A Day in Ninilchik, Alaska

Ken was up after midnight to take the next two photos.  The king salmon running on the river is closing at midnight tonight, so people are getting in every possible moment they can to catch their fish.

This is another photo of Mount Redoubt letting off some steam.

After lunch, we drove around the Ninilchik area for a bit.  On the way back to the RV, we saw this moose on the side of the road.Larry and Peggy invited our group to their home for happy hour.  Their home is in a beautiful setting beside Deep Creek.

Larry’s Roadkill Café.

It had been raining off and on all day today, so Larry set up tarps over chairs and the firepit.

We all brought happy hour snacks and Larry barbecued halibut, tuna, and salmon k’bobs.  Here’s everyone enjoying their meals.  From left to right:  Peggy, Larry is hidden behind Peggy, (the other) Larry, Ken, Marilyn, Dennis and Carol.

When Larry and Peggy were in Quartzsite this year, she bought this container that holds s’mores ingredients.  There’s a section for marshmallows, chocolate candy squares, and graham crackers.  We roasted the marshmallows and put together the s’mores.

Here are Ken and Marilyn enjoying their s’mores.  Larry and Peggy…we thank you so much for hosting the happy hour!

Before we knew it, happy hour had turned into more than 4 hours and it was time to go back to the RV to get rested for another day of our Alaska adventure.

Homer to Deep Creek at Ninilchik, AK

We only had about 40 miles to drive today from Homer to Deep Creek State Recreation Area at Ninilchik.  Before starting our trip, I went into town to get a few grocery items.  Back at the RV we prepared for the move and hooked up the truck and were on our way with a brief stop to add some fresh water to the tank and to dump the holding tanks.  At Deep Creek, we found a campsite near the end of the park situated close to the creek.  We are facing out to Cook Inlet.

Salmon fishing is open and there were several people fishing along Deep Creek.  From what we heard, Monday is the last day of the season.

Homeland Security no longer has the color coded threat alert system, but if it did…this qualifies for an orange alert.  Our friends Dennis and Carol are arriving and his favorite color is orange.

The eagles are plentiful here at Deep Creek and it’s difficult to pick just a few photos to post to the blog.  This young eagle was on the shore in front of the campground enjoying a meal of the remains of a fish after it has been cleaned by the fishermen.

Here are a couple of bald eagles in a tree on the bluff overlooking the campground.

And it’s mealtime on the shore for another bald eagle.

We saw a few low flyovers.

And then there was this bald eagle beach party.

We had a happy hour:  from left to right – Jan, Marilyn, Dennis, Carol, and Larry.

Marilyn and Larry are fellow Escapees who live in Ninilchik and came down to join us for a short visit.  Peggy is getting ready to run a 13.1 marathon in Anchorage this weekend.

Dinner is served.  Larry is cutting the meat and Jan is looking on as Carol loads up her first plate of food.

We sat out by a campfire until it started getting a little too cold then we all called it a night.  Ken got this photo of a ship out in the Cook Inlet with Mount Redoubt in the background letting off some steam.

A closer view of Mount Redoubt.

Larry and Peggy invited us to their place for a happy hour tomorrow night.  Other than that, it should be just a day for enjoying the beautiful scenery for us.

Suds, Fish & Wine

This morning we watched this double kayak hauled into Kachemak Bay for a fishing trip

How would you like to fight in a fish of any weight from this mode of transportation?

It just doesn’t look that comfortable for fishing.

Our first order of business this morning was getting caught up on laundry as it was stacking up so we were off to get things into suds and cleaned up.  The washing machines here in Homer are $4 per machine and a dryer is $.25 for 4 minutes.  But there’s a trick here to help speed up the drying.  They have a centrifuge machine in the laundromat, and we stuffed everything into it, and for $.75 it got rid of a lot of excess water still in the clothes.  After completing that task, we brought things back to the RV and once the clothes were put away, we headed out for lunch.  When we were at the Elks lodge the other day, Angie the bartender recommended trying the fish & chips at Captain Patties on the pit.  It was much better than what we had tried on the day we arrived in Homer.  We drove to one of the halibut charters that was recommended by the captain on our Seldovia ferry ride yesterday to check out what they had to offer and then to a local seafood market to check out their prices.  We left there still undecided about what we would do so we’ll think about it.  We then headed to the local hardware store to pick up a new toaster since the old one is toast.  From there, we drove to the Bear Creek Winery to purchase a couple of bottles of their wine.  Back at the RV, there was a bald eagle sitting on the tsunami warning alarm and it sat there for quite a long time.  Here’s one of the better photos.

And that’s it for today!

Ferry Ride to Seldovia, AK from Homer

As we were starting our day this morning, we watched as a car pulled up close to the RV with a surfboard on it’s roof.  This young woman got out dressed in her wetsuit and took it out into the water.  There was no wave action, so we just watched her go back and forth standing on it and using a pole to move along the shoreline.

We had a toursaver coupon for the Seldovia Ferry which we caught at about 9:45am this morning.  It was a little late and we watched it pulling in to the dock.

In this photo we’re pulling away from the Homer spit marina.

Seldovia is only about a 45 minute boat trip, but the ferry goes by way of Gull Island and spends about 15 minutes or so to see the nesting area for seagulls.

Gull Island has an arch in it.

We saw a lot of sea otters on the way to Seldovia.

We are pulling into the Seldovia harbor.

Some businesses along the shoreline of Seldovia.

As we look back down at the harbor, this is the Kachemak Voyager, our ferry to Seldovia.

We’ve been paying way too much for fuel as it is but we’re glad not to have to buy gas in Seldovia.

During Memorial Day weekend in Seldovia there is an annual woodcarving event.  There are numerous woodcarving throughout the townsite and the next two photos show a couple of them.  This is one of an otter holding onto a starfish.

This playground equipment woodcarving has several sea otters carved into it.

There was even a Deadliest Catch Jail in town.

We walked along the boardwalk in the next couple of photos.

The boardwalk is next to the Seldovia Slough.

Salmon are beginning to run up the slough and this man is reeling in a fish.

Here is has just brought it to shore.

I thought this house close to the boardwalk had some very interesting landscaping.

We had quite a bit of rain this afternoon, and found this bookstore and coffee shop along the boardwalk and used it for a break from the weather.

Before getting back on the ferry to return to Homer, we watched these men fileting their halibut.

The men threw an occasional piece to the seagulls and the tug ‘o war was on!

And after we checked in for our return to Homer on the ferry, we got this additional woodcarving photo outside the visitor’s center.

There were times today where I felt like the weather was just too miserable to really enjoy the day.   But looking back at the photos tonight as I post this blog, it was a great day regardless of the weather conditions.

A Day Looking Around Homer, AK

We had a lazy day in Homer today (okay…so we have a lot of lazy days).  Ken took this photo with the new telescopic lens this morning of a Navy ship headed into Homer.

We drove onto the spit a little later and saw it while docked.  Ken talked to a police officer at the site who told him there may be a open house on Friday or Saturday so we may try to check that out.

We went to several of the shops in town trying to find out the best deal for a halibut fishing trip and looking in to Seldovia and Halibut Cove boat trips.  We got a kick out of the weather report in one of the stores.

We drove out on the East End Road, but instead of following it all the way out as we did 2 years ago, we took another road that got us more into the Russsian Village.  This sign was at their school.

As we headed back to Homer, Ken saw this Chinese pheasant.  It sat quietly for a short while, but when it realized we had stopped the truck to look at it, it had a fit and made all kinds of noise to let us know we weren’t appreciated.

We saw two other Chinese pheasants as we continued toward Homer, and this one was headed out.

Back in Homer, we headed north on the Sterling Highway to get this picture of the Homer spit.  The Navy ship that we saw come in earlier is in the right fourth of the photo in about the middle.

Back down the hill, we stopped in at the Homer Elks Lodge.  This is our bartender Angie who was really fun…she gave us a few samples of the Bear Creek Winery wines.  We’ll be stopping by the winery to take some with us.  The blueberry and pomegranite were really good.

Then it was back to the RV for dinner and relaxing.  We’ll be reporting more tomorrow after our Seldovia trip (weather permitting).

 

 

Kenai to Homer

We left the Kenai Moose Lodge this morning, and after filling the propane take (at a cost of about $4.12 per gallon), we were southbound to Homer.  We saw a moose and 3 bald eagles, but the only photo I got today was this Homer, Alaska sign.  We are in the Mariner’s Campground which is the first campground on the right on the spit.  It is all boondocking sites run by the City of Homer at $15.00 a night.  They do have a slightly better rate for 2 weeks which is the maximum stay limit here.  We are overlooking Kachemak Bay and are planning on going halibut fishing while here as well as a boat trip to Seldovia.  We should be here about a week so we’ll be trying to look into the better weather days for our trips.

That’s all for today!