DON'T PET THE BEARS

After leaving the town of West Yellowstone early in the morning on our last day touring, we drove until we got into Idaho again and stopped at Yellowstone Bear World.  We were not going to pay and drive around - the guy at the entrance made it sound like:  No stopping, no rolling down your windows, no messing with those rules or we'll kick you out.  However, we stopped at the gift shop before leaving and went in, looked around, found out they had bear cubs in the back along with hot drinks (it was COLD!!!) and restrooms.  So we went behind the gift shop and began looking.  Bear cubs and a petting zoo that looked pretty cool and photo-worthy. 

The male cubs were born in January - so were 8 months' old.  They were big enough to cause problems if you weren't feeding them correctly, grabbing and chewing on your coat or shoes.  I didn't feed them but watched them before and after their feeding for a while, went inside to warm up, and went back out to watch some more.  They were rough with each other, tussling and rolling around but no growling.

These were all male black bear cubs.  Did you know that black bears come in 3 colors - black, brown and cinnamon?  I didn't.












Do not rub their bellies - it's a trick!!

My sister loves bears - so I took a lot of the photos for her.

After we spent a couple of hours there, we did do the drive-through and saw the big, black, male bears and realized why they don't want you to roll down your window or stop more than a second or two - they could come right up to your vehicle and you don't want a big black bear trying to get into your car!!

The wolves were not scary - but there were only 3 of them along the road and this guy decided he might like to bite a tire or two...

But then, a long drive back to Salt Lake City. These are mountains in Utah as we drove along. Back to warmer weather - in the 90'sF again in SLC - and even drier air (ouch, my nose and sinuses!!).

So for this trip we drove miles through parts of Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho and spent almost every night somewhere new.  No wonder it felt so good to get back to our own home and sleep in our own bed after 9 days + nights away!