The 6 Bears: Bear Country

On the last Wednesday of April, a friend named Emily approached me and asked if I'd like to join her CC homeschooling group at Bear Country the following day for $1 a person. I couldn't turn that down! I've lived here my entire life and never gone before! Well, I might have gone when I was too little to remember I guess...

We took Jack along since we were going to have him spend the night as a late birthday gift to Noah. He (and Jana) are just the sweetest people ever - they can't hardly go anywhere without including a gift.

We turned right into the park and there was a bunch of elk up on the hillside.

The solitary male had pretty velvet antlers.

Next were some reindeer.

One mama had twins!!

Here's almost half of the passengers.

Next came some arctic wolves. They were very pretty but I felt bad that their area was so small. Zoos always make me feel sad.

An addax goat I believe?

This poor mountain goat sucker lives naturally in the Black Hills so he sure got the short straw.

Then finally we came around to the bear section of the park and they had much more room to roam, but boy there were a lot of bears. Also they had what appeared to be little tunnels which is what this little guy was sitting in front of.

Mountain lions!

When we came to the mountain lion/puma enclosure, one of the bears we left behind followed us! He proceeded to rub and itchy his back on this pole. He did it for a long time!

I felt bad for this one lonely bear that just kept pacing the mountain lion fence as if he was looking for a way out, but maybe he was wanting to get to the mountain lion.

Here's that itchy black bear.

Next along the road were a whole bunch of small rock shelters that many of the bears were napping under. This one was had two bears wrestling!

They reminded of us Luna and Trouncer.

It was one of the warmer spring days we'd had so far so they were pretty sleepy.

Daw, and so cute and soft looking.

I'm not sure how this worked but there were a couple timber wolves in what I thought was the same enclosure as all the bears!

Down the hill was a bear taking a little dip in a pool!

This bear on top of the rock cracked us up because he was just passed out there even though his head and legs were hanging off the sides. 😂

When we came to this pool we just parked for like 15 or 20 minutes. They were so fun to watch!

Plus, there was one territorial bear that didn't want to share his pool with any newcomers and he kept chasing them off. It was funny. The kids named all the bears and narrated what was going on. A couple of them were named Dave and Bob. 😏

I caught just the end of a little fight but pretty much missed it. Still, fun bears in their pool.

We went around a house and saw a few buffalo but couldn't see them very well so we exited the park and stopped at the gift shop where we could walk around and see some other animals.

Noah was SO happy to have Jack along. He just loves him.

Trying to decide which way to go.

I always see this bear and waterfall from the highway but had never been up close before!

Checking out the animal pens.

The arctic fox was ridiculously adorable.

It just kept circling it's area though which was sad.

I also fell in love with the Red Fox. I kept quoting Milo and Otis where the Otis meets the fox who makes fun of him and says, "You call that a tail? This is a tail!" and then he whips it around a few times. That part cracks me up.

It was so beautiful and soft and had such fun ears! I wanted to trade Luna for a fox.

Happy Noah.

Coyotes always look like they're smiling.

The little boys wanted to gesture like Evie...

...so they had to try it on their own. I love how Ezra's one arm is in the arm.

Noah and Jack's turn.

I made the kids pose with the bench since my blog is called The Six Bears. Beware the six bears!

I had Jack take a picture with me in it. Too bad Terry wasn't there. He said he had too much work to do to take the afternoon off.

A yawning and/or fierce Lynx.

Two of them. So cute.

A masked raccoon.

And finally, it was time for the main event - the baby bears!

They were unbelievably adorable.

The weekend or so before was their annual Cub Fest where you can actually pet a baby bear. Traffic was backed up down the highway to get in so I'm glad we came this day. It was totally dead and they were almost near enough to touch.

Look at that little pink tongue!

This little ferocious one was gnawing on the bars. 😍

I could have literally watched them all day long. The kids got bored after a while but I really didn't. They were out of control cute.

Jack was real sweet with Ezra - completely unnecessarily carrying him on his back. Ezra loves being treated like a baby, as his continued baby eating testifies (he's a terrible eater and still wants stuff cut up, takes forever to eat, etc.)

But perhaps Ezra wanted a better view of the cubs because, well, they were ridiculously adorable.

The kids weren't as entertained as me and wandered over to the things I'd skipped in my excitement about the cubs.

It was a beaver!

The poor guy was super friendly. It seemed like he wanted to touch the kids' hands which I had told them not to stick under the glass. On second thought, maybe people have given him food this way in the past...

Look at that cool plastic like tail!...

...and his webbed feet and even claws!

There were porcupines on the other side. He looks so chill with is broccoli.

Had to look at those lynxes again because I love cats.

They paced in their areas too.

But the bears always drew me back.

Cute little Ez.

Cute little bear.

Look at him hang there!

Look at him!!

We were on our way to the van when I bumped into Emily and told her what a wonderful time we had and how thankful I was to be able to come when I asked what another big section of fence was that we had missed. It was for the grizzly bear! I could see him walking around!! I made everyone get out of the van and come and see him (they were in a hurry to get home and build the Lego toy Jack had given).