Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

       I mentioned in my last post that I would write a little more about our trip down to Homer. It was really a fun trip, although we weren't there all that long. One of the highlights was dropping in to the Bear Creek Winery. Though I guess you could go there and whine if you want to, something that I'm very good at, it's an even better place to go if you want to try some local wine. Honestly, I'm not a big drinker of wine. It always looks so good, and it's made from fruit, which I like a lot, but the flavor isn't enough to make me want to go out and buy bottles of the stuff usually. However, there are exceptions to every rule, and for whatever reason, the wine that I tried at Bear Creek Winery was rather appealing. Before we went inside, we took a little trip around the gardens. Because it was September, most of the flowers had gone by the wayside, although there were still a few blooming, and the grounds were beautiful. I imagine if you decided to tour the

 This past weekend Jan and I and my daughter Autumn and her husband Aaron took a little trip down to the Kenai Peninsula to Homer. The town bills itself as the halibut fishing capital of the world. They may be, I don't know. I didn't go there to try out the halibut fishing.  The trip down was breathtaking, with the fall colors, which were primarily yellow, were on display and around every bend we were greeted with a delightful new scene. The traffic, while more than I care for, wasn't all that bad. In fact after we got out of Anchorage we didn't really run into too much until we turned onto the road that led down to the Kenai. We passed several glacier fed rivers with their blue green water rushing by and multiple rafts of fishermen making their way down, I guess in the hopes of catching a sockeye or coho salmon. Like many coastal towns, Homer is a fishing town and supports a good fleet of gillnet, seine, and charter boats. Noticeably missing were the trolling poles and

  I recently returned from an extended period of time away from home. I was down in Hoonah working on the boat and fishing. I left Wasilla on June 11, and didn't return until September 3. To say that it was a long time to be gone would be an understatement. Before I left Hoonah last year, I contacted a fellow who shrink wraps boats with a heavy plastic wrap. I spoken to several people who had the process done and they seemed to be happy with it. I left in September last year, and sometime in October he got the job done. Unfortunately, he didn't bother to mention that it would be advantageous to have a fan on and a window open to allow the moisture to dissipate. Never having gone through the procedure before, I didn't know what to expect.  When I returned to Hoonah, I saw that the covering was intact and given the fact that last winter was especially wet and snowy, I was delighted that I had decided to get the boat shrink-wrapped, that is until I opened the door. From floor