More fish, more rain.

We’ve been spending the week in Homer. Once again the weather has not cooperated and we haven’t been able to do all of the things we were hoping to do. Most days have been cold and rainy.

Homer is at the southern end of the Kenai Peninsula, and if you are familiar with the TV series Alaska:The Last Frontier on the Discovery Channel, it is where the Kilcher homestead is located and the series is filmed. UPDATE: When we went to dinner tonight before we leave tomorrow, guess who I met? Otto Kilcher, what a great guy! Had a really nice conversation, saw lots of pics of his horses and grandkids 🙂

We are staying down on Homer Spit, with a site right on the water. I took this shot of the Spit today which was the only day the sun really came out.

There is a glacier across the bay, the Grewingk Glacier. We were able to see it today when the clouds lifted.

Earlier in the week Christian went out deep sea fishing. He got 3 cod (~18 lbs. each), 2 halibut, and a pink salmon. We ended up shipping another 24 lbs. of fish home!

With the rain we looked for things indoors to do. The Alaska Islands and Oceans Visitors Center for the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge had some great exhibits, however most of the refuge is inaccessible via normal means. This dory was the last one used by biologists for the refuge and it was built in Massachusetts. An interesting exhibit told the story of the Battle of Attu, the 2nd most bloody battle in WWII when the Japanese landed unapposed in the Aleutian Islands after invading Kiska.

credit – Wikipedia

We visited a winery here that makes wines both from traditional grapes with fruit added (on the left) and also solely from fruit (on the right), and a number of them were excellent, far better than the fruit wines we have sampled at home!

We also squeezed in a bath for Beau at the local dog wash. He wasn’t a fan, but he smells MUCH better 🙂

One thing that loves the rain – the lupine are blooming everywhere.

And because I can’t resist, four years ago this week we were here, the weather was much better, and we took a helicopter to Lake Clark National Park to see the brown bears. We landed in a vast marsh and somewhere around 40 could be seen at one time. We wanted to do it again, but the weather didn’t cooperate and the price tripled.

ggg