Birthday Surprise

For my birthday this year, Bryan surprised me with a 4-day Weekend Getaway in Homer! He had been down there by himself a few weeks ago and had come across a place he really liked, so he went ahead and booked us right then.

The weekend was actually a comedy of errors: there were a few hiccoughs with the reservations, a few misunderstandings as to what amenities were available and what weren’t, and we may have driven right past the place a few times trying to find it initially. We were adaptable, though, and just rolled with the flow. None of the issues were earth-shattering, mostly just adding a humorous side-note.

We took off from Palmer around 9:30 or so on Thursday morning, making our way leisurely down the coast and admiring the scenery along the way. We stopped in at Girdwood to grab a late breakfast/early lunch, then continued on in to Soldotna for a rest stop at Fred Meyers where Bryan went in for a potty break while I just paced the parking lot to work the kinks out of my hips. When Bryan got back to the truck, he had a large packaged wrapped in brown paper bags. More surprises to add to the list!

It was about 5:00 pm when we pulled into the parking lot at The Bear Creek Winery – and that’s when I found out that we were staying THERE! I have to admit, I was stunned. I kept thinking to myself, “We’re staying at a winery?!?” it was so NOT what I had pictured in my mind when he said he found the perfect place for us.

Honestly, though, it really was nice. They were just starting to open back up after having to close down for the whole COVID-19 thing and we were their first guests. As a matter of fact, we were their ONLY guests – the rules are that now they can only have one guest(s) at a time, and they had to wait 3 days after we left before they could have another guest stay there. That kind of sucks for them, but it was really great for us! We had the entire place to ourselves, and could use the hot tub or fire pit any time we wanted throughout the day or night.

Our room was small, but still large enough for a nice bed, a sitting area, a kitchenette and a small dining area. The deck outside the front door had a picnic table and a gas grill. And best of all, right off the deck was the goldfish pond, with a dozen of the biggest goldfish I’ve ever seen! It was so much fun watching them swim around all day! Our hosts even provided fish food we could toss out there occasionally.

For a Birthday Surprise (as if there wasn’t enough of a surprise already) he had arranged for them to place a vase with a dozen roses, a bottle of white wine, some fancy chocolates, and two crystal glasses on a lace tablecloth in the sitting area. And on top of that, the owner came over with another bottle of their special edition Pomegranate Wine and more special chocolates! I don’t think I’ve ever had so much wine in one weekend – but all of it was so good…

Remember that package Bryan got in Soldotna at the Fred Meyers? That turned out to be a portable DVD player! One of the “comedy of errors” I spoke of earlier… turns out the room did not come with a DVD player, but I had brought all these movies for us to watch while making cards and tying flies each night. So – now we have one we can take with us on all of our weekend getaways!

For our first day, we drove out to the end of East End Road to a little cove where we walked the beach for a good 2 hours. The day was just gorgeous with blue skies and calm seas. We were the only ones out there, so didn’t have to worry about wearing our masks – we just took our time and enjoyed the fresh air.

For our second day we walked the docks down on the spit. It was a little bit more crowded down there, of course, but people were really good about keeping their distance, so we didn’t feel endangered in the slightest.

We did get to see a huge sea otter, though! She was sleeping in the harbor at first, but then hauled herself up onto one of the docks and promptly went back to sleep. She was not at all concerned with us being right there watching her.