530 miles for dinner with a view
Sunday July 2nd, we split up into two groups. Matt and John went for an overnight backpack trip into the mountains and Jim and Monique rode 265 miles south to Homer on the Kenai Bay.
Sunday we got on the road with plenty of sunshine and cool temps. Great riding weather. From Palmer there is only one highway south and that leads through Anchorage about 40 miles away. Once south of Anchorage the road returns to two-lane, winding around Cook’s Inlet with the mountains close on one side and the sea on the other.
Traffic is heavy since this is a holiday weekend and everybody who owns a set of wheels is on the road to somewhere else. Passing RVs and towed boats keeps us awake. It’s kind of a game since we pull off for breaks about every 50-60 miles. Then we get back on the ribbon of asphalt to pass some of the same people again and again. There is something exhilarating about accelerating around a huge RV from 50 to 85 (mph) and then slowly rolling back down to 70. We keep this game up most of the day and get to Homer about 17:15 local.
Here we are at a pull off overlooking a fast flowing river (creek?) somewhere in the middle of the peninsular crossing.
Coming into Homer, we watch a bald eagle flying over the sea off to our right. We stop at an overlook and I call the Crane’s Crest B&B where we have a reservation for tonight, I get directions which include 2.2 miles up a dirt road on the crest of a ridge. After a wrong turn and a second call, we arrive at Kate’s place overlooking the bay. WOW!
Here’s a view out of our bedroom window.
Kate is an avid bird watcher and wildlife fan. She shows us pictures of the Sandhill cranes that live here and then the gangly moose calves that arrive each year. As we talk with Kate it is clear that she had a vision of what she wanted for years and that she worked steadily towards its fulfillment. The land, the house, the metal igloo all have a story. All tell of her determination to be in this place.
We ask Kate about dinner and she recommends the Land’s End restaurant at the very tip of the spit of land sticking out into the bay and insists that we take two pair of her binoculars to scan the sea for wildlife. As we ride out the narrow finger of sand and rock, the sheer number of campers and RVs on either side of the road is amazing. There are wood fires burning and the smell mixed with the faint smell of the sea is perfume despite the chaos of the many people on the beaches on either side of the road. At the very end there is the Land’s End Restaurant with a long row of condos off to the right. We find a parking spot for the bikes in the gravel and decide to take our gear in rather than leave it on the bikes. This spit of land seems to have attracted a very wide assortment of humanity and all of them are intent on fishing or wandering around gawking at the mountains. I have the sense that I’m seeing a significant summer ritual of some kind her in the “Land of the Midnight Sun”.
The “Welcome to Homer” sign at the city limits includes the tag line “the halibut fishing capital of the world” and Monique goes for the Halibut on the menu. As she said, “it’s a long way to go for dinner“.
Sunday we got on the road with plenty of sunshine and cool temps. Great riding weather. From Palmer there is only one highway south and that leads through Anchorage about 40 miles away. Once south of Anchorage the road returns to two-lane, winding around Cook’s Inlet with the mountains close on one side and the sea on the other.
Traffic is heavy since this is a holiday weekend and everybody who owns a set of wheels is on the road to somewhere else. Passing RVs and towed boats keeps us awake. It’s kind of a game since we pull off for breaks about every 50-60 miles. Then we get back on the ribbon of asphalt to pass some of the same people again and again. There is something exhilarating about accelerating around a huge RV from 50 to 85 (mph) and then slowly rolling back down to 70. We keep this game up most of the day and get to Homer about 17:15 local.
Here we are at a pull off overlooking a fast flowing river (creek?) somewhere in the middle of the peninsular crossing.
Coming into Homer, we watch a bald eagle flying over the sea off to our right. We stop at an overlook and I call the Crane’s Crest B&B where we have a reservation for tonight, I get directions which include 2.2 miles up a dirt road on the crest of a ridge. After a wrong turn and a second call, we arrive at Kate’s place overlooking the bay. WOW!
Here’s a view out of our bedroom window.
Kate is an avid bird watcher and wildlife fan. She shows us pictures of the Sandhill cranes that live here and then the gangly moose calves that arrive each year. As we talk with Kate it is clear that she had a vision of what she wanted for years and that she worked steadily towards its fulfillment. The land, the house, the metal igloo all have a story. All tell of her determination to be in this place.
We ask Kate about dinner and she recommends the Land’s End restaurant at the very tip of the spit of land sticking out into the bay and insists that we take two pair of her binoculars to scan the sea for wildlife. As we ride out the narrow finger of sand and rock, the sheer number of campers and RVs on either side of the road is amazing. There are wood fires burning and the smell mixed with the faint smell of the sea is perfume despite the chaos of the many people on the beaches on either side of the road. At the very end there is the Land’s End Restaurant with a long row of condos off to the right. We find a parking spot for the bikes in the gravel and decide to take our gear in rather than leave it on the bikes. This spit of land seems to have attracted a very wide assortment of humanity and all of them are intent on fishing or wandering around gawking at the mountains. I have the sense that I’m seeing a significant summer ritual of some kind her in the “Land of the Midnight Sun”.
The “Welcome to Homer” sign at the city limits includes the tag line “the halibut fishing capital of the world” and Monique goes for the Halibut on the menu. As she said, “it’s a long way to go for dinner“.
posted by Jim Laney at 2:34 PM
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