Yesterday afternoon when we were driving from Anchorage to Talkeetna we suddenly heard a very loud and freaky  bumping noise. We pulled over and Ma and Pa ran out to investigate. I soon learned that the tread on one of our back tires had come off. Ma called our road side assistance service and they found someone in Anchorage, more than 100 miles away,  to help us. We waited about two hours. Finally, someone came with a truck that had all the stuff to replace a tire on the side of the road,  so we didn’t have to be towed to a tire shop. He replaced the tire. It was cool to watch him put on the new tire. We resumed driving about four hours after the tread came off.

This morning I woke to the sounds of Pa freaking out because the battery box had been bent sideways by the tread coming off. There was a mechanic in town, so dad took the RV there while Little Kid, Ma and I went to the playground. Pa said the mechanic bent the battery box back in shape. Pa met us at the park.

Spent a fun and happy week in Homer, on the Kenai Peninsula. Homer, a town of 5000, is an interesting mix of hippies and artists, who describe Homer as being the “conscience of Alaska”, and fisherman, who routinely catch Halibut up to 200 pounds.

We camped on the Spit, a 4.5 mile sand bar, with a two lane road, a walking path, beaches to the east and west, and the usual tourist trappings of gift shops and galleries, boat charters and bars. The area has enormous tides, of twenty feet +, which means great tide pools to explore!

Other than beach combing, we went on some nice walks, visited the local playground, roamed around town, ate icecream, and relaxed. Went on one hike down a road of sorts (very, very steep and very,very rough) and then alongside the beach to a community of Old Believers (a sect that split from the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1600s).

And, of course, there was the requisite backdrop of breathtaking snow capped mountains and fantastic glaciers.