Girls Weekend 2026. Saturday, October 10. New York City

Girls Weekend 2026 New York City Saturday, October 10

Good morning!  (Lori’s day to write!) We woke up this morning around 7:30ish and made ourselves a cup of coffee in our single server Keurig machine.  After chatting some, I decided to take a shower so I could walk to the cute little coffee place (Milk and Pull) around the corner for a gourmet coffee and to check out the corner market in search of butter and some Rubbermaid or the like containers for our leftovers.  We have found ourselves in need of these every year on our trips and we forgot to look for some while at the AMAZING food market yesterday.  On my way to the coffee place, I noticed that the beautiful church I passed along the way was open.  We had noticed the church our first evening here because of the beautiful stained glass windows we could see from the street.  Since the doors were open I decided to step in and take a few photos. Turns out it is a Catholic church named Holy Rosary and I was invited to come in for the mass they would be having this morning.  I stated that I just wanted to step inside to look at and take photos of the beautiful stained glass windows.  I ended up having a conversation with a couple of sweet ladies who told me that this is the “working people’s church” because back when it was built, working people were not allowed to enter the “rich people’s” church, Our Lady of Victory which is roughly 5 blocks away.  It was a very pleasant interaction with these two.  I took photos and thanked them for sharing the information and continued on to the coffee shop, where I got my mocha with oat milk.  When Kathi cooked the night before she made mention of the fact that we could use some more butter (REAL butter) and we have found that it is always beneficial to have food containers on hand to store our leftovers and we found none in the kitchen. On my way back I stopped at the corner market which is pretty much junk food heaven with only Parkay margarine and no reusable food containers at all.  We will have to look these items for elsewhere!

I returned to our home away from home to edit my photos from yesterday’s outing and start today’s journal entry!

Today we have a couple of things on our agenda.  First at 2pm we have tickets to see the Old City Hall subway station which is no longer used as a stop but, with tickets, you can get a tour.  I have been excited about checking this out because it looks elaborately decorated and beautiful and because it is a unique thing to do here in the city and it takes a bit of effort to get a ticket.  Tickets are sold only three times a year and tend to sell out in minutes, so one has to get online the day and the minute they go on sale if one stands a chance of getting a ticket.  Prior to doing that, however, one must become a member of the New York Transit Museum, because only members can purchase tickets.  If one is lucky enough to get a ticket, THEN one must pass a security check in order to be allowed entry to the restricted site. Kathi and I were both lucky enough to pass the test and were allowed entry.  The second item on our itinerary was a history tour titled “Edgar Allan Poe In Greenwich Village”.

We were fortunate enough to have beautiful weather for our tours which made strolling the street of the city very pleasant.  We met with our tour guide and the rest of the group in City Hall Park, where our photo ID was checked and we were handed receivers on lanyards along with earphones so that we could easily hear our guide and the stories he had to tell.  The tour began with some history of the subway system and the logistics of building such a system.  This coincided quite nicely with our tour of the New York Transit museum yesterday where we saw many photos and artifacts showing the construction of the tunnels. What greuling work!

In 1904, New York City’s very first subway ride departed from City Hall Station.  Thousands of people showed up.  The train was only 4 cars long and the station was a work of art with vaulted tile ceilings, leaded skylights and elegant chandeliers, much of which is still in place today. The platform is curved (which is rare in subway design), following the arc of the street which it sits below.  Once the use of the subway increased and more cars were added to the train it became clear that it was no longer feasible to use this platform as a stop because the straight part of the platform can accommodate no more than 4 cars safely. The station was decommissioned in 1945 but the number 6 train still passes through on a regular basis.  If you are interested in reading more of the history of the unique and beautiful station you can do so here: https://secretnyc.co/old-city-hall-subway-station-hidden-history/.  As an aside, Mayor Mamdani chose to have his inauguration ceremony held here.

Once we were back above ground at the end of our tour, we had to quickly leave the group and find the train that would take us to Greenwich Village for our Edgar Allan Poe tour.  This was a delightful 2 hour walking tour of the Village that took us by the many places Poe lived between 1837 and 1846.  Our tour guide, Andrea Janes, is VERY knowledgeable regarding Poe and is quite obviously a big fan.  We met at 85 West Third Street which is the row house where Poe lived at the height of his career.  It is now part of NYU and there is a plaque on the outside of the building that explains that this was once Poe’s residence.  We chose this tour because it is close to Poe’s death date of October 7, 1849 and it is only offered in October. Poe finished revising  “The Raven” while living here as well as writing “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Facts in the Case of M Valdemar”.  Poe brought his young wife (who was also his first cousin and was 13 at the time of the marriage) here to live with him.  Unfortunately, she died of tuberculosis at the age of 24.  Her prolonged illness and death provided inspiration for many of Poe’s writings and deeply affected him.  The tour included stories of Poe’s doings while living in the Village which included some dalliances with some married women who held literary salons in their homes.  The guide spoke of these dalliances as being mostly exchanges of passionate poems and letters but people in literary circles were aware of these goings-on, and they eventually led to Victorian scandals & threatened duels. 

The guide was passionate as well as knowledgeable about her subject which made for a very interesting and enjoyable tour.  I would highly recommend any of her many history tours, operated through her company Boroughs of the Dead, to anyone visiting New York City who is interested in the darker side of the city’s history.  Another aside here; the first time Kathi and I came to NYC together decades  ago, we stumbled across a delightful gay piano bar in the Village where we enjoyed the company and sang along with the crowd to show tunes.  This tour took us by that establishment, Maria’s Crisis Cafe, which has been a fixture in the Village since the late 1800s and brought back happy memories.  We gave a fleeting thought to returning there after the tour, but we were tired and the place was packed, so we decided against it.

By the end of this second walking tour, my arthritic feet were screaming in pain and we were ready to head back “home”.  We were also quite hungry and made an impromptu decision to buy pizza slices for dinner as we walked by a pizza place on our way from our final subway stop to our cute, little brownstone.  Kathi was feeling the need for a glass of wine, too, so while I went on home, Kathi messaged our airbnb host to ask where she might buy a bottle of wine nearby.  She realized that the liquor store was farther away than she wanted to walk and she opted to, instead, buy ice cream from Milk and Fill, the coffee shop where we had gotten our morning coffees the day before.  She chose a scoop of pumpkin spice and a scoop of chocolate chunk.  YUM!!  We settled in to eat our slices and decided to watch a television series, “Blue Ridge”, which would most likely become our nightly watch while on this trip.  We watched a couple of episodes, then turned in for the night.  Good Night, all.

Girls Weekend 2026, Friday, October 9. New York City

Friday, October 9, 2026

We slept kind of late this morning—at least for us—and didn’t get up until after 8:00, then spent a couple of hours doing absolutely nothing productive. No laptops, googling, or writing. Just chatting, catching up, talking about what we might do today, changing our minds, and generally enjoying one of those gloriously unstructured Girls Weekend mornings we love so much. We finally started getting ourselves together around 10:00 and left the house at about 10:30 in search of coffee and breakfast. Jason (our host) had recommended a place called Milk & Pull, so that became our destination. Lori had a bagel and cream cheese and a mocha; I had a bagel with lox, cream cheese, capers and tomatoes, and a vanilla latte. The coffee was tasty but not hot enough - why is it so hard for fancy coffee to be served hot? We took our breakfast onto the train and headed for the New York Transit Museum, which is here in Brooklyn. What a GREAT place! We wandered and explored for at least three hours and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

The visit to this museum cleared up a bit of my confusion involving my adventures yesterday. When I exited the airport and was trying to get onto the shuttle into the city, I proudly pulled out my old MetroCard, which I had actually remembered to pack (yay, me!) However, when I put it into the machine it was promptly rejected. This was confusing but I figured you needed a new MetroCard every year or something. Today at the museum we learned the true why: the MetroCard has gone the way of the 8-track tape and is now defunct. Sigh.

Everyone knows I love a physical map (I even still purchase a new road atlas every year), so before leaving the museum we went into the gift shop looking for an actual hard-copy subway map. No luck, but we were told that we might be able to find one at a major MTA station where there was an actual human being working rather than just the automatic turnstiles. We had also learned at the museum that because of the beautiful wall mosaics and other decorative features, Borough Hall station was one of several New York subway stations on the National Register of Historic Places. It was a large station not far away, so off we went, hoping to kill two birds with one stone (by the way, this saying offends my soft-hearted, creature-loving friend Katy, who prefers “feed two birds with one scone” but I think it loses a bit of the effect.)

We found Borough Hall easily, went down to the tracks and immediately saw some really cool tile work, but we couldn’t find the tile art that supposedly helped make the station historically significant. Back upstairs we went, where we found an actual MTA attendant and asked her about it. Not only did she direct us to the art, BUT SHE ALSO HAD SUBWAY MAPS! YAY!!!!! Physical maps successfully acquired, we went back down to find the artwork and take photos.

Over the past several years, when traveling with her husband Tom, Lori has developed a personal pose for photographs that Tom has labeled the “Glory of Lori” series. They travel quite a bit and have one of these photos of her in many places. The pose involves standing starfish style, usually in a wide-open setting. We created an adapted version of the pose that involved Lori mimicking a mosaic clothed cheetah (or leopard?). We may be getting older, but we are always open to new Girls Weekend traditions.

After experiencing and enjoying all this historical culture, we were ready to find a coffee shop or somewhere to sit down for a while. As we were walking along looking for one, Lori—who has decided she wants to improve her street-photography creds—saw several police officers standing in a group looking very New York-ish and asked one of them if she could take his picture. He obliged and then asked us to take another one of him and his friend and send it to him. Then he told us we should go down Montague Street to see a great view of the skyline. We never found the view, but DID find a very interesting coffee shop centered around strategy games. We got a snack and sat down to rest for a while, enjoying the atmosphere until the place was suddenly infiltrated by an entire group of kids for an after-school program and it was clearly time to go.

Our intention at this point was to go back to the Airbnb, but after walking only about a block, we were distracted by the big, beautiful St. Ann’s Episcopal Church, which is currently under renovation. There was an attached school where we entered and asked if we could go inside the church sanctuary, but no luck. No one was there to allow us in, but we may try again tomorrow. We set off again, but just when we thought we might actually make it home, we passed one of those wonderful little NY city grocery stores with the quintessential display of gorgeous, colorful, fresh fruits and veggies spilling out onto the sidewalk. Lori wanted to take photos of the beautiful produce, so we stopped, and then we went inside. Gasp. What a delightful little store! It was one of those packed-to-the-gills neighborhood groceries where there seems to be something tucked into every available inch. We wandered around for quite a while, bought a few things, and finally emerged to resume our journey home.

Finding the subway station turned into its own little adventure. We zigged, zagged, and studied the map. We went one direction, then another. Then possibly back in the direction from which we had just come. Three or four course corrections later, we finally located the correct station and made it back to our Airbnb. Once home we put away our groceries and decided that a little furniture rearranging was in order. There was a HUGE television in the bedroom which clearly belonged in the living room. I mean, who puts the giant TV in the bedroom and leaves the living room without it? Obviously, Jason had been waiting for us to come along and correct this decorating error. So, we moved it, and it was a much better arrangement.

I made dinner while Lori did her word games and downloaded the day’s photos onto her iPad, and then we ate while watching the Unabomber movie. Once it was over we realized that we were quite sleepy, so we called our husbands and started winding down for the night, but first, we needed to toss the states! Remember, we forgot last night, and there are only ELEVEN STATES LEFT after this trip. ELEVEN! After all these years, that number is almost impossible to believe.

We decided I would do the honors first this year, and so—as is our custom—I gathered the remaining wooden puzzle pieces and tossed them into the air. Uuuuuuuuuuup they went, and then dooooooown they came. How many would land face up? How many states would be deleted for next year? Lori is rooting for Arizona, and I would kind of like Missouri because I could drive and we wouldn’t have to rent a car and I’m in cost-cutting mode at the moment. As is turns out, none of this mattered. The puzzle pieces landed, and we looked. And then we looked again. In all the years we have been tossing these ridiculous little wooden puzzle pieces around hotel rooms, condos, Airbnbs and wherever else Girls Weekend has taken us, this has NEVER HAPPENED on the first toss. There was no elimination process, No suspense lasting several nights. No rooting for one state while trying to pretend we are perfectly willing to accept another. And no second toss, because exactly one state had landed face up. Girls Weekend 2027 will be in NEBRASKA!

Girls Weekend, Thursday, October 8, 2026, New York City

Thursday, October 8, 2026

It’s Girls Weekend!!! New York, here we come!

Years and years ago, Lori and I composed all the rules of our annual trip. We would go to every single state. We would go every year come hell or high water (or kids, husbands, jobs, in-laws, weather, or anything else that tried to stop us, including snipers, which was applicable when we were headed to Washington D.C. in 2002). We would not go to any city in the chosen state with which either of us was familiar. And then last year, New York came face up and we knew we would break our own rule and end up in NYC, even though we have been here together twice before. They are our rules, and we can break them if we want to.

I arrived at LaGuardia Airport at about 10:30 this morning and would like to say that – seasoned traveler that I am - I immediately set about flawlessly navigating the transportation system, but really, why lie in the official historical record? In fact, I got on the wrong train twice, and once even got off of the correct train on my way to finding our Airbnb in Brooklyn, which I eventually did locate. Once there, I met Jason, our host, dropped off my stuff, and then headed back out in search of something to eat. This search was not particularly successful, and my first official New York meal of Girls Weekend 2026 ended up being a Snickers bar and a Celsius. Nutritious! Balanced! Exactly what one needs after traveling all morning and wandering around New York trying to figure out where the hell she is!

Then it was back to the airport to retrieve Lori. Apparently I had learned my lesson from all the mistakes I made in my first effort, because I managed to arrive back at LGA two hours before Lori’s flight. I had not slept well the night before, so I found a semi-comfy chair, settled in, and took a nap. Yes, I am now officially old enough to go to the airport when I don’t have a flight and fall asleep in a chair. Whatever. I needed the sleep.

As soon as Lori’s plane landed, I texted her instructions for finding me and we had our usual joyful reunion. Lori usually gets to Indy at least once during the year but this time we had not laid eyes on each other since parting a year ago in Alaska. and went to figure out the shuttle situation. I got us safely and without mishap back to the Airbnb. Once we were settled in, we did what we do best: talked. And talked. And caught up. And talked some more. Eventually hunger drove us back out into the neighborhood, where we walked to a takeout place literally called “The Munchies” which seemed to be a popular spot based on the number of people pouring in to order food. Lori chose a falafel gyro and I opted for fresh fried fish.  We took our dinner back to our temporary New York home and ate while video chatting with Lori’s daughter Meg and her fiancé, Adam. Eventually all the traveling and airport napping and navigating and talking caught up with us, and at about 11:00 we called it a night. A pretty low-key first day, but Girls Weekend is officially underway, Lori and I are together, and all is right with the world. OH CRAP. We forgot to toss the states.

GW 2025 Tuesday, Oct 14. Homer, Alaska

Tuesday (or should I say Mooseday!?), October 14, 2025

Good morning!!  We slept in a little bit today, getting up around 7ish rather than 6ish and followed our regular morning routine of coffee, chatting, journaling, and, for me, at least, playing word games. I play several on-line word games pretty much every day to try and keep my brain healthy and working.  Waffle, Wordle, Connections, Strands and Quartiles.  Then I also play the mini crossword through the Apple News app (that’s where Quartiles is, too), along with Sudoku and their Emoji game (which is really hard!). THEN, later I play Jeopardy, Question of the Day and Puzzle of the Day through Alexa.  I got Kathi to join me today.  I even got her to play Song Quiz with me even though she tells me that she really hates this one!!

The weather today is beautiful.  When looking at the weather app prior to our flights, it looked like it was going to rain every day of our trip.  Turns out however, that the only time it has rained is during the night or early in the morning before we are ready to go out.  We always feel like God smiles on us for our trips and blesses us with good weather.  This trip has proved to be no exception. We showered and dressed, grabbed a few snack items and hopped into the car for today’s outing.  Our destination for the day is the Pratt Museum, which is a natural history museum here in Homer that also has a few trails surrounding it.  On our way down the hill, we came around a corner and there was a big bull moose in the middle of the road!!  I have been hoping to see moose since we arrived and here one was!! He turned off the road and went up someone’s driveway.  Kathi followed him so we could try and get photos but he was way faster than us and disappeared into the brush.  I got a couple of pics, but nothing very clear. But we were very excited!!  Out of the blue, Kathi made a prediction that we would see three moose today, and, by golly, she was RIGHT!!  More on that later.

We stopped off at the post office first so that I could mail off some postcards that I wanted to send to my grandkids, then we went back to Ulmer’s so that I could try and find a gift for Beckett.  I had already found something for Margo (a cute little skirt) and for Theo (a pair of rainbows with sports balls all over them), but still needed something for Beckett. Ulmer’s was a bust but as we drove by a bookstore on our way to the Pratt Museum, I asked Kathi to pull in because I thought I could find an Alaskan themed book for Beckett now that he is reading.  Success!  I found a children’s illustrated book about the Iditarod.  Perfect!  This bookstore had an entire section devoted to banned books.  This section included "The Color Purple" and "To Kill A Mockingbird" which were required reading when I was in high school! 

Banned Book Section

We stopped at the Zen Den Cafe for some coffee and sat in there for a bit for drink it and so that I could eat the chocolate croissant that I ordered, then  on to the Pratt Museum.

Skeleton of a Bering Sea Beaked Whale

Upon entering the Pratt Museum, the first thing one notices is a fairly large skeleton hanging from the ceiling.  After paying our admission fee (we get the discounted senior rate these days!), I asked what the skeleton belonged to.  The woman at the desk told us that it is the skeleton of a beaked whale that had washed up on shore.  Apparently beaked whales are rarely seen because they live deep in the ocean and exhibit reclusive behavior.  I found it interesting that the bones in the fins actually look like the bones of a human hand. The museum has the skeletons of many sea creatures along with taxidermied mounts of mammals and birds native to this area.  There is a very interesting exhibit about the Exxon Valdez oil spill (11 million gallons of crude oil was spilled) that occurred in 1989 that had devastating effects on marine wildlife and affected over 1300 miles of shoreline. There is also an exhibit about coast guard rescues and how long a person can last in the frigid waters in this area if one should be unlucky enough to be on a sinking boat.  They have survival suits available that you can put on to experience what it might be like to get into one before your boat sinks. You are encouraged to try and get into it in no more than 30 seconds.  Kathi got into the suit but was not able to get it zipped up.  To be fair, the zipper pull appeared to be gone, but I’m not sure how one would have the dexterity to pull it up because the hand portions of the suit resemble claws rather than fingers!

We browsed the gift shop, then grabbed a map of the surrounding trails before we left then went in search of a trailhead.  I believe we missed the actual trailhead but we did manage to bushwhack out way to the trail.  There was a sign we saw as well as a note on the map that bear and moose have been seen in this area so cautioned that one be aware of their surroundings.  Sure enough, we had been walking for about 20 minutes or so and I spotted a moose through the trees!!  I called out to Kathi and pointed it out. 

We watched her (no rack on this one) for quite a while.  I’m sure she was aware of use because she appeared to look our way a number of times, but I remember reading somewhere that their eyesight is really quite poor, so I’m guessing she heard us rather than really saw us. She didn’t appeared to be too bothered by us, because she didn’t run off and eventually she laid down.  We couldn’t do the entire trail because it looked to me like she laid down right on the trail!

After walking a bit more on a different trail we returned to the car and decided to make our way to The Homestead restaurant, which had been suggested to us by the clerk in Nomar’s, for dinner.  She told us that they have excellent food and, in particular, have oysters, which Kathi has been wanting since we got here.  Their menu is mainly New Orleans style food and it was delicious.  Kathi got her oysters and she and I split a 1/2 pound cheeseburger with some scrumptious and perfectly cooked potato wedges.  Kathi also got a pomegranate cocktail, which she said was quite tasty.  We also had a very friendly and accommodating server.  This has been the only meal that we have eaten out since we have been here and it was well worth it.

We hopped into the car and started the drive home.  We hadn’t been on the road for long when I looked to my right and saw a moose at the foot of a driveway. I wasn’t sure if it was a REAL moose or if it was a statue or carving of some sort.  I told Kathi what I saw and she said, “should I turn around?” and I said yes. So she pulled into a driveway to turn around and as we were traveling back the way we came, sure enough, the moose ran across the road in front of us!  This is moose #3! Unfortunately he ran down the road away from us and my camera was in the back seat, so I was only able to get some video of it’s rear end as it ran from us with my phone before it veered off of the road and into some brush.  A three moose day!!

Once back in our cottage, we settled in for our evening routine of journaling, photo editing and sharing.  We also watched one more episode of “The Morning Show”, then called it a night.

“Travel isn’t about checking places off a list-it’s about collecting stories worth telling” 

GW 2025; Monday, October 13, Homer Alaska

Monday, October 13, 2025

 

We really hate how fast this trip flies by. It’s already Monday and it feels like we just got here! Today we extended our normal morning routine a bit. It’s so awesome to just relax and take the day slowly. Lori and her husband took a Viking river cruise last year right before GW, and Lori started a mini journal scrapbook/journal of the trip with photos. She brought the journal to North Dakota with us last year, and I loved it and wanted to do one too. Lori gave me a journal and a little printer for Christmas and my birthday, and I have been pretty good at chronicling my travels for both work and play. This morning, I started working on that journal as well as this one. Once again, the rain hasn’t come, and in fact, the sun came out this morning for quite a while. Delightful.

 

Last night we heard hooting from a Great Horned Owl, which was super cool. He hooted off and on again throughout the night, but we didn’t see him. To be clear, without Lori, I would have just called this guy “an owl,” but bird-nerd girl can tell the hoot of one from another! I like birds, but have to hear their sounds about 500 times before I can independently recognize one.

 

After taking some time to plan our day, we left the house around 12:50. It’s art gallery day! Our first stop was the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies . . . which was disappointing. We thought it was going to be more of a gallery, but really it is the parent group for the Wynn Nature Center (where we had hiked yesterday) and Inspiration Ridge, which was the preserve founded by the woman we’d met while walking the Beluga Slough Trail on our first full day here. It’s pretty much a headquarters and office space. There was just one guy in there who was working on something, and there was no art to view. They did have some Alaska-themed Tshirts and sweatshirts, but mostly in youth sizes. Apparently, the majority of their swag stock was at the Wynn Nature Center, which was closed for the season, and they hadn’t bothered to restock this location before closing  down the Wynn (Lori and I are in full agreement that this was dumb, and not forward-thinking).

 

Undaunted, we moved on to our second stop, which was unplanned. Across the parking lot from the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies was what we thought was a strip mall. Turns out it was really one HUGE store called Ulmer’s. Yikes – this place was big. Not big in a larger city Walmart or Meijer way, but big in a this-is-a-tiny-town-and-we-never-expected-it-to-have-anything-this-large kind of way. Plus, it was dense and seemed to have everything! I saw shovels, luggage, toys, pillows, novelties, games, picture frames, arts and crafts, fabric, yarn, knitting and crochet needles, any sewing accessory you ever wanted, children's clothing, bedding, kitchen items, shelving, storage bins, household items, vacuum cleaners, books, Mettler thread (whatever that is), backpacks, office and school supplies (with a better selection of items than at Meijer), Hallowe’en decorations, Christmas decorations and lighting, and that's only 1/3 of the store. I turned a corner and another third of the store is basically a baby Dick's Sporting Goods and a full hardware store. You could roam for HOURS in this place. What they did NOT have, however, was Alaska-themed clothing, although we found some great stickers.

 

By the time we staggered out of Ulmer’s, we needed fortification. Zen Den, the coffee shop we had found a few days ago, was not far away, and we stopped for some coffee. The parking lot was packed, so we decided to go through the drive-thru. This was a really small-town vibe drive-thru, without an impersonal microphone and speaker ordering experience. Instead, you pull right up the window, and a friendly person leans out and chats with you about what you want to order. Lori decided on a Pavlov Fire Mocha, which was similar to the mocha with cayenne she’d had at Wild Honey Bistro the day before. I asked for a remake of the Bees Knees from Wild Honey and described the ingredients, and they did a good job mimicking it! We have decided that overall, we are thrilled with the coffee shop options here in Homer. Not only is the coffee good, but the customer service is fabulous.

 

Our next destination was the Homer Council on the Arts, which, according to its website, offered performances, original exhibitions, and arts education for all ages and abilities, along with art exhibits. This was a very small space that featured a delightful jewelry exhibit by Carly Conemac, another local artist. Lori and both very much liked several of her pieces. She focused on using silver and silver clay. Silver clay (we had never heard of it) is a type of art clay made of tiny silver particles mixed with a binder to form a soft, clay-like material. It can be easily shaped by hand or with simple tools, allowing artists to create detailed designs that would be difficult or time-consuming using traditional metalworking methods. Apparently, there are other types of metal clay, such as gold or copper. This artist clearly loved shells and quite a few of her designs involved them, but she also combed the beaches for natural stones and incorporated those into her work.

The lady that worked in this gallery, and another lady who was a local and was visiting the gallery, swore that Ulmer definitely had some Alaska focused Tshirts by a native artist named Ray Troll, so we knew we’d be heading back there at some point.

 

Our next destination was the Alaskan Art Shop Gallery, which, according to our brochure and its website, was supposed to be open, but wasn’t. There was a sign on the door stating that they're closed all week. When researching what we would do while here in Homer, Lori had read that squid and/or octopus ink was a traditional medium used by artists in this area, and she was hoping to find and purchase a piece, but so far, we haven’t had any luck finding anything. Unfortunately, this gallery is one of the few places that are supposed to have Alaskan gifts and more. Ah well – on to the next stop.

 

Ptarmigan Arts and Fireweed Gallery are in buildings right next to each other and are both co-ops for local artists. They are gallery-cum-shops; everything on display is also for immediate sale. Ptarmigan was full of all kinds of delightful handmade items, including paintings, weavings, jewelry, pottery, textiles, and more. We stayed in there quite a while, looking at everything and purchasing a couple of Christmas gifts. Fireweed had more classical offerings that were not as much to our taste (Lori and I have very similar tastes about a lot of things – you probably already knew that), but I found some wonderfully unique feminist-focused greeting cards there that are awesome.

 

After leaving Fireweed, we ventured back to Ulmer's to see if we just had not seen the Alaska-focused items, but no, we hadn’t missed them. All Ray Troll items had been considered out of season, taken off the floor, and packed away. They had some boring, run-of-the-mill shirts that we declined. However, the two women there who were helping us suggested we try a place called Nomar, because they had the same Ray Troll t-shirt and sweatshirt collection there! This was starting to feel quite a bit like a scavenger hunt, and we were the losing team! We were up for the game, though, so off we went to find Nomar.

 

Nomar did have some Ray Troll shirts, but there were just leftover sizes of super small and super big, plus we didn’t really like the designs anyway. He’s quite an eclectic artist, and probably an acquired taste. However, we were VERY happy we had been directed to find this AMAZING place! The store was founded almost 50 years ago when Homer had only 2,000 residents (there are only about 6,500 now, so it’s still tiny!) by a couple (primarily the wife) who loved fishing, and didn’t have the equipment needed to do so safely in Alaska. So Nomar is basically a textiles company created to address the needs of EVERYTHNG having to do with fishing in Alaska, from protective clothing and other items to guard against the frozen temperatures, to sturdy bags to hold fishing gear and the gear itself, to custom-made upholstery to cover seats and the boats themselves. After they were established, it became clear that ordinary people might want to buy the items they made or use their upholstery services themselves. So, the store was filled with all kinds of fascinating stuff. If I hadn’t restricted myself to a carry-on, I would probably have bought one of the unique boat bags and found some kind of use for it, although those who know me know that another bag is the very last thing I need. The woman working there was so helpful, and did not tire of responding to all our questions (sometimes we can really exhaust people with our curiosity!) Before we left, she gave us a strong recommendation to have dinner at the Homestead Restaurant before leaving town.

 

We headed home, having had a delightful day exploring all Homer had to offer. We enjoyed yummy leftovers and watched more episodes of The Morning Show before going to bed.

"Travel is the art of collecting memories"

GW 2025 Sunday 10/12/25. Homer, Alaska

Sunday, October 12

The forecast for today was rain in the morning, then a window of time in the afternoon with no rain, so we decided to take the morning to laze around and do what we both enjoy doing, which is journaling, playing word games and just chatting.  Oh, and also eating breakfast!! I had  made a breakfast casserole yesterday morning that Tom and I often enjoy at home.  Sausage, eggs, shredded potatoes, red bell pepper and cheese.  It is quite delicious, so I enjoyed some of that for breakfast while Kathi enjoyed some yogurt.

After I had played my word games and while Kathi was still working on the Saturday journal, I started looking for hiking trails that looked promising.  I found the Wynn Nature Center which is a part of the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies.  They have a visitor center in an old homesteader cabin and several trails and it’s not far away!  Looked perfect!  The website stated “Join us on Sundays at 1:00 pm for our Wynnter Sundays event series, where we provide free activities for families to explore winter ecology.” It was 11:30 when I came across this and Kathi & I decided that we wanted to make this today’s activity.  We both showered quickly and were ready to leave by noon.  This place sits high up on a ridge, even higher than our little home away from home, and there were spectacular views of Kachemak Bay and the Homer Spit on the drive up.  There were two parking areas so we weren’t sure which one was where people met for the Sunday event.  We checked one out and it didn’t appear at a quick glance to have any kind of building where people would gather, so we went to the other parking lot.  We appeared to be the only people in either lot, but it was still early so we decided to wait until 1 and see if anyone else appeared.  However, there was a sign on the door of the Visitor Center that said something along the lines of “thanks for a great season, see you next year”,  which led us to believe that it was quite possible that no one was coming.  This turned out to be true, so we decided to explore some of the 5 miles of hiking trails on our own.  The website mentions moose being quite common in this area so we were really hoping to see at least one while here.

We made our way out on the trailhead by the Daisy Lee Bitter Outdoor Learning Space.  The trail starts out on boardwalks, before a few steps down onto a dirt trail.  We were quickly in a mostly forested area, with some boggy, marshy areas, too.  No wonder the moose like it here! We took one turn onto the Bog Trail where there were more wooden and plastic boardwalks over the soggy areas. Now when you step onto the boardwalks you expect them to stay in place and keep your feet dry and for the most part that proved to be true. HOWEVER, I stepped onto one that SANK down into the muddy water, so I moved on quickly only to find that the next section of the boardwalk did the same thing!!  The last section was stable and I stepped off of it onto a dirt trail that went out to an elevated overlook of the bog. Kathi was behind me and when she saw me sink into the water, she stopped.  Today, she just wore tennis shoes and not her duck boots and she didn’t want to get her feet wet.  Fortunately my hiking boots are water resistant so my feet did not get wet.  I told her I would check out the overlook and let her know if it was worth getting her feet wet for.  I was hoping for moose, but disappointingly, there were none, so I told Kathi it wasn’t worth her wading through the water.  She took a video of me returning on the sinking boardwalk pieces much to her delight!!  It was one thing to step on those not knowing that they would sink and quite another to KNOW that I was going to splash into the water! We continued on the trail which went through some dense forest (mostly fir trees) and thoroughly enjoyed our 2 hour hike.

I had noticed an overlook sign on our way up to the Nature Center, so we made the turn off on the way downhill and were very happy that we did.  The view of the Bay and the spit was awesome!!

From there we went to Safeway to reload a few items (yogurt, English muffins and water). We saw several cute little black bunnies hopping around in the grass on our way to the store.  We also noticed that there are LOTS of boats here!  Just about every driveway has at least one boat, if not more!

Once back to the cottage and the groceries unloaded and put away, I actually took a nap (I love naps) while Kathi listened to some music and may have napped a little bit herself.

When I got up, I made dinner (chicken and zucchini in a buttery lemon sauce). After we ate we Zoomed Tom to do the final tossing of the states.  He has been such a good sport about this and we have decided that we really like the gigantic box that he uses to shake up the states before the toss.  He has dubbed it the “Box of Destiny”.   On the first toss, the two remaining state pieces landed face down, so he had to do a second toss.  The winner for next year’s trip is:  New York!! After chatting with Tom a bit about the day we signed off to watch Season 4 of “The Morning Show”  We had started watching this show together a few Girls Weekends ago and both really enjoyed it and saved this season for watching while here. We watched 2 episodes and decided it was time to call it a night.  I proofread Kathi’s journal entry for Saturday, then added photos and published on the blog. Then off to bed.  

Good night!