The Road to Homer

Mariner Park, Homer, Alaska – July 20, 2014

This sign from a few days ago,

was a foreshadow of what was to come. I was sure that by late Sunday afternoon the Kenai Salmon crowds would have cleared out and been on their way home. However, I had seriously underestimated the intensity of salmon fever. When you can only fish on weekends because work restarts on Monday, you squeeze every last minute of salmon fishing time out of Sunday that you can.

There is only one road in and out of the Kenai Peninsula and all those salmon fisherman were rushing to get home at the same time. This was the scene all the way from the beginning of the Sterling Highway to Soldotna, a stretch of about 50 miles.

By this time I was feeling pretty good about our prospects for finding a place to park for the night. We had our sights set on Fred Myers in Soldotna, a large grocery/department store that welcomes RVers. They have an area set aside for RVs to spend the day or night and they even have a place for the traveling camper to empty their tanks and get fresh water. What we found was this.

Wait a minute! If all those people were leaving the Kenai, what were all these people still doing here? Suddenly I felt my good prospects disappearing. Maybe the Kenai still had no vacancies!

Judging from the parking lot crowds and the Soldotna road traffic,  it was way too crowded here so we decide to continue on towards Homer. Again, me thinking Homer is the end of the road and the Halibut fishing capital of Alaska. Surely it won’t be this crowded!

As we continue down the highway to Homer, EJ keeps saying “There’s a spot to pull off for the night” or “There’s a Plan B”. However, I had Homer in my sights. I wanted to park Big Guy and not move him for 3 or 4 days.

Along the road we had wonderful scenery.

At one point along the way we had emergency vehicles rushing past us to tend to this fella. I guess he was in a rush.

Pretty soon we’re descending into Homer. Water, mountains and glaciers all in one view. Outstanding!

Since Williwaw, where we left from this morning, didn’t have a dump station and we were sloshing pretty good, the first order of business is to get that taken care of. Homer has several public dump stations that charge a very reasonable fee. We always get a kick out of the “Iron Ranger” at this location.

This also happens to be the spot where Homer’s resident eagles have a nest. As we’re filling up with fresh water, EJ grabs the opportunity to take a shot.

With empty tanks and a full fresh water load, we can finally head to our preferred camping spot for a peaceful few days.

Wait, what’s all this? What are all these people doing in our spot?! After all the traffic we’ve seen leaving the Kenai, how can anybody be left here at the end of the road?

But hang on readers, it gets better. All of the waterfront sites were taken so we decided to settle into one of the only spots left which was next to the road. Then about 7PM these guys began to gather.

Sigh! It’s the road crew doing their stretching exercises. We are to be treated to a night long symphony of thumps, scrapes, rattles and beeps as they work on the road we are camped next to.

We had even driven Ele down to the other end of the spit to check out their camp grounds. Same story. Guess this fishing thing is pretty serious. When we were here in 2011, it was later in the season and we missed all the excitement. So now we can say we have gotten a taste of it!