ANCHORAGE WALMART TO HOMER, ALASKA

We spent another noisy night in the Walmart parking lot because we had a 8AM appointment at Johnson's Tire in the same parking lot.  I forgot to mention in yesterday's blog that when we took the car for a drive it was shaking all over the place.  We remembered the movie My Cousin Vinny when he got mud in his tires and that's the problem we had.  They removed the mud, spun and balanced for $50, problem solved in less than thirty minutes.

Then we drove 220 miles to Homer and planned to find the public campground on the Spit.  The price used to be $8 a night but is now $15 and that's for dry camping (no hookups).  So for $10 more per night, we found a nice site facing the Kachemak Bay with electricity.  Funny, the Heritage RV Park across the street and not on the water has full hookups but costs $68 per night.  Crazy!

Our picture window view for the next few days

Are you wondering what a Spit is?  The prevalent theory for the Spit's origin is that it is the remains of an ancient glacial moraine, constantly reshaped by ocean currents.  If you look at it on a map, it's a skinny projection of land surrounded by water (reminds me of Provincetown in Cape Cod, MA).

If you look closely, you'll see the Spit in the middle of the water

On the drive to Homer, we stopped to see the view of Mount Iliamna and Mount Redoubt in the Chigmit Mountains of the Aleutian Range.  They rise 10,000 feet above sea level.  They begin the Aleutian Chain of mountains and islands which extend west over 1,700 miles beyond the International Date Line to the Bering Sea, separating the Pacific and Arctic oceans.  I thought that was rather interesting.

Mount Iliamna

Mount Redoubt had a major eruption in December 1989 and eruptions continued through April 1990 - September of 2009 the mountain was no longer actively perking and given the all clear

To get to Homer, we drove through Hope, Cooper Landing, Sterling, Soldotna, Ninilchik and Anchor Point.  I would have liked to stop at each one but we'd never finish our Alaska trip.  We will be going back to Sterling to visit Gail.

That's all folks!  Thanks for stopping in.