grizzly tales

Now Homer is a place made for a man like John and to celebrate the fact he took 3 days to cycle the 230 miles of wilderness from Anchorage to get there. It was like a pilgrimage for him to the most quirky, fascinating and beautiful place on Earth, full of hippies, artists, new age healers and fishermen. It is utterly unique but so is John. He is a man who simply can't function properly in a mechanical/technological world, bicycle pedals excepted. "How does the shower turn on? " " Can you make toast in this microwave? " "How do you lock/unlock this door? " " How do you open the car boot? " are just a few of the many questions he has put to me during the last 5 weeks. In a similar vein this man closes, secures, ties up, locks up or zips up absolutely nothing--doors, lights, trousers, bags, shoelaces, belts, seat-belts etc. Yes they all get completely ignored or overlooked as part of a material world which, to be quite honest, the man struggles with. So you see he's kind of at home in a place like Homer with all its dreamers, mystics, comedians and eccentrics.

John's triumphant arrival in Homer on a glorious sunny day last week was celebrated with a trip to the Salty Dawg Saloon on the harbour. Now this bar is the strangest place you have ever drunk in your life; it's basically a hundred year old log cabin covered from ceiling to floor in signed dollar bills and with cursing fishermen greeting all who dare to enter. A few hours later John decided that signing a dollar bill and pinning it to the wall with all the others was not quite good enough and so decided instead to leave his entire wallet, cash, credit cards, driver's licence and all. It hasn't been seen since and the guy's living off me like a true hippy.

But back to Homer
- man walks round town all day with a real live parrot on his shoulder
- another man falls off his barstool in Karachters Bar and unable to move takes his cell phone from his pocket and phones his wife
- a fisherman hitches aride home from the Salty Dawg by waving his rod at oncoming cars as if to hook them and reel them in
- they have craft night in one of the bars which involves everyone painting ( often each other ), drawing or making something. At 1.00 am the winners are announced, the prizes awarded and everyone has a drink.
- everyone smokes in the bars
- you can buy furs in the shops from any animal that lives in Alaska
- the menfolk wear dungarees, have wild hair and long beards and are all called Slim or Hank
- a young man told me in Karachters that he didn't have a woman because he never wanted to break anyone's heart
- you can get any kind of new age healing including Deep Tissue Therapeutic Massage ( titter ye not )
- there is a place to eat called the Spit Sisters Cafe ( ooh er missus )

Are you getting the picture by now? Any way we stayed for a week and got out while we still had a chance and left for Seward, another crazy, beautiful town further up the Kenai Peninsular ( taking with us the very sad news of John's best mate John Walmsley's passing back in Wales ). We will never be quite the same again so please treat us kindly and gently when we return home in 2 weeks.

Take care folks.

Paul and John

P.S. Yes I know Spurs are bottom of the Premiership but I have had some therapy to deal with it.....no not the massage.

P.P.S. I got asked my date of birth twice when I bought fags and booze in a supermarket...apparently it's the law. Anyway needless to say I told the young lass who served me a complete lie.

P.P.S. Alaska is the only place in the world where you can keep a wolf as a pet.