Anchor Point North of Homer, AK

This most amazing scene played out in front of me when I stopped at Halibut Cove State Park and Recreation area in Anchor Point. Instead of lining up boat trailers in the parking lot, the were lined up along the sand beach.

When a boater was ready to come back in, he called ahead. The tractor picked up their trailer maneuvering it along the sand beach into the water, enabling the captain to simply drive up onto the trailer and be hauled out of the water and up to the paved parking lot. When I told Don about this amazing way of getting the boat onto a trailer, he was not impressed at all as he has seen it done that way before. Oh well, guess an ole boater such as himself has seen plenty in his day.

Of course the ever present seagull, but I was surprised:

to see these Sand Hill Cranes along my drive route. I knew they were in Alaska, but never gave a thought to seeing them here, and in someones yard yet. I felt honored to have seen them in their Spring habitat of Horan, Wisconsin then here in Alaska also.

My intent was to take a drive north from Homer to Anchor Point (see Halibut Cove above) and attempt to find the Russian Village to take a picture of the Church. I took the North Fork Road out of Anchor Point. I followed this very winding, very hilly road forever, getting deeper and deeper into what I viewed as no-man's land. The farther I went the scarier it felt; but I was on a quest. The books say the trip was only 9 miles but it sure felt a lot, lot longer.




As you see I did indeed finally find the Russian Church. I took the pictures and got out of there as fast as I could. Once again I ran out of paved roads when approaching the village. The village appeared to me as many of the native peoples villages (in the lower 48) are when we drive through them; in disrepair and disregard. No one was anywhere to be seen and I simply felt ill at ease.

Amazed to see the Community was established in 1968.

Our friends Judy and Jerry Funk had also been to this town (yea, there were two of them--one of me) and stopped at the Post Office (I saw it but would not have stopped there). The postmistress told them of a nice Russian Cafe up and down a block or two. They went there and enjoyed the experience. The proprietress was dressed in full Russian custom and adorned them with babushka and fur hat. While plying them with many Russian stories. They were served a Russian meal starting with Bourst, however, no spoons were served with the soup. When they asked for spoons they were given Russian lacquer spoons which were to be used for the entire meal. Boy were they surprised when they could not return the spoons but had, unbeknownst to them, purchased the spoons at the time of accepting them. The entire meal including the spoons was pretty pricey, even if it had been an evening meal instead of lunch. More importantly Judy and Jerry enjoyed the whole experience, which you can read about on their blog: http://theadventureroadshowwithjerryandjudy.blogspot.com/



BBFN Karen

P.S. Anchor Point holds title to having land out to the farthest western point in the United States.