The Dale's Trails: Hanging Out In Homer

Today is a window shopping day. Cute little stores. Men cleaning fish (I wanted to get my hands on them so bad…fish that is). Here is a big one for ya. The Time Bandit store is here. Time Bandit is is one of the ships for the show the Deadliest Catch and this is its home port. I was so hoping one of the two captains (brothers) would be around. My friend was here last year and yes she had her picture taken with Capt Andy. The store manager told me that he was only here once last year. Luck was on her side.

We stopped in to the Salty Dawg Saloon. Hooptie wanted to get out for a while so we took her there too. I have been in places where there are dollar bills all over the bar but I have never seen anything quite like this place. Not only is there money all over, but bras, undies, t-shirts etc. Tiny little place with a big reputation. The lighthouse section of this pieced together building is a NOAA marker and once was a water tower. The main section of the saloon was the headquarters for the Cooks Inlet Coal Fields Co. The pool table area was Homers first Post Office and where the bar is, the log cabin, was reported to be a schoolhouse. Cool history.

Now for more history, the Eagle Lady story. I am going to link you to my friends blog. She wrote so beautifully about this story last year when she was here, and I think you would enjoy it.click here. (www.quinnsawesomejourney.blogspot.com July 19,2009) Short version is: this woman Jean came to Homer Spit back in the 1970’s and built a little home where she lived year round. Jean fed the nearly 300 Eagles that came daily in the winter. She was fortunate enough to work for a fish house who allowed her to take scraps and any freezer burned fish home for the eagles. Just think it all started with her feeding just two of them. Jean was able to continue feeding the eagles when a law was passed making it illegal to feed the them. She was grandfathered in because she had been doing this for such a long time. She loved those eagles and they loved her. When she took ill, an Eagle kept vigil, they almost knew she was ill and wanted to watch over her. She built this perch for them and it still stands today, even though her home is no longer there.