A Day in Homer
Tuesday, July 25 - We decided to take a break from unpacking and planned a day in Homer. It's about an hour and a half south of Soldotna. It was a bit more of a gray day with some cooler temperatures. But it turned out to be just fine because we did a bit of hiking, and it was nice not to have the blazing sun overhead.
We started out going to the Kilcher homestead. It's the site of a popular Discovery Channel show called Alaska: The Last Frontier. It's about two brothers from a family of original Alaska homesteaders. One of the brother's daughters is the singer Jewel. Here's the link to the show - Alaska: The Last Frontier
Our tour guide was actually one of the brothers' six sisters, Sunrise. The whole family grew up in a log cabin put together by their father, Yule, who came over from Switzerland, and worked the land in order to trade for other things and/or sell their goods to make money. It was a very interesting history lesson. All of the stuff in the house was left just as it was the day that Yule died in 1998, so you can see how outdated their things were. Sunrise even remembers the day they got electricity in the cabin in 1955!
The view from the property was spectacular! We even saw porcupine wandering the grounds.
On the way to the beach, we ran into another Kilcher sister named Faye. She was mowing around their orchard out in the lower meadow.
After we finished our tour, we went into Homer itself and had a delicious pizza lunch at a place called Fat Olives. Give it a try if you're ever there! The harbor is cool with all of the fishing boats docked. Definitely bring a jacket though because Homer is windy!
We even found the dollars that we decorated and left in the saloon two years ago. We added a few more this time around too. We'll see if they survive when we go back!
Homer is a great stop. We'll definitely be going back again soon!
We started out going to the Kilcher homestead. It's the site of a popular Discovery Channel show called Alaska: The Last Frontier. It's about two brothers from a family of original Alaska homesteaders. One of the brother's daughters is the singer Jewel. Here's the link to the show - Alaska: The Last Frontier
Our tour guide was actually one of the brothers' six sisters, Sunrise. The whole family grew up in a log cabin put together by their father, Yule, who came over from Switzerland, and worked the land in order to trade for other things and/or sell their goods to make money. It was a very interesting history lesson. All of the stuff in the house was left just as it was the day that Yule died in 1998, so you can see how outdated their things were. Sunrise even remembers the day they got electricity in the cabin in 1955!
The view from the property was spectacular! We even saw porcupine wandering the grounds.
Then we took a little one mile hike down to the Kilcher beach, which they used to use as their road to town, using a horse and buggy! It was a really gorgeous area. They even had a homemade outhouse on the way, just in case.
After we finished our tour, we went into Homer itself and had a delicious pizza lunch at a place called Fat Olives. Give it a try if you're ever there! The harbor is cool with all of the fishing boats docked. Definitely bring a jacket though because Homer is windy!
We ended our time in Homer with a visit to the famous Salty Dawg Saloon. We'd heard about it many years ago when we first started traveling to Alaska. It has a super interesting history. Check it out - Salty Dawg history
Homer is a great stop. We'll definitely be going back again soon!
So interesting! And the family is still there working the land. Love it!
ReplyDeleteLove that the dollars are still there! So cool 😊
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