Bears, Bears Everywhere

Some might think this is a real bear, but it really isn't - he just acts like it sometimes. I'm just kidding - Dan wanted me to take a picture of him today while we were at Yellowstone Bear World - this is a refuge for bears (well, duh!) They take in bears that have been orphaned - or in the case of one of the small baby bears, those that are rescued from these little country fairs - this poor little bear had just been rescued and all he would do is walk back and forth in his enclosure - the other two babies in the enclosure with him were playing and eating leaves off limbs. I really felt sorry for this poor little fella - he would occasionally walk over to where the other two bears were, then he would go back to walking back and forth. The staff explained that he wasn't used to having space - he was used to just having a small area. I think that is such an awful shame - and the good thing about a refuge like this is - they can rescue little babies and allow them to live a nice life. No, they will never be able to be in the wild because they are to use to humans - they would not be able to survive - but they are well taken care of here - AND they have lots of room to roam and play and interact with others of their kind.

Now, we were at Bear World in the afternoon and it was nap time for some of the bears - this guy was lying in the road, but was in the shade - we drove right beside him and he didn't move - The staff tell you NOT to get out of your car (that's another DUH!) and not to roll your windows down - I will admit that we didn't follow that rule - I rolled the window down to get this picture - I even stuck my head out of the window - BUT all the bears around this area were fast asleep - I'm not stupid - I know when I can bend the rules a little and when it is not safe to bend the rules.

This fellow was cooling off and he was really cool (no pun intended!) - you will be able to see a series of pictures of this guy until he is completely submersed except for his head. This guy was neat and I enjoyed watching him for a little while - one of the other rules was not to stop - we didn't follow that rule either - You can't get pictures that turn out while driving along - anyway, I really liked this guy - I told Dan that he looked like "Pete" (my girls will understand this reference) and Dan said "no he doesn't - he's alive"! HAHA! For those not in the family quick explanation of "Pete" - a 40 plus year old bear rug that my Dad got in Canada - that's the short story.

This guy was the granddaddy of them all - he was HUGE!!!!! As you can probably tell - and when you look at the link you will see that we did NOT roll the windows down when we were going by this guy -

Here were a couple of other bears cooling off in another water area - these were the first bears we saw - so they were pretty neat to see also.

You might wonder why we went to Bear World today - well, we went down to Idaho Falls again to take the truck in - Dan called this morning and they said to have it there by 1:00 today and they would start working on it. So, another trip to Idaho Falls but this time we had to rent a car - we couldn't stay in Idaho Falls all night. On the way home we went to see the bears. We also found out what is the matter with the truck - not as bad as we thought it would be, but will cost us money instead of it being under the warranty - the truck has a busted upper radiator hose which only leaked when under pressure (in other words, when we were driving and the engine was hot it would leak, when we got home and it was not under pressure it didn't leak - that's why we never had any coolant on the ground). Anyway, it is suppose to be fixed tomorrow which means ANOTHER trip to Idaho Falls tomorrow- three times in three days - not my idea of a fun week but we had to get the truck fixed - we only have 2 and a half weeks left here and I didn't want to take a chance of having the truck break down on us with the RV attached. I really don't want the truck to break down on us at all - and now we shouldn't have any problem.

Tomorrow we will go get the truck and and then come straight home - we are going to go by Mack's tomorrow and try and make reservations for the play for either Thursday or Friday night - I'll let you know which one we get tomorrow.

I don't have much else to report - I hope you enjoy the pictures of the bears - let me know what you think. Have a great day and I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Here is the link - enjoy!