Why yes, September is early to get four inches of snow, even for Anchorage.

Update #4: Anchorage, adieu (October 4, 2004)

Wow, has it really been five weeks I've been in Alaska?? Seems like ages ago I crossed that frontier on the Top of the World Highway - and yet it seems way too early to turn the jeep around ...

Nope, that wave isn't surf - it's the tide! Turnagain Arm, about 20 miles south of Anchorage.

Anyway, picking up where I left off (Mon. Sept 27) ... When I finally finished fooling around with computers, I decided that the 2 days in Seward wasn't enough of the Kenai Penninsula, so I headed south once again, this time with Homer as my destination (home of that Motel 6 guy; in fact, he used to be the mayor). But, as always, I had to make a stop along the way; in this case, at a place I'd already seen twice before - a spot on the Seward Highway called Bird Point along the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet (R). But this stop was a matter of timing. You see, the Turnagain Arm (so named because Cook, realizing as he sailed down it that it didn't go anywhere, had to ... well, you get the idea) is very wide and shallow, giving it really really big tides called "bore" tides (second in North America only to the Bay of Fundy). Twice a day you can watch the bore tide roll in - and, if it happens to be near the full or new moon (as it was last Monday), the tide can be quite impressive. If you get really lucky that sucker can be six feet tall! People have even been known to surf the bore. This one wasn't that big, but still very cool to watch (in fact it was early, and I had to race it down the highway until I found a good spot from which to watch). INTERESTING FACTOID: The bore tides used to be even more dramatic before the 1964 earthquake made the arm deeper!

Portage Lake.

And there was yet another impromptu stop: After watchin' the tide roll in, I followed a turnoff towards Portage Glacier and the town of Whittier. I didn't go to Whittier, mostly because of the $12 toll to take the tunnel (and I've been told from folks who've been that it's no big whup anyway), but I did follow the road as far as Portage Lake and its visitor center. Interesting fact: The center seems to have been established to educate visitors about the Portage Glacier - which, over the years, has receded around a corner and is no longer visible from there!* But the lake is still there, and - lucky for me - a humongous iceberg had recently broken off from the glacier and, with a little help from the wind, sailed right up to the center where it ran aground. A ranger told me it's quite rare for such a big berg to show up this late in the season. It even made the front page of Anchorage paper!
*Apparently, if you go to Whittier you can then take a hike that gives a view of the glacier. But it was already getting late, and my cheap bone was aching.

One of Homer's more unusual residences (the grounded ship, not Repunzel's tower). Homer Spit. On to Homer ... A funky little community, I'd been sold on visiting by an Alaskan I'd met in a hostel who told me how diverse it is; apparently it is represented by some six politcal parties, including two flavors of Republican (the common variety, and a splinter group that sounds to me a lot more like what the Republicans should be about - true individual liberty, tolerance of homosexuality, less far-right Christian influence ...) Geographically, Homer is located at the very bottom of the Kenai, and features a four-mile spit that projects into the Kamechak bay - and it's on this spit that much of Homer's activity is centered (specifically, the harbor and all the touristy bits that are associated with it). The main attributes of Homer's personality seem to be tourism (predominantly boating, wildlife cruising, and charter fishing for giant halibut) and a thriving community of hippy artists, some of whom I met that day ...

A couple of views of Bishop's Beach and its inhabitants. Homer.

My first day in Homer, cloudy & a bit rainy, I divided into two bits. Part one was an a.m. stroll along Bishop's Beach (above). Then after lunch I borrowed one of the hostel's junky bikes and (after squeezing the rainwater from its leaky seat) hit the road into town and down Homer Spit. The first thing that caught my eye was some activity in a little park along the spit, and when I investigated I found some folks working on an unusual projet: a big basket made of wood, straw, shells - and topped with what turned out to be the leftover bits from the manufacture of wooden puzzle pieces. Turns out the artist had just come back from Burning Man, where she had worked on a massive project called the Temple of Stars (Google it). This much smaller display - "Burning Basket" - was to be burned at sundown, so after my exploration of the spit I returned that night, to join a few dozen denizens of the Homer art community. There was a new-agey ceremony, and when it was dark the basket was torched to very satisfying effect! To make the evening a bit more fun, there was present an old school bus that was the mobile home of an itinerant circus family, who apparently oscillate between Talkeetna, AK for the summers and somewhere in Mexico for the winters. They were in town to give a fire juggling workshop - and after the basket was burned, they gave a little demonstration. A very cool evening!

Burning Basket; before (left) and after (center). Afterwards, visiting circus folk juggled a little more fire (right).

The next day it poured, making it a museum day (if you're ever in Homer, I recommend the well-done, oceanographic Alaska Oceans Visitor Center, as well as the more tradtional history-of-the-people Pratt Musuem). Day 3 in Homer wasn't much better, so I spent part of it beachcombing and looking for critters in the tide pools (got so involved that the tide came in and surrounded my sandbar before I noticed, and I had to take off my boots & wade to dry land!), part watching for wildlife on the spit (and drying my feet) from inside the jeep (lotsa birds, a seal or two, even a couple of porpoises - but no good pix), and part, well, websurfing & sipping cocoa in the local cafe.

On day 4 the weather still wasn't showing any signs of improvement - it didn't help that every local I met told me how fabulous the weather had been all summer up until that week - so I declared enough and hit the road back north, with no particular plan other than Get to Anchorage unless something diverts me. I hit the town of Kenai around sunset and here's what diverted me:

Sunset from bluff overlooking the Cook Inlet, Kenai, AK. The pointy mountain you can see in the distance is Mt. Redoubt, part of the Aleutian Range - and is a volcano.

Mmmm, nice. Spent a good 45 minutes on this spot ... But as usual, every good picture I get I pay for. In this case, by the time the light faded and I moved on, I hadn't yet secured a place to spend the night, and Kenai has only pricy (~$80) motels, no hostel. Oh, and here's a tip: If, say, the hostel in the next town says they're open May-Oct, that may mean until October, not through October (it was September 30th, which I think means they should've been open anyway - but they weren't). Also, the "Vacancy" sign on the little motel doesn't necessarily mean that there's actually someone awake to answer the door (well, after all it was late - almost 10:00!) Some things just work differently up here ... With a cold moving in on my head & chest, and Anchorage only 2 hours away, I wasn't even considering camping - until I came across the Crooked Canyon campground, and then noticed that (a) it had stopped raining, (b) it wasn't too cold, and (c) it was free. So what the heck ...

The next day started bright and sunny! So instead of just moving on to Anchorage (I had already cancelled my ferry reservation, so there was no rush), and since I was within the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, I figured on one more Alaska hike - to the beautiful Fuller Lakes (below).

Lovely fall colors on the peak I didn't climb ...
... and two views from the peak I did (see down the valley in the right-hand picture, upper right? That's the direction I came from). Fuller Lakes hike, Kenai Nat'l Refuge.

As you might imagine, after 7.5 miles/2300' elevation gain I was pretty whipped by the time I hit the parking lot after this one (damn, why do I still have that gut???), so I made for the nearest hostel I knew would be open (near Seward) and crashed with a vengance. The next day ... yup, Anchorage. I've spent the last 3 days resting, and deciding what's next. Oh, and I caught a couple of movies at a place that Seattle should have: An Anchorage institution known as the Bear Tooth Theatre. Kind of like Boston's old Play It Again Sam's (anyone remember that?), they show second-run movies - and since they pulled out every other row of seats and replaced 'em with tables, you can have a burger and a beer while you watch! Nicely done, too! Seattle could definitely used one of these ...

Okay, enough! I've been sitting in this damn cafe sucking down mochas for five hours (if I didn't have this punch card, this update would cost $40!) I'm hopeful I'll be able to get in one more update before I get home, tho' since I won't see Anchorage again I can't be sure of finding the right facilities - not every internet cafe has Photoshop, you know - so we'll see. I have to admit it's been fun doing these, and thanks for passing it around & sending me your feedback - I do read them, even if I don't always write back. Nice to have my friends along!

Goodbye to Anchorage, it's been real (hasn't it?) But first, I have one more thing I gotta do before I head back ...

 - Rob

Some parting observations:

Alaskan pay phones are the worst in the nation! Not once, on trying a coin call, did I ever get my money back on a failed connection (which was most of the time). I have no fewer than three pending refunds from Alascom. Thank goodness (or, rather, thank Lynn) for the prepaid phone card. On the other hand, cell phone coverage was surprisingly good (tho' expensive when I had to use it); I could get a signal in just about every town in which I tried. Wow. I've driven a very significant portion of Alaska's paved highway system! Just about the only major exception is the "Haul" road (about 500 miles from Fairbanks north to Prudhoe Bay), which I think maybe I'll leave for next time. Redneck state? There is not a road sign anywhere in Alaska (outside of the cities) that doesn't have at least one bullet hole in it. iMacs are the worst computers ever made!!! At first I thought I had a good thing going here at the Kaladi Bros. Internet Cafe here in Anchorage where I've been composing these updates; fast connections, and each computer has the software I needed to make a good web log (Photoshop, FTP, etc.) But all but the least-demanding 'net surfing is WAY too much to ask of these POS computers! Every session, without exception, has been marked by freezes and hangs - in all I must have lost at least two days to these things! Next time, I bring a laptop ... (Okay, it's not an Alaska observation; just had to rant ...)