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Travel Journal: Alaska
Day 1: August 21, 2000
Drive from Anchorage to Homer
We had flown in the night before, arriving around 9pm. It was still light out at that time, and the view from the plane was exciting. We flew in over Cook Inlet, the massive swath of water that leads into Anchorage surrounded by dramatic mountains with massive ice patches. It was a nice way to arrive. The airport was nice and small, kind of the way San Jose airport used to be. While Walendo waited for the bags, I walked downstairs to the car rental places. There was no one at the Alamo station when I got there, but the Hertz guy said he'd be right back. It seemed like something that happens at a small, friendly place. We'd made our reservations through Priceline, which worked out great: 12 days for $350. They had the reservation and it was all pre-paid, and it went smoothly. Meanwhile, Walendo grabbed the bags and loaded them onto one of those SmarteCarts (which are indeed smart), and we wheeled it downstairs and out to the parking lot. No rental car bus, just a short walk to the car, another nice thing about small airports. As it turned out, the car has totally manual everything, including even locks, so we have to lock and unlock each door manually. I didn't think they even made those anymore. Still, it was fine. It did have a tape deck, which was important, since we'd been saving the latest Harry Potter book to listen while driving.
We'd made reservations at the Rodeway Inn in Anchorage, which was about 10-15 minutes from the airport. We had a bit of trouble getting there because everything's a one-way street and some of the streets didn't connect, so it took a bit of circling to get there. It turned out to be a bit of a dive -- the bed squeaked, there was only one hand towel, the soaps were tiny, and the bathroom looked, as W said, "like a bathroom I would build as my practice try before building a real bathroom." All that for the moderate price of $108. Geez, it looks like Alaska's going to be expensive.
 | View from our lunch spot
en route to Homer |
The next morning, we woke up early, both feeling fairly well rested. We checked out and then went to the Downtown Deli and Cafe, which was recommended in the Frommer's book for having good breakfasts and lunches. Our breakfast was fine but not special (I had blueberry pancakes and Walendo had hash browns with eggs). We decided to buy sandwiches to take with us, so we could stop by a pretty place on the road to eat. We weren't sure how many placed we'd find on the road to Homer, so this seemed like a safe bet. After that, we took off south onto the Seward Highway heading toward Homer. It was our first view of Cook Inlet close up. Actually, the water body is Chicaloon Bay and then it turns to Turnagain Arm, which comes off of Cook Inlet. There are towering green hills surrounding the water on all sides with big splotches of snow at the higher elevations. Walendo said it looked like New Zealand, with the rich green hills against the blue lake. The weather was overcast and it even sprinkled a bit, but the view was still beautiful. We stopped at a few pullouts to take some pictures and enjoy the view. There was one spot with some really interesting plantlife that Walendo noticed as we pulled out. I wanted to take a picture, so he turned around and went back for me, which was nice.
 | Iceberg outside Portage
Glacier Ranger Station |
About 50 miles along, we stopped at Portage Glacier. They had built a ranger station there about 20 years ago so that it would have a great view of a huge glacier that was calving into the lake. They expected to be able to see the glacier through 2020, but it turned out that the glacier receded out of view by 1995. Oops. The guide book said the $8 million of tax money spent on the station was still worth it because of the good information about glaciers available there, yeah sure. When we got there, there were two or three chunks of ice floating right near the ranger station, so at least you got an idea of what the ice looked like (very blue and crystaline). As we arrived in the building, a short film was starting, so we watched it. It had some really nice footage of the glaciers and explained a little about how they carve out the earth as they move slowly (about 2 feet per day) through the land. At the very end of the film, the screen rises and the curtains behind it open up abruptly to reveal a giant wall of windows that looked right out over the lake. I gather the idea was that you'd see a real glacier when the curtains opened, but again, it didn't quite work out that way. Nature! In the exhibit area, they had some really good pictures of what the view from that spot looked like over the first few years after they opened the center, and how quickly the glacier receded, especially in 1995. We wandered through the rest of the exhibit, learned a bit, and then headed out (but not before I took a few pictures of the ice formations).
On the way out, we saw a sign in the building that announced "The salmon are in!" so Walendo wanted to check it out. In less than a mile, we saw a sign for salmon viewing, so we pulled in. Now it was beautiful and sunny. We walked along a path for about 1/4 mile or so and saw a nice river but no salmon. After a ways more of the same, we head back, confused. When we got back to the parking lot, we saw a spot where a bunch of people were, and lo and behold, right off the parking lot was a little bridge over another fork of that river with salmon swimming up river. They had some signs explaining the difference between different kinds of salmon: chum, king, coho (can't remember them all). They all are born in the fresh water streams, then they go out to the salt water oceans, some staying for a year, some for 2-3 years, then they come back to the fresh water streams to spawn, after which they die. We watched the salmon for a while, and then got back on the road.
We continued on the Seward Highway, enjoying the views. After a while, we started the Harry Potter tapes, after long last. It was nice to get back into the story again. Around then it started raining pretty hard even as we drove in the sun. It seemed like the weather varied quite a bit across very small areas. At one point, we ended up stopped for a half hour waiting for construction crews to let us go. (Walendo reminded us of his joke that in Alaska, or Northern Canada, there are four seasons: nearly winter, winter, still winter, and construction. It seemed to be construction season.) We didn't mind that much because we were just getting into the Harry Potter tapes.  | Place where we saw
a moose...really |
Finally, we could go and we continued on. We stopped once at a little roadside store to get something to drink (where we took a picture of Walendo with a bear on the front porch), and then we stopped a little ways down the road to each our sandwiches. (It was cloudy but not raining now.) Turned out they weren't very good, which disappointed Walendo. He'd been looking forward to his ham sandwich. As it turned out, a sweet looking yellow lab approached us, so we gave him parts of our sandwiches. Perhaps he has a deal with the Anchorage Deli to make not-so-good sandwiches so he gets more to eat. It was nice to pet a dog, made us feel connected to Libby. I took a few pictures of the lake from that view, and then off we went.
We drove for quite a while more of pretty scenery until we came to Soldotna, where we went to the Fred Meyer, which seems to be an Alaskan WalMart. It was huge, and it had a full grocery store in it. We picked up just a few snacks (pretzels, popcorn, crackers, cookies, candy) and continued on. Shortly afterward, we drove by a beautiful field with reddish foliage and a pond with a moose in it. We were going too fast to stop, so we turned around and went back, and the moose was still there. But 1 minute later after we got our camera gear out, it had gone. How sad. I still liked the scene, so I took a few shots, but the moose would have really made it.
 | View from rest stop
just before Homer |
On we went for quite a ways more from Soldotna down to Homer. After a while, we saw some gorgeous views on our right, overlooking a large water body with snow-capped mountains towering out on the other side. We kept trying to catch glimpses whereever we could. By now it was bright and sunny again, which also added to the beauty. As we were getting close to Homer, we stopped at a roadside pullout and we were stunned by the views. The rest stop itself had tons of flowers all over and it looked out over Kachemak Bay with a long range of mountains rising out of it -- one of the prettiest rest stops I've been to.
We continued into Homer and discovered that we were less than a mile away, and just as we were arriving into town, we saw our hotel, the Ocean Shores Motel, which had the same view we had just been admiring. We had paid a little more to be in a room with a clear view of the mountains, and now that we saw it, we were happy we did. We checked in, getting a few recommendations from the woman at the hotel, and then went into the room. The outside of the building looks almost like a long trailer, but inside the rooms were nice, if not that fancy.  | | Ocean Shores Motel |
The main thing is that it has a big picture window looking out over the inlet and the mountains. There's a back patio, and a path to the beach, where you can walk for miles. The beaches are kind of grayish here, though, or else they're muddy, not the prettiest. But still, you can't beat the views. We unpacked the car and settled in a bit. Walendo sat outside on the porch reading and soaking in the views while I lay on the bed to stretch out my back. We also called a few places to make reservations for the days ahead. We decided to take a boat tour to Seldovia tommorrow, then go kayaking the following day, and then spend the third day either biking around or going for a hike and looking in the galleries.
 | | Homer docks, along the spit |
Having made our reservations, we drove down to the spit to check it out. Again I was surprised by how much of the spit is either muddy or gravelly, so it's not that attractive itself, but the views are wonderful. There are a lot of little shops and shacks for the different tours available, so we did a little shoppoing and checked out the places where we'd just booked our tours. It was dinner time, so we ate at a place along the spit. It had a nice decor, but it turned out the food wasn't that good. The waitress was a little slow and kind of inefficient, and she told us a few times that they were short a bus boy so she was doing two jobs. Okay, but still she didn't seem that great. While we were waiting, I wrote a postcard to my parents (just the number 50, to indicate I'd now been in my 50th state) and Walendo wrote a postcard to his mom. Homer is known for its Halibut, so I got some along with some salmon, and I found I liked it quite a bit. I'm not sure that I'd tried halibut before, so I'm glad I discovered another fish I like.
After dinner, we drove through the small downtown area on our way back to the hotel. We also stopped at the supermarket and picked up a few more things. Our hotel has a fridge, a sink, and a microwave, so I got some hot chocolate mix and Walendo got milk, and when we got back, I made myself a nice, warm hot chocolate. Yum. We watched a little TV and then drifted off to sleep.
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