Started the day in complete relaxation - nobody around us, not a bear to be seen, no reason to hurry! Took Sara out for a run off leash since I hadn't seen any signs of bear (even woke several times from 5 - 9am when sun was up and saw nothing but small squirrels and birds). We ate breakfast and got a leisurely start at 12noon, knowing that we only had to drive about 120 miles today. But my first bad decision was when I said "let's look at Lake Skilak" when the sign appeared, and Linda added "it's a loop road" - our other exploratory trips have always worked out well, but this was a bad miscalculation!! Turns out it was 19 miles of gravel road, the first 5 miles fooled you because they were "normal" gravel, but the last 13 miles were that "corrugated gravel" slowing our drive to 8-12mph! It was painful, physically and mentally! But the one good event, was that we finally saw our Alaskan bear! He crossed the road, ambled back and forth, then finally ambled into the woods. Linda didn't have her camera ready, so was flying all over the RV like an Alaska mosquito, trying to find it and the charging battery! (Never got the picture, but fortunately my phone was at hand to provide proof of bear siting!). We also saw several gorgeous lakes and a great campground on one of the lakes, but would never make the drive to get back to it! The last 6 miles was painfully slow with only my thoughts of "what do I do if a tire blows here, will Good Sam ever find us?" When we finally emerged back onto Sterling Highway, we both cheered and Sara yawned! Smooth road never felt so good! We next descended onto the Chainsaw Carvings Gallery! We stopped to admire his artistry, all done completely by chain saw, no hand whittling of details on red cedar wood. No room for these guys in the RV, so we just took pics. Next we came into Soldotna and were shocked to find it a city of 5500 people, which meant 2 grocery stores, one being Fred Myers, my new favorite store - cheap gas ($2.64/gal) and lots of vegetables and good breads, etc. It's so strange to see a big town, we hadn't seen one except Anchorage since Canada! Stop lights, 4-lane roads, traffic was so surprising. We also caught the end of the Soldotna Creek Farmer's Market. It's early in the season here, so no home grown foods, but a lot of food trucks and some home handicrafts. I tried my first reindeer sausage with grilled onions - pretty good! (Sorry, Rudolph!). We stopped at the visitor center there, asking about the salmon run that I thought was beginning June 11, but we were informed that those scenes of "combat fishing", when fishermen stand elbow to elbow and risk being attacked by the bears to catch the jumping salmon, actually occurs in mid-July. We won't be here to witness that. But she did give me info for the rest of the drive to Homer. Back on the road at 6pm, with views of Cook Inlet appearing on our side. And across the inlet are more snow covered mountains. When we arrived in Anchor Point, we couldn't resist driving down to the beach area to see it up close - fortunately, this was one of those exploratory drives that turned out very well (altho we did sweat at the bridge with a 13'2" clearance since RV is 12'6"). But the tide was out, and a dead fish on the beach had attracted hundreds of birds, many of which were Bald Eagles - they stood out among the other birds that look like seagulls. I had to take Sara the other direction on the beach, I was afraid she might be attacked by the birds if she had run into that hungry gang! She had a great time running the rocky beach - it was just so strange to be wearing our winter jackets (and wanting my gloves) on a summer beach! It turns out that Anchor Point is the most western point on the North American continent (and I have also visited Lubec, Maine which is the most Easternmost point on the continent!). But back on the road to Homer, which is the most southern town you can get to by road on the Kenai Peninsula. We looked at Baycrest Campground because of the stunning views across Kachemak Bay, but decided on Oceanview campground closer to town -it also has great views of the bay, but might be close enough to walk or bike to town. Homer also has a "spit" (Homer Spit), a piece of land sticking out into the bay, that runs about 5 miles. We started out the Spit by mistake, but turned around and will leave that to discover later. We came back to find the OceanView Campground, which also has a great view, but is a bit of a parking lot - but supposedly has full hookups, despite us not being able to get cable. But we got in at 9pm, hooked up, walked to the beach (which will require some rappelling to get down to), ate dinner, and will be ready for bed after this writing.