soon to be Alaska Room, now known as the Chair Room

Dorrie said she should have got a couple of more items and Rick wanted something else, so we backtracked 5 miles to the studio again.  The owner (and artist) was still there and he said he was sure he gave us our credit cards back.  We explained why we were back and he laughed.  More items were stored in the back of the car and we were off again.

We stopped at another store (I missed the turn and had to turn around again – but I was getting pretty good at that by now).  Dorrie asked about tomatoes and was out before the door closed.  We still needed tomatoes.  Rick said he had some Sour Cherry candy that is red and could be used in the salad.  We decided to pass on that.

We stopped at the Ninilchik General Store.  You have to see this place to appreciate what a general store should be.  They have rubber boots and waders as you first enter.  To the left is the checkout counter and past that is fishing supplies.  On the other side of the boot rack is souvenirs and the counter to get fishing licenses.  Moving towards the back of the store you find foodstuff of all kinds, including tomatoes.  There is a small deli and ice cream counter off to the right side.  I honestly think they have almost anything you could need from fresh meat to the means to get your own fresh meat.

So we now have all the ingredients for the seven layer salad and that was pretty much our day.  There is a Turnagain arm of the Cook Inlet – so named because Cook thought he had found the Northwest Passage and got frustrated with the turns with the inlet.  Our day was a “turn-around-again” day.