Yellowstone #6 - Arriving in West Yellowstone

Look what I spotted! Almost there...

By the time we arrived at West Yellowstone, it was too late to go into the actual park, so our first stop was the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center...
Out front we found some cool artwork...
Andria scaring the poor bear...
Telling secrets!



Info on the difference between the Grizzly and the black bear...

And I found this display particularly funny in light of that warning I posted just before my trip...

Yellowstone #5 - Bear World Moose

On last critter from Bear World...

Yup they have a MOOSE! Meet Rumpelstilskin, or Stiltz as they call him for short.

Heading out after Bear World, we see a bunch of these:

Sure doesn't look like there is a hay shortage up here! Too bad I can't hijack a few of these and e-mail them home :)

And up ahead, that's where we are going...

Welcome to Montana!

Yellowstone #4 - Bear World Bears

Still at Bear World, we are on to the bear enclosure... and the first thing we see is a GRIZZLY!

Remember this view and the way the sun shines on the coat... highlighting the "grizzle" that give this bear its name.

Next is a black bear...
and another...

You can see how close they were, right out the window!

This one was real close, that black bar across the bottom of the picture is the top of the car door...
Caught this one napping :)
And can you guess what THIS is???
Yup, it's BEAR POOP!!!

Yellowstone #3 - Bear World Critters

Still at Bear World... we start our drive through the various wildlife areas.

First we saw mountain goats...

Then deer...


And turkeys!

Next came the elk enclosure, including a very rare WHITE ELK...

And a herd of "normal" elk.

This guy had a huge rack...

We couldn't resist a closer shot of those horns!

Yellowstone #2 - Bear World Petting Zoo

More from Yellowstone Bear World in Idaho...

Besides the bear cubs, behind the gift store is also a petting zoo... we crossed a bridge over a pond with huge fish (can you see them) and ducks...

There were goats and a pot-belly pig and chickens and guinea hens and several deer... this one was real sweet!



And on the way out the door I got attacked by a big bear!

Well, hey, I figured this might ward off a "real" bear attack lol.

Yellowstone #1 - Bear World Cubs

Alrighty then, I have actually been off on a grand adventure for several several days, but am going to backdate my posts (thanks blogger!) and hopefully not bore you all to death with my trip! I have never been to Yellowstone and may never have the opportunity to go again so I took 1189 pictures. Yes that's right, 1189. And my daughter took about 350 herself...

No I am not going to POST all 1500+ pictures but this trip will make for quite a few posts on this blog...

First off I want to say a HUGE thanks to my oldest daughter Andria for suggesting this "girls' weekend" - just the two of us - and for choosing such a wonderful destination! You all know I love animals and nature so Yellowstone was a perfect place for a long weekend getaway...

So after an EARLY flight (had to get up at 3:00 A.M. to make my flight! - and another HUGE thanks to Randy for getting up that early to take me to the airport!) and then a loooooong drive (well, it was over four hours, but it did go fast since Andria and I had not seen each other since April) we began our adventure...

This is my first attempt at catching a sign, unfortunately my camera batteries were low and it would not turn on fast enough to catch the whole sign, which by the way really does say "Welcome to Idaho"...


First stop, still in Idaho, was Yellowstone Bear World, where you can actually drive through the different animal areas... despite the name this facility is NOT in Yellowstone National Park itself.



Before driving through the different sections we walked through the gift shop and out the back door to see the bear cubs and the petting zoo... so today's post is adorable black bear cubs. These are ALL technically "black bear" cubs - I learned that "black bears" actually come in FIVE different colors, only one of which is BLACK!

Aren't they just too cute...

Getting Ready...

for my trip to Yellowstone. Today my daughter (who is taking me there) e-mailed me this important information:


So I wrote her back and asked if this was in preparation for our trip. Her response - "Well, I was gonna ask you to bring bells and pepper spray"

Oh. My. Goodness.

Tractor Man Extraordinaire!

So last night after finally getting home with the hay trailer Lindsey and I still had to feed everybody and finish clearing out the hay barn in preparation for the dirt work... there were clouds and lightning WAY OFF EAST so decided it was not necessary to tarp the hay... by the time we got inside it was 9 p.m. and I hadn't even had dinner yet. So I ate and then PASSED OUT!

Woke up at 3:15 a.m. to the sound of raindrops on the skylight... OMG THE HAY!!!! Threw on some clothes and ran out to get the tarp on, after finding that Lindsey, whose bed was empty, had apparently fallen asleep on her friend's couch watching movies AGAIN I had to wake poor Randy to come and help me. By the time we got out there the rain had stopped but in order to get any more sleep we tarped it anyway... with the help of Lindsey who showed up because she heard the rain. I never could get back to sleep after that and the alarm went off at 5 a.m. so I could feed before the tractor guy arrived at 6 a.m...

Our neighbor Gene does dirt work for a living. He mostly works in new construction so you know how much he has been working lately... NOT! Great time for us to have him do a job for us, and help out a neighbor at the same time.

We have this great hay barn but when it rains in from the north, the water runs back in under the hay which is a real problem. My idea was to add dirt and slope the floor so that it was higher in the back and sloped down toward the front opening and then some, so that any run-off would go OUT of the barn rather than back into it.

We have this raised area in our yard that was perfect for scraping off and smoothing out, and using the dirt gained to put inside the hay barn.

All done - looking in...



And inside, looking out!

He was done so fast he even came up to the front of the raised area and smoothed down a section of that for me, piling the dirt so I can ue it on my dog pen project :)

I was a very tired but happy girl! And I DID get a nice long nap this afternoon :)

All we have to do now is lay the big plastic floor tarp down and offload the hay trailer. And it has to be done by Thursday night as the trailer is being repaired next weekend... so anybody with free time is welcome to come on over!!