Homer to Soldotna

Day 18--Monday, August 5, 2002, 44.29 miles

Awoke this a.m. to the gentle patter of rain on the tent fly. Got ourselves packed and off by 9:30 as we had decided to have breakfast at the Sourdough Express rather than get out our stove and food in the rain. Just as we left the campground, it began to really come down. When we got to the Sourdough Express six miles later, we were drenched. Jess's new fender did little to keep her dry, and she may have created a problem by lowering her back fender. Almost immediately she had a broad black stripe down her back.

We called the Homer Tribune and John Crowder, who had been in touch and wanted to take a photo for the paper. He came to the S.E., talked to us over breakfast, and took his pix. He told us that McKibben Jackinsky was at her desk. Since she had previously e-mailed the following instructions: "DON'T LEAVE THE PENINSULA without us getting to say hello," I determined to met this woman with the unusual but musical first name. McKibben and I had gotten to know each other and had chatted through e-mails but had never met.

We stopped at the P.O. and mailed home some stuff and mailed Scott the photos that we'd had developed the day before. Then we cycled up the hill to the Tribune offices and met McKibben. Jess and I later agreed that she was exactly what we'd expected: a very lovely woman a handful of years younger than I and with a vibrant personality. Why we didn't take a photo of the three of us together, I don't know.

The hill out of Homer wasn't as bad as we had expected. Took us only 20 or 25 minutes of slow, hot granny gear spinning, but we did it. Temps today were in the mid fifties and it was foggy and grey, but I was in my faded yellow sleeveless jersey for most of the day.

We cycled back to Ninilchik, and debated spending the night at Denny's Deep Creek Fish camp again. But, since we had to make up for the extra day we'd spent in Homer and really didn't want to set up the wet tent in the soggy foggy chill, we decided to devote 30 minutes to trying to hitch a ride to Soldotna and our "old" Central Emergency Services training room. If we failed to get a ride, we'd go back to Denny's fish camp.

About 25 minutes later John Hutchison, his 11-year old daughter, and his border collie, Zorro, picked us up. They were on their way to Anchorage in an extended cab truck and were pulling a sailboat that John had sailed up from B.C. Already in the pickup were two bikes and Zorro. We crammed our trailers and bikes in, leaving poor Zorro very little room. John has a permanent slip in Homer and makes a living taking people sailing.

So . . . here we are again in the Soldotna C.E.S. training room. Per last time, we were issued a fluffy towel and a great shower, told to help ourselves to the kitchen between shift changes, and shown where to hang our wet tent and fly to dry in the apparatus bay. Randy said: "You know the drill," and so we do.

After I showered and changed into clean, dry clothes, I got us some take-out and now I am finishing this update as Jess once again watches "Law and Order."