Friday, July 22, 2022 - We are lucky to have Bob and Charlotte Capp visit with us and travel with us around Alaska over the next three weeks. They arrived on the 21st at 2:00 in the morning and spent Thursday getting used to the time changes from Dallas, Texas (three hours later). We have been looking forward to having Bob and Charlotte share our traveling experiences with us. The more the merrier!

Today we make the seven hour drive from Anchorage to Homer, Alaska. We are on our way to spend three days in the town of Homer and visit the famous Homer Spit. Homer Spit is like a huge jetty that extends into Kachemak Bay for 4.5 miles. The Spit is actually a terminal moraine that formed between 14,000 and 15,000 years ago by a glacier. It sticks out into the bay and forms a jetty-like peninsula. The town of Homer was originally on the Spit, but it was moved to the surrounding coast hills in 1964.

As we neared Homer, we came to a great place to park the camper on a pull-out that gave us a great view of the mountains across the bay. We stopped, put out the side deck, and had a picnic lunch with a great view. There were also flowers all along the side of the road with fireweed, queen Anne's lace, and daises all along the side of the road in front of the RV. It was a spectacular place to have lunch.

We arrived at the Homer KOA Campground and found a beautiful, well-maintained RV park nestled on the cliffs above the Kachemak Bay. We arrived on a clear day and the views are simply breathtaking. Huge mountains to the west and south with snow on the upper peaks and glaciers scattered about. We had a great view from the side deck of our RV.

We drove into Homer and then proceeded out onto the Homer Spit. The spit is unique. It extends for 4.5 miles and contains the longest road in the world on this type of geologic formation. There are several RV parks on the Spit, a huge marina, and lots of stores for food and tourist sales. There are also adventure sales firms on the spit and you can fly to see bears in the wild, fish for salmon or halibut, and you can take flights to sightsee the beautiful mountains around the Spit. Homer is a huge halibut fishing location. The largest halibut caught in the world (374 pounds) was caught in Alaska.

Saturday, July 23, 2022 - Today is one of the biggest days of our three-week travel experience as we fly with Bearfoot Adventures to view brown bears in the wild. We set the alarms for 4:30 am and had breakfast before heading over to the terminal at the Homer Airport. There, we met Luke XXXXXXXX who is the owner of Bearfoot Adventures and he has over 30 years of flying experience and landing on the beaches around Homer. He flies a 1969 Cessna 180 aircraft that can hold five people. He has the huge rubber balloon tires on the plane that allow him to land on rough surfaces like the beaches in the area. As we fly along the beaches, Luke scans the shore for bears and then lands near them. We then walk out on the mud flats (Luke provided rubber boots to all of us) and get "up close and personal" with the bear. This is all done during low tide. The bears have a strong sense of smell and they can smell clams buried below the surface. The then dig down (sometimes as much as two feet) and scoop out the clam, break it open, and eat the soft insides. They are so focused on what they are doing and they have seen so many people in the past, they do not pay any attention to us. We got as close as 30 feet from the bears. We did find bears, but we had to travel to several spots to see them. We had a total of three landings on the beach. The bears are brown bears which are essentially grizzly bears that live along the coasts and eat clams and salmon as compared to grizzly bears which are brown bears that live inland and eat primarily berries and small animals that they can catch. After the tide began to come in, we took off for some "flight-seeing" of the beautiful mountains and glaciers around Homer. Be sure to see the photo gallery and video of this adventure. This adventure is fairly expensive with a cost of $710 per person. It did last for five hours and Luke is an excellent tour guide. He definitely knows his business.

After the flight, we returned to the RV for a wonderful hotdog lunch (ala Costco style) before we took a drive out onto the spit. We walked up and down the main commercial area of the spit and also checked out the marina. Boats were bringing in their catches and there were some nice looking halibut and salmon on the docks. We then walked the main street and visited The Salty Dog which is a bar that has dollar bills tacked to the entire inside ceiling of the bar. Even the walls are covered in "green." It is a landmark for the Homer area. We also checked out the Homer Fishing Hole which is an area cut into the spit that allows water (and fish) to enter during high tide and then closes up to make a fishing location at lower tides. Lots of people line the shores to fish in the Homer Fishing Hole.

Sunday, July 24, 2022 - We awake to a beautifully clear day and decide to take a hike at the Wynn Nature Center just northeast of Homer. This nature center is a piece of land that was donated to the parks system to be used as a nature preserve with hiking trails and great views of Kachemak Bay and the Homer Spit. We also were provided the opportunity to use the actual outhouses located at the main building of the nature center. Nothing like stepping back in time to when you had to walk outside to another building to use the restroom. We then went out to the longest trail at the site (about three miles) to begin the hike. Along the way we encountered all sorts of unusual flowers that were very pretty. We also found that if we took a photo of the flowers with our IPhone, we could use the phone to identify the flower. This is a pretty cool function of the IPhone. The hike continued through some heavily wooded areas that would occasionally open to great views of the bay. This was a very informative and beautiful hike.

After the hike, we drove along the mountain-top looking at the nice houses in the area and searching for more views of the bay and spit. We also had a "ringside view" of the large glacier located across the bay on the mountain top. After about 30 minutes, we drove back to the RV where we relaxed and did some chores, including the laundry.

Monday, July 25, 2022 - We drive back to the Black Spruce RV Campground at Elmendorf AFB, in Anchorage.