At the "End of the World", Alaska!"

11 Jul 2015--I am now 3 days behind in the blog...haha.  On Wednesday, the 8th, we drove down to the town of Homer and the Homer Spit about 60 miles south of where we are staying for the day. The Sterling Highway is supposed to be chock full of moose and we saw one fairly early in the drive off the side of the road, so we were pretty pleased with that.



We pulled over, just above the town entrance, at a pullout to look down at the "Spit" and the surroundings.  The Spit is the piece of land jutting out into the water in the pic beside Cathy.  At 4 1/2 miles long, the Homer Spit is the largest natural Spit in the world.  The flowers were at the pullout...I love the blue one!





Before we went out on the Spit, we took a couple of the designated "scenic drive" roads, which except for the occasional pullouts were nothing but trees, trees, and more trees.  We have found in our travels that you have to take the designation of "scenic" with a grain of salt.  We like the wide open spaces, where some people like a drive or hike through the woods...there are LOTS of woods here!  ugh!

Anyway, at least at the pullouts we finally saw some of those wide open spaces we like.  These pics are of the Grewingk Glacier and Lake.  Now these are worth the drive to see!!!



So down to the Spit we go.  It was a really cold day, overcast, damp and windy, so being right on the water didn't help, but you gotta go where the action is, so what are you going to do?  haha  Ellen and I are standing right at the water's edge...as far out on Land's End as you can get!

 


A sea otter was eating a crab and you wouldn't believe how much these seagulls wanted some. haha They were hanging in there and not leaving till he was through.  In the 3rd pic, doesn't his back flipper look like a really big hand?

 

There is something about a boat in the ocean with a snow-tipped mountain in the background that I find to be beautiful?  Anyone agree?  Not sure it does anything for Cathy: she said to me, "What do you have these 3 pictures with boats in them for?"  haha

 

Lots of people out fishing, and this guy got a good one!

 

Ellen and I walking along the road back from the Spit into town.  I asked someone with the exact same camera as me to take our pic at the Seafarer's Memorial...notice she cut the "S" off!  Ugh! Come on, this is not brain surgery!

 

Walking along the pier and in town to look at some of the gift shops.  Check out the eagles...both of them are talking to each other.



Leaving town and a last shot of the bay.



On the way home we saw this place along the road where we pulled over and had Cathy take our picture once we were able to climb up into the chair.  Cathy had to get up first and pull Ellen up so she could join me...(OK, maybe I needed a little help, but not as much as Ellen!)  haha



We have probably seen more bald eagles in Alaska than anything else, or at least as many as the sea gulls we have seen.  haha  It is amazing how many of the them there are, and I meant to say in an earlier blog you can tell their basic age by their colors.  These 1st 2 pics show an eagle at about 2-3 yrs old, while the 2nd row of 2 show a very young bird, almost a baby.  The darker they are, the younger they are. And they are usually around 5 yrs old before they get the white head of adulthood.




We were told that on the way home, at a campground called "Deep Creek", someone else saw a bunch of eagles, so we pulled into the campground and again hit the jackpot.  Here we saw both young and old.  And at first glance 2 of the pics in the last row look identical, but when you blow them up you can see the difference.  Does Cathy look cold here, or what?



For our last stop of the night on the drive home, in a town called Ninilchik, we stopped to see another Russian Orthodox Church.  But before we got to the church, amazingly close to the road, was this moose.

 

Here is the church, an interesting burial ground in front of it, and the town below.



After getting home, Ellen and I decided to ride down the road to see if we could see any more caribou, and we saw 2 of them.  Base on their horns I would say they are pretty young.  And they are sort of funny looking while they shedding their winter coats.

 

So this was a good day...very cold, but good!  We were still hoping for a bit of sun again...it has basically been overcast and at best cool since Ellen has arrived...but that was still to come.  It gives us something to look forward to I guess.  haha