One last look at Homer

Cindy drove 250 miles from Homer to Anchorage today, and tomorrow we will push on to Valdez, it is hot and muggy here in Anchorage so looking forward to that 50 degree temperatureRemember these are all through the front window of our motorhome

These guys were dressing right out in front of everybody, right in the rest stop

Butt naked, 3 mooses walked by but I didn't get their picture

Much of this land and around it was homesteaded, you claimed the land but you had to "prove it up" farm it for a length of time, for it to be given to you, the Russians homesteaded quite a bit of land

Nobody owns anything in the Russian settlements, the church owns it all and gives it to it's members, many have new pickups, pay no taxes on anything because the church owns it

There is another Russian settlement in Wilson, Oregon, and they move back and forth between there and Alaska

This is near the other Russian settlement, we have learned more about them, the women always wear long dresses, they wear hats when married as they are not suppose to show their hair

We finally got some neighbors on our last day, but we were only there long enough to give the doggies another bath outside the motorhome, Gracie rolled in the seaweed, over and over and over.....

The only thing that didn't seem right about Homer

was the cemetery,

so I got a newspaper and looked at the obituaries

noticed where they were burying the new people,

got up early and drove up there to look at it,

sits at the highest point in Homer,

you can see mountains 360 degrees

I can imagine my Dad saying

"Just bury me

and throw some astroturf

over me

nobody has to water it or mow it"

I had never thought about ice fields before,

the Harding Ice Field is the largest ice field

entirely in the United States

it sits on top of the mountain range

and it spawns

35 glaciers off either sideI had fun with the new camera,

this are all taken going 55 mph down the road in the motorhome

Anybody could be a good photographer in Alaska,

there is so much to see

You can actually see where the avanlanche's were

if you look closely

Isn't that a cool picture, too bad about the mirror and windshield wiper

I need to mention that I do believe that Alaska has Seattle beat for the amount of espresso places, they are every where around here, but I did see a sign that said, "Friends don't let friends drink Starbucks"

I wanted to bring you pictures like these,

so I went to a Bear Viewing Tour Place,

there must be 50 of them here in Homer,

they fly you to the bears, mostly across the bay,

where there are many bears,

woman at the desk was on the phone talking to a customer,

she says, "We give you waders, as you must wade out of the water once the plane lands,

don't worry you get used to walking in them

after the first couple miles,

if the bears don't come to you,

you may have to walk 5 or 6 miles to them,

oh, if you pay in cash

we give you a discount

it will be $485",

that was the end of my bear trip,

you'll have to make do with this picture The State of Alaska has a lottery that you must apply for to get the right to go to this river and take pictures of the bears, it is that popular