We woke up to a lovely sunny day and headed back down to the harbor for breakfast before touring the Alaska Sea Life Center. I am embarrassed that this has been here so long and I haven’t visited to know what a real jewel it is – the research, rehabilitation and hands-on stuff is so nicely combined and presented in creative and interesting ways. 
We enjoyed looking at so many species of fish and sea creatures, plus touching them in the Discovery Pool. I learned more interesting things about barnacles than I thought possible! We had fun watching the seals and sea lion and nesting birds too. There are a lot of activities going on that make this a good community center as well as a tourist draw, and I coveted the many quilts displayed on the walls with all sorts of imaginative interpretations of marine life - wish I could bring those back for FOP's auction!
The day grew more sunny and pleasant as we took a short drive along the road that hugs the mountains along the bay out to Lowell Point, where I planted a letterbox and played with a cute dog on the beach - you can just barely see him at the water's edge in this pic. All the while I'm thinking I just love it here - I've got to find a way to GET here for good...
Then we took the 8-mile side road through beautiful yellow leaves to visit Exit Glacier on our way out of town. One of 35 glaciers that come off the largest icefield in North America (Harding Icefield), Exit Glacier is named because it provided a relatively easy trail off the icefield for early explorers. 
In this picture with Exit still a few miles distant, consider that only a few hundred years ago everything between you and it was under ice as this glacier occupied this whole valley – it created this plain. It’s still a very actively surging glacier, advancing about two feet per year; however, the aggressive summer melt reduces it so that the net effect is a retreat of about six inches annually.
Mom was not sure she could make the whole walk (the round trip was close to a mile and a half, though most of it was a nicely paved walkway), but I knew that with lots of rest stops, she could do it. So with a combination of encouragement and browbeating, she did indeed get there, and even ventured out some distance across the rocks of the outwash plain to within 30 yards of the glacier face. I think she was a little scared to go closer (plus there are all those big ‘danger of imminent death’ signs – I'm not making light of that, as real tragedy has occurred here). I told her she'd regret not taking those last few steps, and sure enough a day later, she did. Anyway, this is one of the most picturesque spots in Alaska that is also this readily accessible to just walk right up to this ice mountain. To see what I mean, check out these photos in the Natural Born Hikers webpage as they take you up onto the icefield for a hike they rate at Purgatory for difficulty level. (My mother might agree.) I planted a letterbox along the trail before we left.
By then it was well after 3 pm so I just opened the throttle and got us down to the end of the road. Literally – the end of the road, down to the Homer Spit on Kachemak Bay (check out the slide show on this link!). On the way down the western peninsula coast, the string of volcanoes greeted us from across the inlet – Spurr, Redoubt, Iliamna and even Augustine visible in the late afternoon light.
Homer’s a quirky place (okay, so we have a lot of those), mixed about half artisans and half fishermen, and probably some who are both. I think the fishing charter operations may be outnumbered only by the espresso stands. The Spit extends about 4 miles out of town straight into the bay, and we got a room at Land’s End right at the tip, with nothing between our window and the beach. Scouted a few locations for letterboxing, got a quick dinner while watching a guy on the beach catching some little flounders and sole, and the state ferry Tustumena come past us to dock. Then headed back above town to Skyline Drive for incredible views of a gorgeous pink and purple and gold sunset. Back down to the hotel as the town lights came on, got settled in and then opened the door to our private deck, to see a full moonrise over the bay. Had I taken 15 seconds to pay attention to camera settings this could have been a gorgeous picture, but I just let that go, pointed it, held as still as I could and waited for the shutter to finnnnnnnnnally click - you get the idea anyway. Sat there quietly, sipping coffee and enjoying the light on the water and the sounds of the last few birds awake. The rooms are small and decked out like ship staterooms, so Mom settled into the captain's bed while I unlatched my berth hung from the wall, opened the windows and listened to the rhythm of the surf a few yards beyond, all night long.
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