Monday, July 4

Boarding our plane with pilot and guide, Zach. He was an awesome guide.

Barb standing in front of one of the first bears we saw, he was sleeping.

This was about an hour later and more and more bears were coming into the meadow.

A special treat, we saw a pack of 3 wolves chasing several bears. Even our guide Zach had never seen that before!

Our Dispatch picture, I finally remembered to take the paper with me!

Two young bears playfully sparring.

I call this "smack down, WWF"

As we were getting ready to leave, we saw this female with her 2 cubs down on the beach

Independence Day! First of all, there were no fireworks here and it may have something to do with the fact that the sun doesn't go down until about 2 a.m. But....we did get to go on our Bear Viewing trip this morning to Hallo Bay in Katmai National Park. It was nothing short of phenomenal! We saw at least 15 or more bears in the 3 hours we were there. It was such a different experience than when we visited Brooks Falls and watched the bears from a platform as they caught fish from the river. Today we walked through a meadow and watched the bears as they ate the sedge grasses or dug for clams out on the beach. Some of the bears were as close as 30 yards as we watched them eating, sleeping and sparring. The flight there and back was awesome as well as we passed over snow covered peaks and crossed Cook's Inlet. When we finished our trip we grabbed a quick bite to eat at the Sourdough Express in Homer before driving the 4 hours to Anchorage. We ate pizza at Milano's Pizza and are back at the Arctic Fox B & B where we began our adventure 16 days ago. Tired and ready to head home we have many pictures and stories to share with our family and friends. Thanks for traveling along with us. It was a great adventure and hope you were able to get a feel for the wonderful state of Alaska.