Our plans for today included breakfast at Gwennie's before hitting the road. Plans that included being at the restaurant to meet the rest of Ryan's family at 8am. When I turned over in bed and gazed at my watch, it said 7.45 and I knew we were in trouble. However Ryan had also had difficulty rising, and we eventually got to the restaurant a little after 8.30. Gwennie's was fun, a very simple homespun breakfast place with lots of 'Alaska' decor, including stuffed animals and pictures of old Anchorage. Like any good breakfast place, the portions were huge. I noticed (and mentioned to Ryan) a new candidate for the 'Alsakan Uniform' - large grey beards and baseball caps, as sported universally by the five guys around the downstairs breakfast counter.
The drive from Anchorage to Homer is, without question, one of the most beautiful drives in the world. I have driven along the Pacific Coast Highway in California, the Great Ocean Road in Australia, and written the Orient Express through the Alps in Switzerland. Driving down Turnagain Arm, with massive rocky slopes to our left, snow-capped peaks across the water to our right and a deep blue slate of water between was truly spectacular, and right up there with the best of them. The drive was long and pretty uneventful - except for the excitement of spotting a moose cow and her calves grazing in a swamp alongside the main road. So many people stopped to snaffle this magnificent photo-op that the police arrived to move everyone along. Not before we got our pictures, though...
Then we arrived in Homer. We crested a one last hill, and the vista of Kachemak Bay stretched from the Cook Inlet on the right to our distant left, with the amazing sight of Homer Spit pointing out centrally into the bay. As we drove down the hill, Ryan said "if we ever moved back to Alaska, we would seriously think about living here" and it's impossible not to understand why. So beautiful.
Our lodgings tonight are the Chocolate Drop Inn - so called because it offers a fantastic view across the bay to Chocolate Drop Mountain, a dark, rocky stump - in contrast to the snowy peaks around it - that really does resemble a Hershey Kiss. The Inn is a huge log cabin with guest rooms, and a large open breakfast room/lounge. Our host Laurie is very friendly and obliging, and it doesn't feel at all like a hotel - more like just being at home in a fantastic setting.
We took a ride down to the Spit this evening, which is a strange hybrid of boardwalk, fishing port and upscale gift shops. For any place which depends to a large extent on tourism, there is always a danger that the pursuit of the tourist dollar can diminish the fundamental nature of the place that brings people in in the first place. Not here. Fishing, both commercial and sporting, is such a big part of life here, and the landing and even gutting of fish is a huge attraction for tourists, so the gift shops and restaurants fit snugly into the life here. We ate at Captain Patties Fish Restaurant - and while the handling of our arrival was poor - we waited 45 minutes for our table after being asked to come back in 15 minutes - the food was excellent.
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