Alaska- The Reunion

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Homer, Seldovia and Seward

After a flight from LA via Dallas to Anchorage we were excited at seeing Rich’s Mum and Ian. Pat and Ian made it all the way out to Alaska for a three week holiday of their own that would start by meeting us in Alaska. Their flight had landed the day before ours but when we arrived at the airport they were nowhere to be seen. We were both really surprised as knowing Pat as we do thought she would have been waiting there for ages already. After hanging around a while we heard a squeal from a mother missing her son and turned around to see Pat who hugged us both. It turned out that our flight times had changed while we had been away and she had our original itinerary. So she had actually been there an hour before she expected the flight to land.


After a few more hugs and some food we headed for a small but beautiful B&B which Pat had booked us all into. It was a quite a breath of fresh air to have parts of our trip planned out for us. Arriving at a new place, trying to get a bus/taxi and somewhere to sleep after a series of long flights is never fun.

Pat and Ian had hired a vehicle and arranged for us all to go down to Homer. So after our four course breakfast we loaded up and set off. We stayed at a lovely hotel right on the end of Homer Spit for 2 nights. We had a great meal at the hotel where Rich got a rack of ribs that could have fed all four of us, easily, but of course he devoured the lot to himself, and then had desert! The following day Pat treated us for Jess’s upcoming birthday to a boat trip out to Seldovia. Seldovia is a cute little fishing village where most of the buildings are on stilts and there’s not much to do except go to the cafes and we found a great second-hand bookstore there. The boat journey itself was a real highlight as on the way out to Seldovia we saw loads of otters and on the way back we saw killer whales.

After a couple of days in luxury in Homer we began to make our way together towards Seward where Pat and Ian would be taking a cruise down to Vancouver. Our final night together was at a place called Coopers Landing which was on the way between Homer and Seward. We stayed at another great lodge there that was apparently a good place to spot bears. In fact we had been warned about bears because about a month before a girl had been severely attacked by a grizzly bear and had been lucky to survive. At the bottom of the lodge there was a river with some secluded platforms that were good for fishing and also potentially bear viewing. Mildly disappointed we hadn’t seen a bear there we headed back to the lodge when all of a sudden Pat gasped and there was a black bear on the footpath ahead of us. We stopped in out tracks and tried to get our cameras out for the bear which was about 30 metres away. It obviously noticed us but didn’t seem too bothered and after about a minute just headed off on its original path back into the bushes. Given the recent bear attack, we called the lodge to report the bear viewing as we had been asked and they came down to pick us up.

With our last night of indulgence and over-eating we headed to bed to prepare for our final stop together of Seward. The next day we dropped Pat and Ian off at the cruise terminal in their rental car and were quite sad to see them go. After six months away, and a few great days together it seemed a little strange that it would be another six months before seeing them again. We were grateful for the time together though and it had been especially nice for us not to be roughing it or really having to worry about anything at all for those few days.

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