Homer, Alaska

In July my family minus Tyler (who was on a scout rafting trip), and Natalie (who was dip netting) went to Homer, Alaska which is a small fishing town on the Kenai Peninsula (look it up).  It's one of those small towns that basically shut down for the winter because who wants to drive all that way to get there (4 hours from Anchorage on a good day) in the snow or wants to go ocean fishing in the winter?  We left on a Thursday.  We decided that we weren't in a hurry to get there and that it would be fun to stop and see places if we wanted too.  Our first stop was in Cooper Landing.  We stopped and got lunch there.  We stopped at a little restaurant and I had the best burger there.  Then we stopped at the Kenai Lake and took some pictures there.   Of course the photo doesn't do it justice.  The water is turquoise.  It's beautiful and warm by Alaska standard anyway. 

After that we met up with Marissa, Dave and Ruby Murphy. Who had stopped for a lunch about 30 minutes away.  We followed them into Homer.  We camped on the beach on the spit.  The spit is a piece of land that is thinner then a peninsula.  We set up camp and just hung out there for the rest of the day.  Ella went to down to the ocean and collected shells (no shocker there) while Nate and Nichole went for a run.  On the run Nichole found a crab.  Too bad it was already dead or we might of had a really good dinner.  

It was nice just relaxing and listening to the tide roll in.  We had a great dinner that night.  Nate roasted some chicken kabobs and corn on the grill.  We also had chocolate chip, marshmallow, banana boats.  I didn't sleep that well that night.  I had a head cold so I didn't feel very well at all.  I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about how I much I hated camping and how cold it was outside.  But once I resituated myself and got warm again I wasn't bothered at all by camping.

The next morning we got up and had some cereal at breakfast and hung out for a while.  We decided to go tot he spit and see what kind of shops they had there.  Nate stayed back at camp while I went with everyone else.  I got everyone a salty dawgs sweat shirt.  Which is the thing to get while you are in Homer.  I also stopped at a restaurant and got some seafood chowder.  It was full of halibut, salmon, and crab.  It had a crab base not a cream base.  It was really good.  Unfortunately it was about this time that my sense of taste turned completely off.  We all went back to the campsite and cleaned up a little bit and just sat around.  I think that is what you are supposed to do while you are camping anyways.  The next thing I know Nichole is yelling "It's not working!" and the tent is trying to fly away.  Nate and Dave go running over to see whats going on.  The way the tent is built it was catching the wind inside of it and taking flight.  We hurried and emptied the tent.  We had to get a hotel to stay in that night because the tent wasn't well, it wasn't working.

It was so nice to sleep in a hotel even though the only thing that was available was a smoking room (we told Ella that because we were in a smoking room we all had to pick up smoking.  She didn't think that was funny at all).  We took a shower and left to meet The Murphy's at the Fat Olive which is a Italian restaurant in town.  Pretty much all of us got the same meal.  I kept asking everyone how their food was because I couldn't taste mine at all.  I was assured that it was very tasty.  I am still sad that I couldn't taste it.  We then headed back to the hotel room until my friend JulieAnne arrived.  JulieAnne family was supposed to arrive in time to eat at the restaurant with us but complications arrived on their way to Homer.  She left Eagle River around 11, was supposed to pick up her husband around 2 and make it to Homer by 4.  But about 90 minutes into her drive I get a text from her saying she is stuck in traffic because of a car accident.  A few minutes later I learn that it is a fatal accident and that there is an ambulance that has driven past.  2 hours later she is still stuck on the road.  At this time her kids are out of the car playing by the side of the road and in the woods right by their car.  Finally after many hours of waiting JulieAnne is allowed to go.  She passes a check point and is on her way.  What she didn't know was that it wasn't a fatal car accident there was a kidnapping.  A armed man had kidnapped a 18 year old boy from Anchorage and made him drive him toward Homer.  Along the way the guy had to go to the bathroom.  He made the boy pull over, took the keys out of the ignition and went into the bathroom.  The young man was so smart.  He had a spare key hidden in his car.  He started the car, took off and called the cops.  The man realized he no longer had a kidnap victim he took off into the woods to never be found again.  The check point was the 18 year old checking in all of the cars for the man who kidnapped him.  And to think the police let JulieAnne and her kids out of the car to play in the woods.  The very same woods that an armed mad was loose in.  Not too smart I think. Anyway JulieAnne finally made it to Homer at 9.  I met her at the beach and we all hung out for about 45 minutes before I left.

We all met up at a bakery the next morning for Breakfast.  It had some amazing food.  Then Nate, Matt and all of the kids went to the beach. While JulieAnne, Marissa, Dave, Nichole, Ruby and I went to a craft fare on the streets and then over to the farmer's market.  Finally I had my sense of taste back and was able to taste the A-Maz-ing bagel with a basil, herb cream cheese schmear on it.  And it was delicious! 

Then we headed back to the beach and over to the stores on the spit to do more shopping.  I bought an alpaca winter hat.  While we were out shopping it started raining.  Matt called and told us it was time to go back to the beach.  Nate, Ella, Nichole and I packed up and went home.  It was an uneventful drive home with the exception of the rain.  It rained the whole way home.  When we got home we picked Tyler up from his friends house.  Plus Bonus it was Tyler's birthday but I will save that for another post.

We only had the two kids and the dog in the van with us but we were packed to the brim.

 Kenai lake.  It was so beautiful.  I wouldn't mind having a beach house there.

 This is where we stopped for lunch.  The naughty dog got into the tortillas while we were eating lunch.  Apparently she wanted to eat lunch too.

 We stopped just outside of Homer to use the restrooms.  I was watching Ruby while Marissa and Dave went inside the gas station.  I put her in the car to watch the movie.  She didn't want to leave and got very mad when Marissa took her from the car.

 We told her that Nichole would gladly sit in Ruby's seat the rest of the way.

 Ella of course collected all the shells she could find.  I think she found 70 or more.

 Ella decided that she and Ruby were going to build us a new fire pit and was so mad when we wouldn't use her pit to make the fire in.  She didn't realize that we couldn't have a fire pit so close to the tents.

 Nichole with the nasty crab she found.

 Doesn't our roasted corn look so good.  It really was.

 Nichole and Ella waiting to go shopping at the shopping places on the spit.

 Salty Dawgs is a bar where people tack 1 dollar bills all over the place.  There is so many dollar bills that you can't even see any wall space there.

 Homer Sapiens is a little hippy store.  They sell home made items.  It was a fun store to go into.

 Homer Sapiens even had hula hoops for the girls to try.

Buttwhackers is the name of a fishing charter company.  That is a lot of Halibut

This is when our tent blew away!  It was sad.  But on the plus side I got to sleep in a hotel that night.

 Ruby loves Nate.  She has to sit by him all of the time and even cried when Nate went running without her.  This is while we were waiting outside to go and eat.

 Ella in her Salty Dawg sweatshirt and Nichole in her Salty Girls one

 We all tried Oysters that night.  I was very happy that I couldn't taste it.  Nichole liked them.

This is Saturday morning at the beach.  The kids were trying to build a sand castle.

 Paige and JulieAnne.

 The girls decided that their sand castles were going to be all connected to each other.

 At the Harbor

 What a cutie pie Emma is.

 Man I am such a goober.  Good thing you can't see this up close.  Anyway these are the bathrooms.  They were across the street and down the road about a third a mile.  It wasn't very convenient and I was super happy that I didn't have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night!