Today we ventured to Rigby, Idaho to visit Yellowstone Bear World. Of course, this was after Peanut and her cousin played a game of Paper, Rock, Scissors. I have no idea what they were trying to decide using this method.
Bear World was pretty darn cool.
You'll have to indulge this picture heavy post, but how often to you get to see (and feed) nature this close up.
We entered Bear World and paid the fee for a "carload". To be fair, we had a carload: 5 children under the age of 8 and 2 adults (under the age of 33).
When you enter the park, you are allowed to drive through as many times as you like. We drove through one time, ate lunch, went through again on the "Curator's Tour", which allows you to ride on the top of an open-air truck and feed the bears, then we took one last drive through. Side note--the gift shop has quite possibly the best fudge I have ever eaten in my life.
When we first entered the park, we glipmsed some mountain goats. Here's one atop the rocks eating--not the best picture. The baby goats, Hansel and Gretel were not visible at the time, but boy were they adoreable.
Then we saw some deer, which I did not photograph because I was busy noting to my sister that the last time I had seen a deer that close it was about to go under my car...flashbacks...
Next we saw 2 bison, named Smth and Weston.
Then we approached the heard of Elk.
The male was ENORMOUS.
They had 2 White Elk in the park--very rare. A mother, Lucy and a son Chalk Taw who are not albino--they have color in their eyes, but whose coats lack pigment. The guide told us that when Lucy was bred there was a one in 2 million chance that she would have an offspring with this same recessive trait. They were gorgeous.
We glimpsed some wolves. We were told they had 2 of these Arctic Wolves and also a Timberwolf. That was when Peanut then made the comment that I used as the title of this blog...her observation cracked us all up.
Then we entered the bear territory.
That's a Grizzly Bear so close I could hear it sneeze.
There were 5 Grizzlies total that we saw. Two siblings that were about 8 years old and a mother. Grandma Grizzly was about 32 years old. She likes to lay by the water and we were told is served breakfast in bed. Her sister was not far from her and she looked just as old and not willing to get up and greet the company tossing food from the truck. Can't say I blame them.
Then there were the Black Bears.
They roamed around us when we drove through and followed the Curator truck as it made its way throught he park. Several would sit up and wave to get food.
There were 4 black bears that the keepers have named the Brat Pack. Although they didn't do it today, we were told that one will come out and stand in front of a keeper truck and block it, while two others will open the tailgate and another will run off with the stuff in the back of the truck. Apparently they are very curious and like to play with all kinds of things....they're crafty those bears.
Next we saw the moose.
His name is Stilts. He was raised as a Foster Moose, orphaned at the age of 3 months. He. Is. Big.
We then were able to see the bear cubs being bottle fed.
They cried and whined while waiting to be fed. I thought they sounded remarkably like Swanny Jr when he is hungry.
Then there was the amusement park.
The big girls tried everything, the boys tried a few things and the poor littlest girl wanted to do everthing (the adventurer), but mom said no to this one.
What a fun day.
Tonight after ice cream both big girls were asking if we could go back the day after the day after this day--can't go tomorrow, we're going to the water park!
