Day 9 of our Alaska vacation began exactly as had the preceding several with coffee on the patio. With no plans until we needed to head down to the Spit to catch the ferry to Halibut Cove for dinner, we thought that we'd spend the morning on a hike on the Homer side of the bay. When we asked Michael for a recommendation, he immediately suggested Eveline State Recreation Area, a short drive east for us.
We left around 10:30 for the trail head and soon after we got there, Michael texted us a photo of a cow moose and two calves that appeared in the meadow not five minutes after we left. Naturally!
We had no idea what we were in for at Eveline State Recreation Area. It turned out to be a cross-country skiing track of very short length, perhaps a mile and a half. I don't think most people know what we mean when we say we want to go on a hike. Oh well. In any case, it was a beautiful morning and the park showed off lots of wildflowers. And as always, the vistas in Alaska are stunning.
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| Delphinium, Monkshood, Fireweed, Geraniums, Lots of Flowers |
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| Larkspur, Delphinium glaucum |
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| Blacktip Ragwort, Senecio lugens |
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| Monkshood, Aconitum delphiniifolium |
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| Fireweed and Glaciers |
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| Pine Siskin |
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| Just Wow! Dixon Glacier (left) and Portlock Glacier (right) |
Our walk was all of a half an hour or so and not the several hours we were expecting. We got back to the inn in short order where we scared a hen pheasant into flight as we pulled in. Having an all-day hike planned for tomorrow across the bay in Kachemak Bay State Park, we needed to go into town and get some lunch material for that and grab some lunch for today as well.
Ten minutes later, we were in the Safeway parking lot. We went inside to score some lunch meat and whole wheat tortillas for roll ups for our hike tomorrow and our all-day bear trip to Katmai National Park on Thursday. The shelves were surprisingly bare for no clear reason. I don’t know if it’s a normal Alaska thing, a surprisingly large demand thing from the vast number of tourists in town, a pandemic thing, a shortage of staff to restock thing, or a supply chain interruption. Whatever the reason, it is probably a combination of multiple factors, though the local Save-U-More has well stocked shelves, except for some thin stock of certain fresh vegetables.
We wanted to grab lunch while we were out and tried a couple of places whose information on Google said that they were open when in fact, they were closed. This thing with business owners not updating their information on the internet is irksome. I understand the need for flexibility in opening hours because of pandemic-related issues, but I don't understand not caring enough to let your potential customers know what is going on.
On the third try, we stumbled across Alice's Champagne Palace, a dive bar if ever I saw a dive bar. Our server/bartender was nice enough and in short order, we had a couple of beers and burgers in front of us. Not what we wanted in the way of food or establishment, but it was what was open.
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| Alice's Champagne Palace |
At 1:30, we found ourselves back at the Good Karma Inn, holed up and waiting to head into town for dinner later on. It was actually good to have a couple hours of down time.
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