We left Soldotna and drove south to Homer.

Right after leaving town, we saw two baby moose and their nearby mother in a ditch by the side of the highway.

We next stopped at Ninilcik, a town on Cook Inlet (light green pin on the map). The air was not crystal clear, but across the inlet are some impressive volcanoes. This is Redoubt Volcano, 10,197 feet/3,110 meters. It is an active volcano!

While in Ninilcik, we listened to a local radio station and heard the proper pronunciation: in il chek. The first sound is simply the letter “n”.

There is a Russian church in town, The Transfiguration of Our Lord Russian Orthodox Church. Here are two views. The second has the volcano in the distance.

We drove further south to Anchor Point. Captain Cook’s crew had a lot of work to do to raise and lower the anchor to deal with the big tides here. At one point, they lost the anchor. Cook then sailed to Hawaii, where he was killed by Hawaiians.

Anchor Point is the western–most point in the highway system of the USA.

We noticed several really large birds on the beach and went to investigate. They were bald eagles. Here is one.

After arriving in Homer, we drove around to see what is in the town. Quite a bit, it turned out. Our first stop was at the excellent Pratt Museum, where we learned a lot about this history of the area, including how isolated it was for the first half of the 20th century (before the highway was built). Pratt has hands on exhibits, and the coverage of the Exxon Valdez disaster is well done.

After lunch, we drove up onto a ridge and looked at the “spit” and across Kachemak Bay to the mountains on the distant peninsula.

The spit goes out several miles into the bay. It isn’t just a jetty—it has several places for ships to tie up and a lot of restaurants and businesses. The end is a tank yard to store fuel.

As was the case with Seward, Homer was devastated by the 1964 earthquake.

As we drove a bit further to the east, we saw Grewingk Glacier. We are going on a hike over there in a few days.

Our next stop on the ridge above Homer was at the Carl Wynn Nature Center, with a number of trails through different types of forest. Here is the view from one of the trails.

Here is the view up the beach.

When we were nearly back at the visitor center, a staff person came out and asked if we wanted to see a baby porcupine.

The next morning we went down to the Spit and with our guide, boarded a small boat to be ferried across the bay to hike up to Grewingk Glacier. After we got off at the beach, the boat pulled out and we were left in the wilderness.

We sighted wildlife on the trail to the glacier!

Grewingk Glacier is big! We asked our guide how long he has been coming here, and he told us more than thirty years. We asked if he had seen any change in the glacier in that time, and he said the retreat has been extensive.

The glacier goes back up into the mountains more than 10 miles/16km.

Our little boat will pick us up at a different beach, and this is the scene on the trail to Halibut Bay (Homer is the halibut capital of the world, we learned).

Here’s the best fireweed flower we’ve come across so far.

The view from up on the ridge down towards Halibut Bay and our pick up.

Our route on the boat ride over from the Homer Spit is shown in gray. The photo of the glacier was taken at the two hikers pin. Our pick up spot at Halibut Bay is shown with the anchor pin. Switching to satellite view will show the glacier.

Here is a photo of the harbor our little boat used.

When we got back to the harbor, we took a guided tour of the sea life inside the port.

Our guide had just plucked this starfish from the underside of the dock. It’s eating a mussel.

The undersides of the docks are teeming with sea life!

We also saw jellyfish floating along the docks.

It is Independence Day, and back near our motel, people set up fireworks about 9 pm. However, as the sun wasn’t going to set for at least two more hours, all that we saw were brief flashes, but we did hear the pops and booms.

The next morning, we boarded a float plane and took off for Hallo Bay in Katmai National Park. The flight took about an hour. The map shows the route. Hallo Bay is marked by the airplane pin.

Hallo Bay is in Katmai National Park, and we are going to see wildlife, including, we hope, brown bears. This is our float plane (a 1955 DeHavilland Beaver) after landing.

This is the view from the beach where the plane tied up.

There are very large bears here! That’s a boot worn by the photographer next to a brown bear paw print!

It turns out what Alaskan brown bears are known as grizzly bears elsewhere. The first grizzly we spotted looks like the one on the California state flag.

The area around Hallo Bay has a lot of bears. They sit, eat and walk around.

Here is another one.

Our guide said this bear is pregnant, and is digging for clams for lunch. She was very through, stopping and finding a clam every couple of minutes.

Our guide told us that this mother was concerned for her two cubs—there was a male bear she didn’t like walking around. So the two babies stayed close.

Mom was not afraid of us! Aren’t they cute?

This is the clamming bear, again, with some scenery of the mountain range.

These are two young male brown bears. When they saw each other, the one on the left ran over and they had a moment of greeting. They stayed together for quite some time.

At one time, we probably could see more than a dozen big bears walking around or sitting and eating.

Our guide said this is a wolf track, but we did not see the wolf.

After a picnic lunch, we got back in the airplane and flew back to Homer.

The next morning we packed up the car and drove to Anchorage.