Day4 : August 24, 2000
Exploring Homer

Today we decided to putter around Homer, check out the galleries, drive around the area, and go on a nature hike up on Skyline. It was indeed drizzly, just as the sun dog had predicted, but we figured it wouldn't get in the way of much.

We started the day by having breakfast at Cafe Cups again. I had poached eggs and Walendo had eggs benedict, both very good. Then we drove down the street and stopped in an art gallery called Ptarmigan Arts. It seemed to be a collection of works from a number of different artists, so there were watercolors, oil paintings, ceramics, woodwork, fabrics, sculptures, jewelry, handbags, a whole range. While we were browsing, the woman at the counter was training someone on how to run the store. I gather he was an artist and they each contribute to runnign the store, which seemed nice. We saw a few things that tempted us, but nothing really struck us, so we didn't buy anything.

Next we drove down to the Brunnell Art Gallery, which had things that seemed more like museum art, some of which we didn't "get". When we walked in, there were a whole bunch of sculptures of arms with hands on the top, shaped like a "How" greeting symbol, each one mounted on a stick that had a pile of dirt around it at the base. We waved at them. They had some sculptures with everyday implements and some huge oil paintings with lots of colored brushstrokes, and a wooden sculpture of a woman with holes cut out in places with sticks stored in the holes. It wasn't a place where we'd buy anything, but it was interesting to browse. Next door is the Two Sisters Bakery, so we stopped in and Walendo got a sandwich to have later and I got a hot chocolate and a brownie for later. As we headed back to the car, we passed the Inlet Bookstore one floor below. We almost managed to pass it up, but couldn't resist, so we went in. It was a small space that was packed to the gills with books, mostly used. In addition to the packed shelves, there were books on the floors in front of many of the sections, and you had the feeling that they just couldn't pass up buying books and then worried about space later. I almost escaped without any, but then I found the softcover fiction section and wound up buying 4 books, 3 of which look like they could be interesting historical fiction (like we have so much extra room to spare in our suitcases). Buying them felt like doing the store a favor by clearing out some of the books. Meanwhile, Walendo pulled a book off the shelf and opened it up to see a 1792 picture of the Manning Manse, a building in Billerica, Mass, which he said is now a Chinese Restaurant that he'd eaten at. He decided he had to get it.

On we went to the Pratt Museum, which had a really nice exhibit about the local habitat plus a floor on the Valez oil spill. On the top floor (where you enter), they had some diaramas with stuffed animals, showing them in their habitat, plus some skulls of many of the different species we'd been seeing plus others, and we were surprised to see how big some of them were. Wolves were suprisingly bigger than dogs -- coyotes seemed more dog-like in size. They also had an exhibit about fishing boats and its effect on the animals, and some on the artifacts of the native people. In another room was an exhibit about the local birds, and after yesterday's kayaking I could pick out a few we'd seen near Gull Island. They also had some small acquariums with weird crawly animals, including an octopus, which is a downright weird animal. They'd dedicated the downstairs space to an exhibit on the Valdez oil spill. They had lots of pictures of animals covered in oil, lots of quotes from officials of Alaska wildlife organizations, Alaska govt agencies, and oil company officials. There was a bit of an attempt to try to make it seem impartial, but there was a clear anti-Exxon spin to it. It sure seems like Exxon didn't handle the whole thing very well. Since they tried to deny the problem early on, it really undermines the $2 billion they keep crowing about having spent to clean it up. It amazes me how, even after J&J got so much credit for handling the Tylenol scare that other companies still don't get how they can help themselves by admitting mistakes and genuninely trying to correct them. After having been here, it had more of an impact to see where the oil was spilled. I had thought it had spilled off a remote coast away from people, I didn't realize it spilled in one of the most populated and beautiful areas of the state. They had a map that showed the area covered by the spill, and you could map that area over the region where you lived, so I put it up against California's coast and saw that it was the equivalent of spilling oil all the way from Eureka down to San Diego. Walendo noticed that, while the Exxon spill released 10.8 million gallons into the water, the biggest oil spill was 240 million gallons in the Persian Gulf somewhere -- hard to imagine.

Overlooking Homer Spit

After the museum, we decided to drive up to Skyline and see the view. First we stopped at a liquor store to get some drinks, and Walendo noticed that they had some boxes out for people to take, so we figured we'd grab one to put all the extra gifts and such we'd been buying. We figured we could mail it or maybe just check it on the plane. On we went, driving slightly out of town to West End Road, which took us up into the hills. We started to see some nicer homes, some of them A-frame houses with huge windows, like you see at ski resorts, overlooking the ocean. Walendo had been fanstizing about living in Homer since we'd gotten there, and he was very excited about the houses. I had to admit that some of them looked very nice. When I agreed that they'd be very nice to live in, he accused me of teasing him. It's hard to imagine living in such a cold place, but it certainly is beautiful. It was drizzling more consistently now, so when we got to the Wynn Nature Center we pulled into the parking lot and sat in the car while Walendo ate his sandwich. It turned out the sandwich was really delicious, so I ate a bunch of it. We decided to go back there and have more for dinner. The rain died down a little bit, so I got out to take some pictures of the lovely view from the center. As I was shooting, a woman came over to greet me and asked if we'd been in the center yet. I said we handn't but she encouraged us to go in and say hello to the naturalist, Jill, and go on a nature walk. I wasn't sure we were going to go in with the weather so wet, but since she made it sound so nice we decided to go for it. By now the rain had stopped anyway.

Wynn Nature Center

We walked along the boardwalk trail and the ground was so lush with colorful plants and flower. Walendo said the area seemed like a rainforest, which neither of us had expected. We made our way to the tiny cabin at the end of the path, and went inside to see Jill sitting by a wood burning stove. She was very friendly and asked if we had any questions. I asked about some of the flowers, and she told us some of the same information we'd learned from Don the day before. She said the fireweed that I'd been admiring all over the place appears quickly after an area is cleared out by fire.

Fireweed

It is a tall plant that has a series of buds that bloom from the bottom and then work their way up to the top. She said that the old wives tale is that when the buds at the top start to flower, it's 3 weeks till frost and 6 weeks till snow. Most of the flowers we'd been seeing were flowering on the top, so I guess winter's not far off. Jill gave us a self-tour guide book and showed us a 1/2 mile path around the nature center. She told us that there was a yearling moose who'd been hanging around lately and since today was kind of quiet, there was a good chance we'd see it.

Berries at Wynn NC

We took our time on the walk, and I took a whole bunch of closeup shots of the colorful plants, some of them turning red and orange. I took a bunch of narrow-depth shots of these red berries that were hanging down from green leaves. With the rich green background color, I think they'll look really nice (although I really should have brought my tripod, what a dope). We never did see the moose, but we really enjoyed seeing all the foliage. I read about a half or more of the information in the self-guided tour booklet and was surprised that I knew a fair amount of it already. It's funny how I never really got into these types of nature trail walks as a kid, but now I find it increasingly interesting to learn about plants. Eventually, we made our way back to the parking lot, where we deposited our booklet and then continued on.

Leaves with water drops

We drove back down to the main road and ended up on East End Road going out of town, even though we thought we'd be coming into town. As we continued along, it became even more rural, and we saw a combination of nice homes and old, worn homes, but many of them had colorful flowers all around them. It's nice how people make the most of the short blooming season. Walendo had been noticing a bunch of "No Annex" signs all over the place, and he pointed them out to me. Later we found that the town had ruled that they would annex the areas around Homer, even though that area didn't wnat to be annexed.

Plants at Wynn Nature Center

Of course we don't know the details, but it certainly doesn't seem like a town should be able to annex an area that doesn't want to be annexed. Probably just means more taxes for them. After a while, we turned back and, on our way back to the hotel, stopped back at Two Sisters to get sandwiches for dinner and some desserts. I couldn't help myself and got a raspberry-pecan pie and a gooey seven layer bar. Yum.

After stopping into the hotel, we got all our laundry together and went to the laundromat we'd noticed near the spit. It was a pretty nice laundry place, though a small load of wash was $2.75, kind of expensive it seemed. While we waited for the wash, we sat in the car and listened to Harry Potter. Then we moved them into the dryer, and back for more Harry Potter. After a short while we were done, and we went back to the hotel with lots of clean laundry, always a nice feeling. We ate our sandwiches, I overate desserts, and then settled in. I decided to check email and send off some email for work. One of the email messages I'd gotten said that one of the people using our alpha software was getting some error messages on the Palm, which bugged Walendo. He logged on and fixed the problem, directly editing the server from a laptop in our hotel room in Alaska, which was pretty cool. Then Walendo checked mail and found out that his Irish father had died. He'd just recovered from triple bypass surgery, though he was depressed and didn't want to eat. Walendo felt pretty bad about it and tried to figure out if he should cut the vacation short to go to the funeral. We figured it probably didn't make sense, but he could send flowers and try to call tomorrow. He wanted to talk to his mom to see what she thought, but it was too late to call her as well, so he'd try tomorrow. We talked about his reaction for a while, and then went to bed.

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