The next leg of our Odyssey
Les and Pat awoke to a frightening sight out of their window. The next door neighbors had hung hip waders up to dry. From the visible area below the blinds, it look like a person was hovering (or hanging, depending on your level of goth-ness) right outside. See the photo below.
Today began with laundry. In order for us to even remotely be able to fit our luggage in our car, we planned several laundry stops along our trip. It was our last day in Seward, and there was a nearby laundromat, so today was the day. Carrie and I took the clothes and oversaw their washing and drying. After we got everything dried and folded, we went back to our home where Les had prepared breakfast.
We packed everything up, and departed to head toward Homer. I yelped out a few D’Oh!s as I am wont to do, and we left Seward. While the weather was nice, it was nowhere near as nice as the day we had for our cruise. Our first stop was supposed to be the K’Beq Kenaitze Footprints Heritage Site, but it is closed this summer as they try to clear the area of downed spruce trees damaged by a beetle infestation. I guess we can leave the beetles to someone else.
We went instead to 2 very old Russian Orthodox churches. As Alaska was populated by Russian trappers and traders, there is a strong history of Russian people and churches. The first one was the Holy Assumption Orthodox Church in Kenai. It was completed in 1896, and it is the oldest-standing Russian Orthodox church in Alaska. We got a tour of the small, but beautiful church. As we were leaving we saw the priest arrive next door at the parsonage.
We went from that well-kept historical site to a much-less maintained church in Ninilchick - the Transfiguration of Our Lord Orthodox Church. It was on a hill overlooking the channel, and was quite striking. Our guide in Kenai said that this parish was extremely small, and mostly elderly, so there weren’t the people needed to adequately maintain this old church.
Our next destination was our airbnb in Homer. Of course, job 1 on our driving list is “See a moose, Yell MOOSE!”. Les, in his typically understated way, calmly said that he saw a moose. I, who am used to being told about a necessary photo stop in a more forceful manner, kept driving. I did make a U turn once it was established that there was, in fact, a moose present. Unfortunately, we were unable to find that one, as in the intervening minutes, they had sauntered off to not be gawked at.
Back on our previous course, Emma notified the car that there was another one. This time, I got the car pulled around and over to the correct spot, and Carrie got some pictures. We were convinced that Emma’s moose calls were doing more to irritate the animal than elicit a photographic pose, but they did not charge at us with murder in their eyes like I imagine moose tend to do.
As we neared Homer, we got glimpses of the dramatic mountains encircling the town. However, it was only when we pulled into our Airbnb, that we got the full scope of the landscape. Our lodging was up on the hill overlooking Homer, and to call the view spectacular would be underselling it. We only had a few minutes to unpack, because we were going to drive down to town to have dinner with Vicky, Marv, and Mattea - Vicky is Pat’s cousin. It was nice to see friendly faces, though from where I sat, the glare from the sun made it impossible to see anyone’s faces. It revealed how much I rely on reading lips to understand speech in noisy environments.
We had a nice dinner then headed back to relax. We had an outing planned to go watch bears tomorrow, but, due to the 12 foot swells forecast for tomorrow, was cancelled. We may have a relaxing day just looking at this amazing view. I’m ok with that.
