Anchorage and then Homer

We got to Anchorage late. I didn't think there would be a problem since it is a big city. I was wrong. There were only hotels available in the moderate range $175+ (Anchorage is an expensive place to get a hotel). DH was searching for me and found a cheap ($129) room in a scary hotel, so we decided that we would stay in an RV park. The nicest one is $49 and they had spaces.

Beeray programed Maggie for that RV park. By now it was pouring rain and really late 10:30ish though because of the midnight sun, it didn't feel late. We got there and the office was closed for the night. What to do? There are 2 Walmarts and 2 Sams Clubs in Anchorage so we decided to sleep there...no luck. All of them had huge signs threatening to tow away anyone who parked a vehicle over night. Then we saw a parking lot of a Fred Meyers that had about 10 RVs parked in it. The slides were out so they were parking overnight. Hurray.

In the morning we went to the Alaska Heritage Center. It was a bit of a disappointment. They had native dances but I was not allowed to photograph the dances even though it said in the brochure that photography is allowed of the dances and dancers. They have a walking tour that shows the different types of dwellings that the first Alaskans used. Inside is a small museum, gift shop, several people making and selling crafts and a cafe where you have to eat outside (In this case it was under an awning but still cold because of the rain. The cost was $50 for 1 adult, 2 children. We spent an hour there and then, having exhausted all possibilities, we got back on the road.

Boo was starving. We stopped by a BBQ place that is a stand in a gas station A(gas prices $4.39 cash price) and had a very tasty lunch.

The 6 hour drive to Homer was pretty. For the first third of the drive we were on the ocean but the tide was out so there were miles and miles and miles of mud flats. Then we went through mountains and back to sea shore. Just north of Homer there are some beautiful views of volcanoes just across the bay....very impressive.

Homer is a fishing town with a harbor that is on the east side of a spit. The tourist area of town is on the spit. My girls really wanted to have wifi so they could communicate with their friends. We drove out on the spit and found that RV campground 1 had no spaces, Homer Spit RV Campground had spaces but spotty wifi and only 2 hours so on the advice of the man at Homer Spit RV Campground, we headed to the Driftwood in town. It wasn't until after I had paid $47 for the space and pulled in, that I found that the wifi didn't work. So we spent the night at the Homer RV Campground $34 plus $3 for showers for all of us. The man in the office gave us two coupons worth of Homer wifi. Each is good for 2 hours of wifi. It worked enough to calm Beeray though she didn't get to talk to her friends.

Across from the camp ground they are building 3 story houses. On the top of one of those houses an eagle was perched. We watched him for a long time.

This morning we are going to go to the Pratt Museum which is highly recommended by the Lonely Planet guidebook. We also picked up another guidebook at the B&N in Anchorage, Alaska Camping. We have finished several books on cd while on this trip. We just finished "The Girl With No Shadow" by Joanne Harris. All of us enjoyed that book.

We didn't see any animals on the way down from Anchorage except 2 swans with chicks and the eagle on the house here. Today we will search again. I think that the road is just too busy for the animals to feel comfortable walking near it. There was a sign that stated that 150 moose have been killed since June 1 so I guess there is a chance that I will see one....