NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 DAY 58 HOMER SPIT

We decided to head on down to Homer, Alaska. Yep, do that "tourist thing" by going all the way out on the Spit into the ocean, as far as we could go.

But first, we opted to pull into Deep Creek Rec Area to check it out, along the waters of the Cook Inlet. This is a heavily used fishing harbor where they pull the boats in and out with huge tractors with big balloon tires.

Down on one end as we were looping through the parking lot, we happened upon an eagle. It was sitting there on the log, making a funny screech sound. It was a different garbally sound than what we hear from most eagles in the past.

We aren't sure if it was a female calling out to her mate, or to her babies nearby. Maybe she was trying to distract us from a nest?

We stayed far enough away and used the long lens on my camera to capture photos. Then I happened to notice in the background there were a whole bunch of eagles lined up on the logs in the background!

They're all hanging out there in the same area. I'm not exactly sure why. Nobody was up and flying around or looking for the scraps from the fisherman? They were all just hanging out in that swampy area at the end of the parking lot. Very interesting.

We kept on driving down the Sterling Highway, going through small towns of Ninilchek and Anchor Point until we were reached Homer. 

The piece of land that extends way out from the end of Homer is called the Homer Spit. It's quite a tourist area. We normally don't do "touristy things"... but here we go.

I guess it was kind of a one-time-thing to say "Yep, we've been there". So we did it. See? We've been there!

And here's the proof, 

Our motorhome

 parked in front of the sign.

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know we usually seek out the out-of-the-way, rustic, quiet country type campgrounds in natural surroundings. 

But every once in awhile, for our tourist status sake, will do something like this...

Here we are, the middle of Homer. We are at one of the Municipal Campgrounds owned by the city. This one is called Fishing Hole, the other one is called Mariner.  It's $30 just to park in their lot. If you want to use their dump station or potable water, that costs you even more on your way in or out of the campsites. There are no hookups at the sites themselves. 

We were lucky to pull up in one that faces right out over Katchemak Bay. What a beautiful view!

We had some really nice neighbors to one side, and the other side was an open area for people to walk down to access the beach. Right in front of us we had a picnic table and a fire ring. What more did we need?

We watched the tide go out and we soaked in the seaside views up and down the shoreline. It was really pretty and we were kind of glad that we did do a city campground to experience this location.

As the tide went out, we went down and walked along the shoreline. We actually found a jellyfish! I guess it's very common that they wash up on the shore here on Katchemak Bay. You don't dare touch them or try to fling them back out into the water. You can get stung! Plus, I looked it up and it said they rarely live after they've been out of water for any length of time. So throwing them back in, really doesn't save them.

We left it alone.

We made doubly sure that Nick left it alone too. We saw some others here and there as we walked around. It was kind of nice to see the shoreline slowly seep away as the tide went out.

Steve grabbed the binoculars and was checking out the ships out in the harbor. We went on the Marine Traffic website:

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-151.0/centery:59.8/zoom:7

and checked out what ships were there, what they were hauling, where they were going and where they were from. It's very interesting!

Our views right out of the front windshield were absolutely beautiful. It was kind of a nice chance to see something a little different.

I zoomed in on that ship just to see what it was carrying. It looks like great big huge propane tanks or they are tanker trailers to pull behind semi trucks? They look to be about the same size as the ConX boxes up above them.  The Mariner website really didn't detail the cargo on this particular one.

What we noticed about being on the Homer Spit was that although you were down at sea level, in every direction you look there were mountains everywhere. It was really amazing to see everything ringed by mountains but yet you were down level with the ocean.

What's even more amazing is this is getting towards the end of June.  There's still snow everywhere on the tops of these mountains!! I guess in my mind, the snow mostly melted in the summers. Maybe it takes another month or so? It sure was beautiful and added amazing contrast of the trees just below the snow line.

We watched some heavy clouds roll on in. I thought we were going to be due for a thunderstorm. But I guess not, the weather really changes quickly and moves along fast. I am sure that the downdrafts and the updrafts from the mountains have a lot to do with controlling the weather patterns. You'll see clouds ahead of you, then in a few moments later, you will see blue sky. It's very interesting. It must make it very difficult for the weatherman to predict anything!!

Like I said, the cloud formations change quickly. Soon all those heavy angry clouds rolled away and now we could see the soft streaks of clouds and the blue sky. It was clear over to the volcanoes up the other side of the Cook Inlet. 

We had some pretty noisy people move in next to us, across the opening out to the beach. They weren't too close, but they were close enough to hear the country music they were cranking out of their pickup truck--- with all of the doors open and all of the windows down! 

Then the grandma came over to use our picnic table with her grandson to paint rocks. There weren't any picnic tables over by them. I offered to them that they were more than welcome to take the table back to their own site. It was right out in the front of our motorhome. They said they didn't want to move the table, and they would use it right there??? We could hear every word they were saying through the vents on the front dash of our motorhome. They were only a matter of two or three feet away. That wasn't comfortable. So we took the dog, locked the doors, and went for a walk instead for the evening. 

Later on, they closed two of the doors of the truck blasting out the music...  but not the windows. It muffled the country music some. About an hour later they started up the truck and moved it to the other side of their camper. Thank goodness! It made it quieter for us. 

I wish people would understand that maybe people surrounding them might not have the same taste in music. We certainly didn't. I think if you can hear the music beyond your campsite, it's too loud. 

During the night, quite a few people fired up their generators. Then if their generator was running, their voices had to be louder to get over the sound of the running generator! 

So it was not that relaxing of a night for us. We heard a lot of noise of vehicles coming and going. A lot of generators. Car alarms. Door slamming. And people just having a good time. 

I guess that's why we enjoy our remote quiet natural campsites in the woods?

In the morning we woke up to see the tide was out and the area was exposed again in front of our campsite.

It sure had a form of rugged natural beauty, and we enjoyed seeing the secret underside of the ocean floor that only the fish usually get to see...

It didn't look like it was going to be a very sunny day. We had a few rain splatters here and there while we made breakfast. I think that was about it for our "tourist thing" for staying at the municipal campground. Time to start packing up.

We looked around, and most of the RVs had already left. The night before, this entire parking lot was packed solid with RVs of one sort or another.

We drove through the rough and bumpy lot as the city workers were there cleaning up the messes from the night before. All too soon, each little slot will now be filled up by a new tourist! 

We got road-worthy, and exited the campground. Of course we had not yet driven to the very tippy top end of the Homer Spit. So we had to do that now, didn't we? We didn't come all this way to not reach the tip.

This next section of Homer is all commercial, touristy, shops and restaurants and bars. There really wasn't anything we wanted to stop and look at, but we drove down among them just to reach the end of the Spit.

Many of the shops are built up high on stilts to withstand the onslaught of storms and high waves that sometimes can attack the area.

A lot of fishing tours and charter boats leave from this area, as well as commercial fisherman bringing in their catch to the local processing plants. It is known as the Halibut Capital of the World.

Some of these buildings are original structures, but others have been rebuilt time and again, after storms have wiped them out.

We were going to park the RV in some of the public parking access areas, like these two RVs did. Then we could get out and walk around. But the rain started drizzling and we figured we'd do best by just driving around, doing our geegawking out of the windshield instead.

This is the famous Salty Dog saloon. I guess everybody puts their dollar bills up on the ceiling with thumbtacks. It was 11:00 in the morning so we didn't think it would be open yet. Sure enough, we drove past when the door was open and people were in there already drinking. 

But we had some miles to drive today, so we didn't want to start out the day with alcohol. Especially at 11:00 in the morning?

We drove on past the Homer Ferry Terminal. We had originally thought about taking the ferry from Whittier over to Homer. That would have been quite an interesting trip but a bit too long for leaving Nicholas all alone in the motorhome down below deck. But it was nice to see where the ferry lands at the end of the spit.

And yes, we drove to the very end of 

The Homer Spit!

The sign said so!

Here is the YouTube that goes along with today's blog:

Now it was time to head back north, get off the Spit, through the rest of Homer, and back up the Kenai Peninsula.

Next we are headed to Skilak Lake. 

89 miles traveled today 

4,974 miles traveled so far