Don’t ask me why it has taken so long, I think it has just been a lack of motivation.  Work has been pretty busy and I got a case of the “there is always tomorrow”itis.  If memory serves me correctly we last left off from our trip to Alaska with our stay in Kenai.  The next morning we awoke early and hit the road for our jaunt to Homer.

Along the highway we saw several signs posted that listed the number of moose killed by cars for the year and ironically, despite the number being in the high 70’s, we had not seen anything up until that day.  Thanks to eagle eye Mike, we found one only an hour into the drive.  Below is a photo of our first moose sighting, number 1 of what would prove to be only a few to be seen our entire time in Alaska.

This next photo is the second moose to be spotted.

A couple of hours after the moose sightings we finally reached the outskirts of Homer and stopped at this “scenic view” stop where we got our first sighting of the Homer Spit.  A little disclosure here is that I don’t think we knew anything about the Spit even though we saw it from this view point.  I don’t recall about the others, but from my understanding of Homer, it was a beautiful town located on the water.  What we soon found out is that the Spit is pretty much where the action is…at least for tourists and fisherman.  Below is a small compilation of the scenic view from just outside of town.  The Spit is the skinny strip of land that you will see on the left hand side of a few of the photos.

As this trip was very educational in many forms, this was also another learning opportunity for us.  As we were leaving the viewing area a police officer pulled over a truck and Mike quickly explained to us that “All cops are jerks!”  At first I thought he was kidding, but then as I observed the frothing from his mouth, the red forming in his eyes, and the veins popping from his neck I quickly realized the true level of disdain for these fine men and what they do to serve and protect by laying their life on the line for us day in and day out.  I tried to change Mike’s mind, but he was having none of it and I still fear that someday Mike will die at the hands of a friendly police officer during one of his drunken rants while streaking through our neighborhood chasing his dog with a bic lighter. (Editor’s Note: Mike’s unsubstantiated hatred for peace keeping officers is not a general view of the management here at TeamFricke)

Our trip to Homer proved to be a first in many sightings and like the moose, this was our first sighting of an eagle up close.  We were driving down the main road and someone happened to look up and spot the eagle’s nest and so being the photography idiots that we are we quickly pulled over and started to snap away.  Below is my favorite photo from the bunch where I managed to luck into a photo of one of the eagles landing with lunch.  Below that is a quick montage of some of my other favorites.

After lunch we checked into our nice cabin and we quickly learned of the Spit by talking to the owner.  Simply put, the Spit is an extension of Homer, essentially a finger of land extending into the water.  There is a large marina on one side, plenty of shops and restaurants throughout, tour operators ready to sign you up for an adventure filled tour, plenty of campgrounds, and what looks like some pretty nice town houses at the very end of the Spit.  While the town houses looked nice, I can’t even begin to imagine how cold that must be in the winter.

The lighthouse that surprisingly is not that big.

A couple of bars with some interesting names.  For some reason we didn’t bother sampling any of the local beverages here.

The marina.

The mandatory photo with the fake fish.

This was also the first sea otter spotting for us, but nothing compared to what we would later see in Seward, but that’s another post.

There were also a couple of monuments in memory/honor of the lost fishermen.  It was at this point that I remembered seeing this on a show on Discovery channel.

Not so sure the girls were too happy to be watching Mike and run around on the rock beaches taking photos of the sea otter.  Fortunately all of their fingers were sticking up at this point.

Speaking of Discovery channel shows, for you fans of Deadliest Catch, Homer is the hometown and home port for Time Bandit and they also have a nice tourist shop set up with an actual crab pot set up with live crabs inside.

As I mentioned, the Spit is also where the fishing expeditions go in and out of and so naturally this a good place for them display the catch of the day and to clean the fish after the trip.

It’s also the perfect opportunity to suck gullible people, like Mike, into believing some things were actually swallowed by the fish. 

The shell is real, the finger is not.

Finally to end an adventurous/relaxing day we stopped off at the restaurant that has the “Best Seafood in Alaska”.  Unfortunately the wait was about 90 minutes and so I asked where the 2^nd best seafood was and without skipping a beat they quickly referred us to a restaurant down the Spit that proved to be quite the tasty dinner and prepared us for a restful night of sleep before waking very early for our fishing expedition…ironically not to be taken out of Homer.