Fishing in Homer for the 4th of July

For the Forth of July weekend I drove down to Homer, Alaska which takes about 10 hours if you go straight from Fairbanks. I made a stop in Anchorage to visit a friend and spend the night so that I could get into Homer the next day in the early afternoon. Here are some of my favorite photos from the ride down:

Denali in all of it's glory (not a cloud in the sky!)

Ginny in all of her glory (w/ Denali in the background)

Funny cell phone tourists

Here's an amazing glacier as seen from the bedroom window of Junee's, the Bed & Breakfast I visited for 2 nights.

Here's a picture of me and June, the woman who ran the B&B that spent 2 nights. Would you believe she's 80-years-young!

June is an amazing woman who spent an entire evening knitting and telling me about her goldmining parents in the early 1900's and even made sourdough pancakes for breakfast with starter her mother brought across the Chilkoot trail! There's even a framed photo in her house of her father with 12 POUNDS of gold, back when it was only $35 an ounce. [Today's price: $959 an ounce.]

During the trip I walked "the Spit" and visited multiple coffee shops, old bookstores, bakeries and art galleries. Saturday morning my friends and I got up at 5am to get ready to be at the dock for our Charter at 6:30am. We took a boat with our captain Ben and two other guys who signed up last-minute on our charter. It was tons of fun!

Here's me and my second catch of the day, a 32 lb. Halibut. It was hard work getting this bad boy up and I had the bruises and sore arms to prove it. But man, was it worth it!

...and the video to prove that it was ALL ME BABY!

What a successful day!

Our fish getting filleted with the mountains and ocean just feet away!

It was a fantastic trip, a relaxing vacation and a beautiful place. It's hard to believe that a place this beautiful is just hours away from the University that I attended and now work. Alaska is such a cool place!