The next day was sunny and Kim was excited to ride her new 1200. We were headed for the Kenai Peninsula and Homer, both anxious to get away from the city as fast as possible. Fanda and Kaschka were ensconced in their host’s home and had decided to stay until we came back through from Homer for Valdez.
As we rode south for the peninsula, the views were awesome along the coast and as we got further south the rains came in increasing volume. In addition, the rains came in increasing volume into Kim’s new Gaerne “waterproof” boots. She was not a happy camper. My Forma boots have seeped water in every rain and they are a major disappointment, having replaced a 9 year old pair of Oxtar (TCX) Infinitys that were as comfortable as an old pair of jeans and absolutely waterproof. I too had had enough of wet feet but had not found any boots to replace them on the road. At the old fishing village of Ninilchik we spotted the old Russian church and cemetery, stopping to view the ocean and small village below. A couple in an SUV stopped to talk with us about our trip and such for a while, then we rode down into the little village itself.
The lone souvenir shop was host to a resident artist who did sculpture and jewelry from fossilized whale bone and other local materials. Kim ended up buying a heart necklace made of whale bone. It was warm and cozy with the wood stove going and quite difficult to head back out into 50 degree temps and rain.
As we sat in the rain on the bikes preparing to leave, the artist/sculptor came running out and told us a couple of places to stay and eat in Homer. He and his wife were real sweethearts...
Over the next hour or so we glimpsed the water from the high cliffs occasionally between patches of fog and rain. We eventually reached Homer and the Spit in heavy rain, riding out to the tourist boardwalk and shops in the “Halibut Fishing Capitol”. We were cold, wet and hungry and a late lunch of clam chowder and grilled halibut made everything alright.
We walked in the rain, surveying a lot of tent campers set up on the rocky beach but we just couldn’t muster the desire to set up and camp in the heavy rain, finding an old small hotel instead. The room rate was reasonable, the old lobby warm and cozy with a fireplace and we were done. The room was tiny but felt like a mansion. That evening we walked to the beach and then around the little town in the dark.
One thing about the trip that we’ve found is that every certain number of days you just wake up and can’t do anything that day. It isn’t from any obvious reason, so much as fatigue or exhaustion, but it seems the body just needs to reset itself whether you want to or not. Such was the next day. We awoke to rain and just couldn’t get going, so we decided to stay another night and act like a tourist. We wandered the beach, the tourist shops and had another fish & chips lunch. We watched otters and fisherman near the shore. We walked on the boat docks and watched halibut being offloaded. We watched an otter sleeping on his back and floating next to the walkway. We wandered the little boardwalk and watched the halibut we’d seen earlier being filleted like warm butter. We came back to the hotel and lounged in the cozy, old lobby listening to foreign tourists converse. We looked at photos of eagles and bears that the hotel manager had on his online gallery. We acted like tourists on vacation and it was wonderful.
Late that night we got a text from our friends Dave and Heather who had left Fairbanks and wanted to meet us. We agreed on Seward for the next day. Later that night we got a text from Ronetta, the photographer we’d met in Denali, asking us to come stay with her in Anchorage. Our next day was planned, Seward around 2 for coffee with Dave and Heather and then the evening with Ronetta.