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"