The End of The Road (2 page)

“We’ll have to drop her a note and let her know we’re staying home this winter, won’t we?” I asked Stretch, who gave me a glance before returning his attention to the people who were passing on their way in and out of the post office.

“Okay,” I told him. “Forget the
we
.
I’ll
write the note. Let’s go find a place to walk, yes?”

I backed out of the parking place, turned the car and drove us out of the lot and onto the highway that would lead to the spit in a mile or two.

Alaskans have long said that if the small community of Homer is not “the end of the road” in our state, at least “you can see it from here.” It is perfectly true that once you arrive in Homer, there is nowhere else to drive but back up the Kenai Peninsula on the highway you came down on; through Soldotna and Cooper Landing, over Turnagain Pass, and down to Girdwood, where Alyeska Resort provides some of the best skiing available in the country, then on another fifty-plus miles to Anchorage, a total of just over two hundred and twenty miles.

They also say, with Russia on the other side of the Bering Sea, that it is “as far as you can go without a passport.”

I love living in Homer and was not unhappy to be spending the winter in my hometown. I’ve been there all my life and watched it grow from a village to a fair-sized town. Still, it maintains its casual, small community attitude and reputation as a fis hing and art center, drawing hoards of visitors in the summer months—tourists that crowd the hotels, campgrounds, restaurants, shops and art galleries, museum, and Sea Life Center, and fishermen who charter boats to go out in search of the giant halibut that secrete themselves in the deep waters of the bay and larger inlet.

The Homer Jackpot Halibut Derby was started in 1986 by the Chamber of Commerce and from Memorial Day to Labor Day each year draws participants from all over—many from the Lower Forty-eight. In the summer of 2007 the largest halibut caught weighed 358.4 pounds, was too large for five men to pull into the boat, and won the fisherman who caught and brought it in to be weighed a prize of $37,243. But it was not the largest on record—a monster caught in 1996 had tipped the scales at 376 pounds.

During the winter months Homer turns into a much quieter place and the locals take a deep breath and have time to visit with their neighbors and friends. Many small shops, especially those out on the spit, close until the next tourist season and their owners settle down to enjoying life in one of the warmest spots in the state north of the southeast panhandle. Besides being at the end of the road, Homer is sometimes called “the banana belt,” with winter temperatures ten degrees or more higher than Anchorage, which is northeast of us at the head of Cook Inlet. But then, according to a bumper sticker I noticed recently, it is also called “a quaint drinking village with a fishing problem.”

About a block from the post office the highway angled south to cross the slough, curved east and became Ocean Drive, then, shortly, south again as Homer Spit Road, and passed the airport before dipping onto the spit itself. I drove us out approximately three-quarters of its length, with ocean water on each side, until it widened and we reached the large lot that overlooked the marina to the east. Except for a few cars and trucks at the south end it was almost empty, a condition totally different from that during some summer weekends, when in a crowd of vehicles I might have been lucky to find a space to park anywhere but far at the north end.

I pulled in and parked closer to the road than to the marina, walked around to take Stretch out of his basket, lower him to the ground, and attach his leash. After locking the car, I pocketed the keys and shouldered my day pack, and we headed across the highway toward a path that would take us down to the west beach, a dozen or so feet lower than the road.

As we started down it the horn of a vehicle honked behind me and I turned to recognize a friend who was a nurse at the Homer South Peninsula Hospital and was evidently on her way back into town from somewhere farther out on the spit. She pulled over to the side of the road, let the motor idle, rolled down her window, and offered a smile as I walked up to say hello.

“Maxie! What are you doing in Alaska? I thought you’d be long gone to somewhere down south for the winter.”

“Hi, Becky. I decided to stay here this year,” I told her. “Guess I was homesick for the place.”

“You’re a glutton for punishment,” she warned. “There’ll be snow soon, and below-zero temps. Better think again.”

“Already put the motor home into storage in Anchorage for the season. Guess I’m stuck.”

“Well, in that case, can you come tonight for spaghetti and an evening of dominoes and Farkel?” she invited. “Linda’s here—flew down from Anchorage yesterday for a night or two, and it’d be more fun with three of us.”

“Love to,” I agreed. “What time? And I’ll bring the wine, okay?”

“Great. Come on over—oh—whenever. Five. Six. Whatever works for you. I’ll see you then. Now I gotta run to meet Linda for lunch. I left her at Ulmer’s looking for a new filter for her fish tank and a glass top for the coffeepot. See you later.”

She was gone with another wave, this one out the window, as Stretch and I turned again to go down to the beach.

The tide had been on its way out since early that morning, leaving a wide shingle of wet sand in its wake. The sea was fairly calm, though the breeze was strong enough to blow a bit of spray off the surface of each low incoming wave.

A couple of glaucous-winged gulls were riding the air currents in wide, sweeping circles over the water. Like the eagles, they would stay all winter. I was surprised, however, to notice a solitary arctic tern, with its black cap and red bill and feet, huddled close on the sheltered east side of a battered log that had drifted in and been stranded when the tide went out. Usually these attractive birds migrate south in the fall to escape the cold and return in the spring. They have forked tails and long pointed wings trimmed in black on the posterior edges and I love to watch their graceful flight, swooping in over the beaches where they nest, sometimes in colonies, among the rocks and grasses of the beaches of Kachemak Bay.

Reaching the bottom of the sloping path on the dry part of the beach, I turned us south to walk along behind a row of little shops with steep pointed roofs that had been built on a platform over heavy pilings that raised them up to be level with and facing the road, their backs to the sea. When all the visitors and fishermen leave at the end of the tourist season the proprietors of these small businesses close them up tight and retreat to their homes in town for the winter. Only a few larger, more solidly built structures remain open—a restaurant or two, the Harbor Master, Coast Guard, and Alaska State Ferry Offices, and the Land’s End Resort, for instance.

I let Stretch off his leash and he trotted immediately over to explore among the pilings that supported the now closed shops above us. Somewhere there he found a stick that he deemed acceptable and brought it back to drop at my feet, looking up at me expectantly. He’s not much into the game of fetch, but once in a while he will play for a few minutes before something else attracts his attention and he leaves me holding the stick, so to speak. This time it lasted four or five retrievals before he gave it up, curiosity aroused by a gull that landed close to the water on the wet sand left by the retreating tide, but it took off again with a resentful squawk at his approach.

We walked for the better part of an hour. Or at least I did. Stretch must have covered several times my distance in his explorations and investigations. Finally, when I began to feel cold, I sat myself down on another abandoned log, my back to the sea breeze, and pulled the thermos out of my day pack, along with his bowl and the bottle of water I had brought along. Noticing what I was doing, he came scampering back and waited politely while I splashed some water into the bowl, then lapped it up thirstily. I gave him more and poured myself a thermos cap of the breakfast coffee, which I sipped as I watched him drink his fill, then lie down to rest at my feet in the shelter of the log.

It had been a good walk, but it was turning truly chilly as the anticipated clouds rolled in from the west and the sun, already low in the southern sky that late in the year, disappeared behind them. The wind had grown stronger and now that the tide had turned the incoming waves were breaking farther and farther up the sandy shore, significantly more spray blowing from each crest.

Farther down the beach I saw an eagle perched atop an old piling with its back turned to the gusts that ruffled its feathers. It was one of many that come to the end of the spit, where a woman who lives in a small one-room house has fed them for so many years that, though I’m sure she has a name, everyone just calls her the Eagle Lady.

All but one of the gulls that had been riding the wind high overhead had vanished into shelter.

“Well, intrepid explorer of beaches, are you ready to go home? It’s getting downright cold out here.”

Stretch stood up in response to the word
home
, waiting for me to get myself together and start.

After drinking the last swallow of the coffee I had poured, I shook out the last drop or two and replaced the cap on the thermos, tucked it back into the day pack with Stretch’s water bottle and bowl, got to my feet and headed for the hill that would take us up again.

There were more grasses beside that more southern path that we took up to the road and they were rustling storm warnings to each other as they bent eastward, away from the cold air that tossed them down to brush semicircular patterns in the sand.

Stretch had picked up another stick somewhere late in his last investigations. He sneezed and dropped it as he breathed in some of the wind-borne sand that flew over the ground at his level. Leaving it where it lay, he trotted up the hill in record time and stood at the top looking down, as if to say
Come on, we don’t have all day, you know
.

At times I think he actually believes he is responsible for me and that I simply could not possibly make it without him to supervise.

TWO

WHEN I REACHED THE TOP of the path next to the road I snapped Stretch’s leash to his collar and we began to walk together along in front of the seaside shops, all closed and secured for the winter. As we passed, I read a few of the more than a dozen signs: The Spirit of Alaska Native Crafts, North Country Halibut Charters, White Wave Gifts, Across Alaska Adventures, Halibut King Adventures, Rainbow Tours, and Central Charters.

Facing these on the other side of the road were more small shops at ground level: The Better Sweater, Brown Bear Photo Safari, Homer Spit Gifts, and Forget-Me-Not Gifts—the last with a sign in its window that read, “Closed for the season. See you in the spring. Stop by our town location just uphill of the post office.”

North of these was a much larger two-story building, stained a warm golden brown that accentuated its bright green metal roof. It housed the Coal Point Trading Company with its Fresh Seafood Market and gift shop, which I noticed was open and offering espresso as well. Now decidedly chilled, I considered that for a moment or two, but gave it up. There was coffee to be made at home, where we could warm up inside.

In front of the building was a tall pole with arrows attached top to bottom that pointed in all directions and gave the mileage to such mixed locations and distances as Cape Horn 9503, Anchorage 235, Seward 180, Beck’s Saltry 6, Bering Sea 700, Ferry Office .04, Addie’s 50ft, Halibut Cove 6, and Mt. Iliamna 58. As always, in passing, it made me smile at the sense of humor of the pole’s creator.

As we came to the end of the row of shops on pilings, ready to cross the road, I was reaching into my coat pocket for the keys to the car when the leash went slack as Stretch suddenly stopped short in front of me. Off guard, I almost stumbled over him, but looking to discover what had caught his attention I saw a man sitting at one of the three or four picnic tables on the platform that supported the shopping area. He was facing the road, watching us pass, with a tall paper cup between his hands on the table in front of him—evidently some of the espresso offered across the street at the Trading Company.

His hair and forehead were hidden under a blue baseball cap with a bill, and he had zipped his heavy gray coat up under his chin. Under the table I could see a pair of brown work boots below his jeans-clad legs. A pair of heavy leather gloves and a wallet lay on the table in front of him.

That late in the year we have very few tourists, and this person’s dress told me he was probably a working man, maybe a hand on one of the cargo ships that during rough weather sometimes come into the calmer, deep waters of the bay that are protected by the spit, or wait their turn to load whatever is waiting to be shipped. Most floating cargo comes into Alaska at Seward, where it can be loaded onto freight cars or trucks and transported on to Anchorage and Fairbanks. Points farther north that are off the road or rail systems are serviced by air. What we can’t grow or produce in Alaska—and there are a lot of things that fall into that category—also comes in overland on the Alaska Highway, by plane from a wide variety of sources, or by sea all the way up the coast of British Columbia and the Alaska panhandle. Given his appearance, my fir st guess was that he had arrived on one of the latter and was perhaps waiting for that ship to be ready to start its long run back down to the Lower Forty-eight.