Soldotna, Alaska

Good morning, my friends. It was a short drive to our next stop at Soldotna (prounounced Sole-DOT-na with the "dot" like polka dot). We have two nights here...one now. 

Here's what the Milepost tells us about Soldotna.

We'd planned to do our week's grocery shopping after we got set up. It seemed as good a time as any to visit the quilt shop. This was a weird visit for so many reasons. For one thing, the quilt shop is located in a shopping mall. This confused our nav unit, and it had us driving behind a strip mall where the dumpsters and loading docks are located...all the way around to the front of the mall. Finally, I spotted the sign.

Walking inside, I found it right away.

This quilt was hanging in the front window. Cute.

Walking in the front door, it looked like this:

This shop was heavy with Alaska-themed prints. The whole wall below was Alaska-themed batiks. I've seen this line of fabrics in every quilt shop I've visited.

Here were more Alaska-themed prints on regular quilters cotton.

Here are some more over here.

Continuing on...this line of ombres.

Over here, solids in all colors.

I liked these as a filler or a blender. If I'd had something in mind for them, I might have chosen one. But since I didn't...then, what color? I passed.

These rolls were 3 yards of fabric for $30...so, $10 per yard. Some had more than one fabric rolled up inside. Nothing there called out to me.

Toward the back of this room...Christmas fabrics. I hurried away, averting my eyes.

These were some stripes and polka dots.

More solid colors over here.

Some novelty prints here.

I had the feeling the store might have just expanded into an adjacent space. This whole room was open, and someone asked if they would be adding more fabric here. Yes, was the answer. Also, those long-arms (there is a second one on the left) always make me think this is a long-arm business with a side hustle of a quilt shop. Or maybe it's the other way round.

Fourth of July prints here. Sheesh...coming right up. We'll be in Anchorage for that.

Over here were some cute patterns for stuffed animals.

There was a nice supply of rulers and notions.

So, I walked out with my 6th and final fabric to finish off my Shop Hop quilt. I chose these eagles for the eagles we'd seen in Homer. It has mountains in the background too, and so it was an easy choice.

Here's where things started getting a little weird. The woman cutting my fat quarter and cashing me out asked:

Her: Have you done any fishing?

Me: No, no fishing.

Her: Why?

Me: I'm not a fisherperson.

Her: Why don't you like fishing?

Me: I have other interests (wondering silently if fishing is a mandatory activity in these parts)

Her: What are your other interests?

Me: Quilting, embroidery, reading, photography, travel...lots of things.

Okay, and so there the conversation took a turn. She asked for my phone number, and I gave it without thinking about it too much. Then, she typed it into her computer. 

Her: First name?

Me: Barbara 

Her: (types it into her computer) Last name?

Me: Why do you need that? 

Her: Goes into a long-winded explanation about how if I want to quibble about something I can even say I'm looking right at the receipt, and they can look it up using my phone number and name, and it's for their protection and mine...blah, blah, blah

Me: Look, I'm buying a fat quarter for $3.50. There won't be any quibbling.

Her: I have to put it in the computer.

Me: (I give my last name and spell it and then I say...) I've visited quilt shops all over the country. No one has ever asked me for so much information. 

Her: Well, you haven't visited the biggest quilt shop in the country. 

Me: (Silently wondering, does she actually think this is the biggest quilt shop in the country? It's not...not by a long shot. And, actually, I've been to Missouri Star Quilt Company, which I'd bet money is the biggest quilt shop in the country.) 

Saying nothing more, I pick up my fat quarter and leave. Weird. I'm kind of sorry it'll be my last quilt shop visit this trip. I might have to visit another just to get the bad taste out of my mouth. And all of that to say, if you're in Soldotna, don't visit this shop. It's weird.

Okay, so shaking off that bit of frustration (nobody died, by the way, although someone was on thin ice), we headed to the nearby Petco.

Now you might think we were there for cat toys. No. We were there to find a different litterbox. Poor Smitty is too big for the one we've been using. The only place to keep the litterbox in this truck camper is in the shower. (And yes, I'm grateful for a shower in a truck camper.) Because space in the shower is limited, we have a small litterbox with a lid. Smitty is too tall, and just too big for it, and we've had some problems I won't describe because of it. So, we found the largest litterbox we could find that would fit the space. It's deeper and has no cover, and it seems to be working better for both large and small cats.

From there...an oasis in the desert. Our hometown grocery store, where I can find the things I expect to find. Nevertheless, I'm just going to say there are some crazy and reckless shopping cart drivers in this town. That's probably all you need to know.

And phew. Between the weird quilt shop and the crazy shopping cart drivers, that was a stressful outing. Smitty and I got outside when we got back. He munched on the grass. I told him everything that just happened. He's a good listener. He never interrupts, and he never gives advice.

So we have one day of sight-seeing here in Soldotna. The visitor center for the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge is located here.

There are a couple of short hikes I have my eye on. Also there's a Homestead Museum that sounds interesting. We'll make a stop there as well. We're expecting a sunny day, and so we'll get out and enjoy it while we can. Our morning will be slow. We've had our breakfast, and Mike has gone back to bed. Seems like a good time for some slow-stitching.

Life Happens in Homer

Good morning, my friends. Welcome to July! It was cloudy for a good part of the morning, and so it was a good day to do some laundry. We'd already planned on Egg McMuffins. Is there a better way to start the day? It took the sting out of doing laundry just knowing we'd pre-reward ourselves with a sumptuous breakfast. And while I'd ordinarily entertain you with pictures of our food, today I'll break with tradition and show you the inside of this particular McDonald's. I liked these simple murals on the walls mainly, I think, because I recognized the places:

We'd just visited these places a few days before. Above is this little shopping area out on Homer Spit.

And this one below. Remember this?

It's the Salty Dawg Saloon.

Okay, so this one is the harbor in Homer. I didn't take any pictures of the harbor here.

But here's one I took while we were in Seward.

Okay, so that was kind of fun. From there, we headed to the laundromat. Good grief, I've never been in a laundromat so luxurious...nor so expensive! Check out how sleek this place is (not my photo):

Usually I'll use the laundry at the RV park (which has still been expensive). Here, there were only two washers and two dryers. I wanted to wash three loads, and so we ended up going to a commercial laundromat. In any case...Holy $h*t...$7 for a single wash and $3.50 for a dry. We only needed two dryers, so we were able to do three loads for a tidy $28 (in coin). Sheesh. Seems like someone should have done it for me at that price. 

Probably that's why they put this little ash bin at the front door. At least I was smiling and chuckling when I went inside.

Okay, so that should hold us for the week. Back at the camper, I finished off the 6th block for the Raggedy & Friends project.

Certainly I could not have done this without my fearless purrtector at my side.

Sadie kept watch on things outside. She can be a furrocious fighter when she needs to be.

Here are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

Okay, so we're headed for Soldotna this morning. We'll have two nights there. I mentioned yesterday that I'd lost track of our reason for stopping in Soldotna...and why two nights? Well, there is a quilt shop. I've already determined that. Today I did a little internet scrolling and discovered the visitor center for the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge is there. They'll be able to give us some tips on hiking trails in the area, and so that will give us some activities to keep us occupied. 

Also, Soldotna happens to have a Fred Meyer. Now this may not be exciting to most of you, but you should know that Fred Meyer is our grocery store back home. Finding it here in Alaska has been like finding English speakers in a foreign land. Knowing that, I've created another several days worth of menus, and we'll do some grocery shopping while we're there. Sounds exciting, huh?

Alrighty then. Time to get going. As always, I'll see you on the other side.

Two Hikes and a Viewpoint

 Good morning, my friends. Just after posting yesterday, I stepped outside for a few minutes. While I was out, I heard the distinctive call of a bald eagle. Taking a look around...holy-moly!...there were two perched on a roof not 50 yards away. So I grabbed my camera with the telephoto lens and captured this image. We've seen a few bald eagles on our trip, but this was the first time we got a really good look at them.

Our goal for the day was to hike a couple of trails I'd bookmarked. When we visited the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge visitor center, we learned about the Beluga Slough trail that began in their parking lot, and allowed us to walk along the beach to our RV park. We walked a short distance down the road and met up with the trail just behind the visitor center.

Here's a map of the trail.

As we stood there, our friend the motorized paraglider, buzzed overhead. 

The trail took us out to Bishop's Beach, which is the beach we see from our window.

There, we had a great view of the mountains across Kachemak Bay.

The trail was mostly this steel grating. It was really the only way to keep the grasses clear from the trail...lots of weed-whacking, we assume.

The lupines have really captured my photographer's eye. It's hard to stop taking pictures of them.

We came across this sign. I always like the advice I get from animals and inanimate objects.

Now here's something you don't see every day. It's a bird wearing pants and holding up a wind sock. The airstrip is right nearby.

Also, this art installation. It looked like a lighting fixture, but we couldn't figure out the stuff below.

Sitting next to it was this large boulder. The QR code held the explanation.

When we reached the beach, the tide was out. (The tide is in now, and there is no beach at all.) From there, we had an expansive view of the mountains surrounding Homer and Kachemak Bay.

We walked along the beach headed for our RV park, which is where I've marked with the red arrow below. That might actually be pointing directly at our camper.

So that was a short and scenic walk. Moving on, we drove to another part of town to walk this Calvin & Coyle Woodland Park & Nature Trail. The ranger at the visitor center told us we might see moose or bear along this trail.

Prepare to be counted.

It was a densely wooded area with open meadows. We looked and looked and looked, but didn't see any wildlife along the way. It was still worth the walk.

Looking up, it looked like this. The shade was nice.

These are Sitka Spruce trees. I recognize them for their bark, which looks like alligator skin. We have Sitka Spruce on our coastal trails in Oregon, although ours grow trunks with much larger girth.

Most sections of the trail were covered in these planks. It was wet and muddy through here.

The forest floor was carpeted with these pretty ferns.

Occasionally, we crossed a stream on a wooden bridge.

This next image shows what's known as "shelf fungus."

Here's some information about the fungi and the insects that plague the trees here.

At the halfway point, the trail opened up to this overlook. Do you see any moose? Nah. We didn't either.

Looking a little to the left, it looked like this:

The only "wildlife" we saw along the way were hoards of these damselflies. We assume they were gorging themselves on mosquitos.

From there we drove up a hill to one of the highest peaks in Homer on Skyline Drive. I'm afraid my pictures don't do justice to what we saw there. The mountains appeared close enough to touch. Looking to my left, it looked like this:

Looking straight out, we had an expansive view of the Kenai Range, Homer Spit, and Kachemak Bay. You can see the airstrip running horizontally near the middle of the image.

Looking more to the right, it looked like this:

Moving farther to the left, we could see a glacier in the bowl of the mountains there.

Here, I zoomed in some to get a better look. This might be the Grewingk Glacier.

There were some new-to-me-this-trip wildflowers blooming on the side of the road. My phone identified these as "Fox and cubs." Cute.

And some more of the wild geraniums.

And that was our day. We might have taken another short hike here, but we felt as if we'd walked all we wanted to. We headed back to the RV for lunch and naps. After that, we made a quick trip to the grocery store. We needed all things cat-related, and so you can see that it was something of an emergency.

Today we'll do some laundry and have a "life" day. There's a McDonald's in town, and I am Jonesing for an Egg McMuffin. We haven't had one since before leaving home. From there we'll do our laundry and then just relax for the day. It's our last day in Homer. Tomorrow will find us heading to Soldotna for two nights, and then on to Anchorage after that. 

When I'm planning these trips, I'm using an app called RVParky. It has a space for making notes, but I've discovered it doesn't always work right. When I looked at my notes for Soldotna, I found them identical to the notes I'd made for Skagway (a stop we won't reach until the end of July). So now, I'm not sure why we're stopping in Soldotna. The Milepost has been an excellent resource when I'm looking for activities in a certain place, and so I'll let the Milepost tell us why we're stopping there. For sure and certain, there is a quilt shop, which would be reason enough to stop. I need just one more fabric to finish my Shop Hop quilt.

Okay, so Mike is just finishing up in the shower. My turn is next. Time to get going. Laundry awaits.