Oh, Homer

Yesterday we woke in Seward and took a self-guided tour of the SeaLife Center. It's mainly a research center created with part of the funds from the Exxon Valdez settlement. When scientists wanted to quantify the impact of the oil spill they realized that they didn't have the baseline data on local wildlife they needed. It's the mission of the SeaLife Center to track life in the Bering Sea for all uses: personal and commercial fishing, conservation, and pure research. They also have a nice visitor's center with examples of the local sea life, outlines the research and conservation work, and shows some of their tools and techniques. Oh, and you can see some animals there, too.

After that we hit the road and made our way around to Homer, on the other side of the Kenai Peninsula. We had heard great things about Homer, and it is a nice little town, but it appears to be focused on fishing excursions and shopping. We're not very interested in either so we've had a low-key day of sleeping late, poking around some of the shops and galleries, and playing cribbage in a coffee house. I've also worked through more of my photos and have uploaded the rest from our time at Camp Denali.

Tomorrow we'll drive back up to Anchorage and spend our last day in Alaska. We fly home on Thursday. Neither of us particularly wants our trip to end, but both of us are really craving our own bed (and shower) so it'll be good to be home.

Here are a couple of my favorite shots from the latest bunch:



And the "proof we were there" shot: