Day 11  Monday 12^th August  Anchorage – Homer

Touchdown at Anchorage at 10.37pm, and it is still daylight. And an hour earlier than Seattle.  Collected the all Alaskan red SUV and headed to the hotel - $343 per night.  And we were only there from midnight to 7am.!  The receptionist noted with enthusiasm that breakfast was complimentary.  I think we paid for it. 

On the road at 7am, to Homer on the Kenai Peninsula.  A spectacular drive, the road runs parallel to the railway for quite a long time, water on one side and mountains on the other.  About 4.5 hours to Homer , quick checkin at the Driftwood Inn, and then on the boat to the other side of Kachemak Bay to do the Glacier Walk.  No words for the marvel of this place, pictures can speak of it. Sausalito had it wrong – this is paradise. 

I think this pic should be an add for Kindle.  Can you believe it!

The boat picked us up at 5.30 and took us around into Halibut Cove, a bit further on from our walk trailhead.  There, the famous Saltry Restaurant lived up to its name – a marvellous seafood meal in a setting not short of idyllic.   Halibut Cove is a tiny hamlet with 300 residents in the summer and 16 in the winter.  All the buildings are on stilts over the water as the mountains rise straight up out of the sea.  It is breathtakingly beautiful.  Art galleries (two of them)  checked out, we were sitting on the boardwalk – what passes for the Main Street in Halibut Cove – waiting for access to the restaurant.  A young man played us some bluesy music from The Experience art gallery.  A glass of white would have been perfect after a long afternoon of hiking.  Not to be had.  The restaurant was not opening until 7, as there was a community function on.  A good thing, community functions, but it was well past drink o’clock, and I was getting grumpy.  I said so, and an appreciative Texan declared instantaneous love for me. 

 Restaurant with a view.

Halibut Cove boasts 300 residents in the summer, but only 16 diehards stay for the winter.   Summer kids ride their bikes around the boardwalk - no streets of course - with their life-vests on.  

"The Experience" art gallery provided entertainment - a happy and talented young man playing blues-y tunes on a good grand piano.