June 21: TRIP TO HOMER ON THE KENAI PENNINSULA

Hi everyone. We woke early this morning so that we could get an early start for the 6 hour trip to Homer, at the bottom of the Kenai Penninsula. Looking outside we saw blue sky. We just knew that today was the day for Dawson to see the "Great One", Denale...Mt. McKinley. Sure enough, we looked behind us and saw the beautiful mountain rising high above the road to the north. Can you imagine just driving down the road and see that HUGE mountain at the end of the road? It is huge!

Here's D taking his picture of his first view of the mountain. It doesn't show in this picture that I took d/t the haze in the distance.

Just a mile down the road D gets to see his first moose running across the road. We knew that this would be a good day when we saw the blue sky. Aah so....we were right!

But then, an hour or so down the road, after a quick stop in Wasilla at Mc D's for breakfast on the road, the back seat grew quiet. Looking back....this is what I found.

Tommy was quiet too....she was out, too. The snoozing rear seat.

Traveling past Anchorage to the south, we drove along the Turnagain Arm and pointed out to Dawson some of the remnants of the 1964 Good Friday earthquake, like how the land around Turnagain Arm SANK 6 FEET! We showed him the roof tops of the town of Portage.

Here is the snow plow engine on the narrow guage railroad that was built 50 yrs ago along the Arm.

This is Mt. Redoubt; it's a 10,000 + foot high active volcano. This is the view from across the Kemchamik Bay, along side the Kenai Penn. Remember last year when this volcano was spewing steam and ash etc? While driving down the west side of the penninsula, we made a brief stop at the charter boat captain's house whom Chris used for a charter two years ago. Had a nice visit with his wife. The captain of the boat was out on a hallibut charter with some big shot from BP. (I wonder if Obama knows that some of their execs are out having fun???)

We stopped at a scenic overlook from which we could see the town of Homer, and a wonderful view of the Homer Spit, from which the guys will take their hallibut charter tomorrow.

We're here.

We then looked for the location of the charter, then on to the cabin to chill for the evening. We have been so busy that a do-nothing evening is welcomed. So, I'm doing this blog and Chris is writing in his log book....and Dawson is watching Pawn Shop on the History Channel. (Haven't seen TV for over a month. Ya know what? We ARE still alive, too. :-)

Note: today is the summer solstice; sunset is at 11:51 in Willow. Already tomorrow morning sunrise is about 4 minutes later than it was this morning. There are loads of "solstice parties" , midnight baseball games in Fairbanks, midnight fun run. Sadly....we're not into that. Having our own fun. And that will be time spent in bed!

Tomorrow the guys have to be on the boat by 6:45 a.m. Then I get to browse the shops along the Spit. Can't wait!

So, until we "connect" again....