Homer is a small town of around 6,000 permanent residents who have the good fortune of living in one of the most spectacularly beautiful areas of a spectacularly beautiful state. It's quite easy to find Homer if you're driving in Alaska. Simply take Alaska State Highway 1 south as far as you can go. When you reach the end of the road you'll find yourself in Homer.
According to an online article in Homernews.com the city was named after Homer Pennock. Mr. Pennock was in a party of 50 men and one woman who were with the Alaska Gold Mining Company who came to the area in April of 1896. When they went to establish a post office they needed a name and the crew decided on the name Homer because he had lead the effort to build housing for them. Now it's just my opinion, but it seems to me that naming it after the one "lady" in the group (Della Banks) may have been worth considering.
At the south end of the city is a 4.5 mile long stretch of land that juts out into the Kachemak Bay that is known as the Homer Spit. The spit features the longest road into ocean waters in the world and was recently named one of the top 100 beaches in the US (for it's views and diverse wildlife, not water temperature!) The spit is also where a number of restaurants, shops and the very large boat harbor is located. There are hundreds of fishing boats of all sizes from small private boats to charter boats, and even large commercial fishing and crab boats. I'm looking forward to going out on a charter Saturday in search of halibut, king salmon and rockfish. Hopefully I'll have a few stories and the pictures to back up the stories.
On Thursday we were up at the crack of dawn, which comes very early (around 5:00) at this time of the year. One nice thing about the long days is all the bonus time to explore. We knew that low tide would be around 10:00 and that would be a great time to walk the beach, which is just a few hundred steps down a small trail from our hotel. As we made our way down the trail Beth was in the lead. Suddenly she wasn't moving forward but was moon walking backwards with such grace and determination that Michael Jackson would have been pleased. I wasn't sure what had caused this sudden change until I looked in the direction from which she was backtracking. Much to our surprise there was a moose grazing casually on the trail. Thankfully it wasn't surprised or angered by our presence. We took a few steps back and enjoyed a few minutes watching her as she went about her grazing. She was paying no attention to the two spectators enjoying the spectacle from about thirty feet away.
While walking along the beach we laughed about our close encounter. We also laughed about the fact that the drive from Anchorage to Homer was through moose country so we were on the lookout the whole way. No moose were sighted on the 200 mile drive but all we had to do was walk twenty yards down a trail from the back of our hotel for an eyeball to eyeball encounter.
