HOMER, AK (Day 4).  We spent today driving around the local area.  We had some of the best light of the tour, so we drove along an artsy-bohemian road near the Homer Spit shoreline where old water vessels of various kinds have been seemingly abandoned.  I was informed by one departing painter-artist that two other artists had just left and she was now packing up to leave.  Their especial favorite to paint was the boat behind which she was packing up (see her in lower right of following photo).

Artists' Favorite in Right Light

Road Along Which These Boats Are Placed

My favorite water vessel was the one below.  It looked like something out of a Disney movie, a sort of pirate ship or something like that.  It appeared that someone was living in it.

This Was My Favorite.  The "Mystery Ship."

 I shot a panorama of it to record it closeup.  You can click on any of these images to enlarge them.

We then drove up to Anchor Point, the westernmost drivable point in North America.  From there you can see the "ring of fire" to the west, so called because all the large mountains are volcanoes, and some day each will go the way of Mt St Helens.   I set up the tripod and posed with Betty for a photo (see below).  Cook Inlet is behind us.  The distant view is still pretty hazy.

Steven and Betty at Anchor Point, AK

Mt Redoubt, One of the Ring of Fire

Mt Iliamna, One of the Ring of Fire

The shoreline was active with birds catching fish.  Below is a cropped distant photo of a bald eagle who had caught a fish.

Note Red Fish in Its Talons

The Ever-present Beautiful Fire Weed

Next we drove to Ninilchik, the Russian Orthodox town that is spoken of much like Seldovia, which we had visited by boat.  At least you can reach this town by car.

Once again we found it hard to reach the Orthodox church.  There was a sign beside a nice grassy pathway, which we walked up.

Betty Walking Up Grassy Pathway

But this nice pathway ends abruptly a few yards up.  Then you find yourself on one of the ever-present Alaskan dirt roads, with no sign of where to go next.

Where the Grassy Pathway Ended

We went up the road to near its end, where it drops off the cliff.  There was a sign saying to stop (see below).  We turned back, not seeing the pathway beside it.  The pathway now looked nothing like the beginning grassy pathway.  We later found this to be typical of the cryptic mannerisms of the Russian Orthodox, somewhat xenophobic.

We walked back down to where we had started and went into the gift shop building (see below) and asked the proprietor how to get to the church from that road.  He dead-panned looked at me and said there was a plain-to-see pathway all the way up.  Surely he knew why we could not find it and was dusting us off.  Then he added that we could drive there using the next road to the north, aptly named Orthodox Road.  We drove to the church, then I worked my way back to find where we had gotten lost.  This is when I took a close photo of the path beside the STOP sign shown above.

View Walking Back Down Road Was Nice

Gallery-Gift Shop-General Meeting Place of the Town

Church Coming Into View Climbing Up Obscure Path

Pathway Finally Exits Along Fence at Right

View From Front of Church

Approaching Church from Orthodox Road

When we drove up to the church along Orthodox Road, we found several narrow pathways to the church, all passing through their cemeteries.  Old town founders were buried there in the Orthodox section by the church, but other town residents who were not Orthodox had adjoining cemeteries to the left with regular crosses instead of the Russian Orthodox crosses.  Unlike other cemeteries, these are not mowed or weeded over the graves, which are enclosed with fences.  Pathways walk over the weeds.  In the adjoining non-Orthodox cemeteries, it is mowed everywhere except over the gravesites.