GW 2025 Homer, Alaska. Saturday October 11

Saturday, October 11, 2025

Lori and I each got a great night’s sleep of almost 9 hours, and we both felt settled into the new time zone. Lori made a delicious casserole for breakfast, which we’ll be able to enjoy for the rest of the trip. We spent a couple of hours chatting and journaling, then at 9:00 we left to drive to the Spit and find our water taxi.

The Blue Too was a landing craft water taxi with a wide front ramp that allows them to pull directly onto a beach for easy and safe loading and unloading of both people and gear. Lori and I dressed warmly, but when the breeze became a bit too chilly out on the deck, we could go into the cabin area and hang out a bit with our Ferryman, Deb. The cabin was slightly heated and had a zip closure to keep the warmth in. Deb didn’t seem too talkative at first, but no one ignores Lori and me when we start showing an interest in what they are doing and how they are doing it, and she soon warmed up. Deb had worked for Mako’s for six years, and was a transplant from Maine. Like Lori, she also missed seeing fall colors: Alaska is full of pine and other evergreen trees, and whatever deciduous trees that are here seem to only turn yellow in the fall. So the landscape is all greens and yellows, with none of the reds, oranges, and purples that we see in the Midwest and East.

Joining us for the first couple legs of our journey was a group composed of two young couples, their two dogs, and tons of gear. They were going to hike the Grace Ridge Trail, a nine-mile trek across the top of an island ridge in Kachemak State Park. Deb’s first assignment today was to stop at Kayak Beach, where the quartet would be spending the night, so they could offload all their gear. Then they reboarded and we set off to deliver them to the trailhead at South Grace Ridge. On the way there, we cruised alongside the land mass they would be crossing. The majority of the ridge was under quite a bit of cloud cover, so they were in for some visibility challenges, but these four were clearly experienced hikers and were undaunted by the idea of trekking for about six hours up in the clouds before coming back down again to sleep in a bare-bones yurt. The mere thought of their day makes my back hurt.     

As soon as we took off from the dock, we saw sea otters, and continued to spot them every so often throughout the ride. They are so cute and playful. Lori asked Deb if they are good at getting out of the way, and she said pretty much but they sometimes aren’t successful. Oh boy… After dropping of the intrepid hikers, we moved back out into the bay and proceeded to another pickup area on another small beach, where we were joined by another group of four who came walking out of the rocks. These were an Austrian woman and her daughter, and a Latina mother and daughter, who were all friends. They had spent the night in a yurt after a day of hiking and needed transport back to Homer. Lori and I enjoyed some great conversations with all of the passengers we’d met and decided this had been a great morning and a positive alternative to our formal tour that had been suddenly canceled.

We arrived back where we started at about noon and decided we’d explore a bit more of what Homer had to offer. We had passed an interesting-looking store called Homer Jeans a few times and decided to go check it out. It was a great store with clothing for women and men, and they had WAY more than jeans. It was rather high-end, but was stocked with unique and interesting items. We explored for a while, then Lori bought some cute new sunglasses (which she had been needing for the past two days). We left and drove back to the Bishop’s Beach area we had explored yesterday. A bakery called Two Sisters we had visited the day before, sold these cute stickers. Lori bought one yesterday and later pointed out that the logo of two women dancing could be us, which made me want a sticker too. So we returned to get more stickers from Two Sisters, then drove to the Bunnell Street Arts Center, an art gallery in the Homer Historic Old Town with a great mission to provide instruction, exposure, support, and residencies for local artists. We enjoyed walking around the gallery and talking to the curator, whose excitement about the native history of the area was palpable and contagious.

Next door to the gallery was a coffee shop called Wild Honey Bistro that served breakfast items, dessert crepes, mimosas, and delicious coffee drinks. Lori ordered a mocha with a bit of cayenne in it (WHY???) and I had a Bee’s Knees, which was a latte with honey and cinnamon. So yummy! We were grateful to have squeezed in there at 2:00 just as they were closing; we’ll definitely go back.

We thought the Historic Old Town would have a little bit more substance than it did, but I guess it’s mostly the history of the buildings and land that make it noteworthy. It’s clear that visiting this area after the season has ended makes for a much calmer, quieter experience than many of the descriptions in our research. Unfortunately, this also means that many places are closed until spring. We decided we’d had enough adventure for one day and headed back to the cottage. There are many more art galleries in Homer that we plan to explore another day, but for now, it was time to go home.

By 4:15, we were once again settled in on the couch to put photos in folders and do some journaling. At about 6:45 Tom texted that he was home, and once again we Zoomed with him for the tossing of the states. He’s becoming a states-tossing expert! Two landed face up – New York and Arizona! Lori and I immediately started talking about ideas for either one.

I started dinner just before 7:00, but we didn’t eat until 9 because we had bought a GIGANTIC ruby red sweet potato that took about 90 minutes to bake, but it was delicious! We also had some huge chicken breasts and some fresh asparagus. While we ate, we finished watching Unknown Number, a documentary about how a catfishing scandal changed the lives of several families in a community. The only commentary I will give is that Lori is traumatized for life. After the documentary was over, we worked a bit more on photo editing and journaling before going to bed at about midnight.