18 July 2008 Homer and Return

Some of the scenery between Homer and Tok, Alaska

We had an enjoyable time in Homer. Gary went out on an all day fishing trip on Sunday. I stayed behind because it is too expensive and I don’t care that much for fishing. I told him he would have to come back with at least 20 lbs of Halibut fillets for the trip to pay for itself. Halibut are bottom feeders and you can find plenty of them about 300 feet down in the ocean. Well, Gary caught his limit of 2 and I now have over 20 lbs stuffed in our little freezer in the RV. Does anyone have a good recipe for grilled Halibut? While in Homer we went to a Farmers Market that the city holds on Saturdays, and then did some wine tasting at a winery that blends different wines with fruits. We ended up with a Shirazzberry (Shirazz and raspberry). Would have loved to have tried the Chilean Chardonnay with Rhubarb but they were sold out. Speaking of Rhubarb, Gary and I stopped at a roadside all inclusive store, restaurant, gas station, etc in the Yukon and had the best Rhubarb pie I’ve ever tasted. This lady also makes home made sourdough bread that could rival anything you get in San Francisco. As a matter of fact, we stopped there on the way back and bought a whole pie and 2 rounds of sourdough. (They won’t make it home).

We stayed at a campground run by the borough just north of Anchorage. It was so well kept and picturesque. Gary took a few photos of it but I think he was concentrating on all the “snow” from the Poplar trees. It was flying everywhere.
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On our way north the next day, we stopped at a Musk Ox farm for a tour. Very interesting. I had Gary stand by the main man, Goliath, so Autumn can see that they are not that large. Plus they don’t smell at all except, as we were told, during August when the males rutt.
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Then it was back to the worse roads of the trip. We should have been able to make it from Tok, Ak. to Whitehorse, Yukon all in one day. We did that going up to Alaska but that was on a Sunday. On Thursday, the delays for road construction both in Alaska and Canada held us up for about 2 ½ hours. In one instance we waited for the workers to clear away a blast area for about 1 ½ hrs. Then we had to endure the “frost heaves” – makes for a very tiring drive. Didn’t make it to Whitehorse that day!

Hopefully, we will be in Alberta in another 3 days. That’s where the next part of our adventure starts.