Our last day in Alaska's Katmai National Park began in the fog.

After a couple of days exploring Kukak Bay, Captain John navigated the Ursus to the larger, less protected Hallo Bay on the edge of Katmai National Park.

Nothing really prepared us for the heart-stopping thrill of seeing our first grizzlies in Katmai.

After our day in Kodiak, we took a float plane across Kodiak Island and the Shelikof Strait to the pure Alaska wilderness that is Katmai National Park, on the north-eastern coast of the Alaska peninsula.

Shawn is the reason we went to Alaska to play with the grizzly bears.

One last post about Alaska, before I pack my trip photos away...just a few tidbits that hit me and thought I'd share...

Fairbanks, Alaska was our final destination before heading back to Indiana. Since our flight didn't leave until 9:30 pm, Kim and I had a whole day to fill and weren't quite sure how we were going to do that. 

Bumming around a city all day isn't our cup of tea and we couldn't find any excursions that really excited us, so we decided to just rent a car for the day and see where it took us.

Hang in there with me, friends...just a couple more days and I'll be through my Alaska posts and onto other more mundane stuff.  Takes awhile to wade through a couple thousand photos....

So....we left the Denali area on a rainy morning and headed north to Fairbanks, our final destination of the trip.  After several hours on the coach, we arrived at our first excursion in the area...a Chena River cruise aboard the sternwheeler Riverboat Discovery.

We knew it was gotta be a great day when a rainbow greeted us just as our bus drove into Denali National Park.

Our driver picked us up the next morning for a fun morning outing!