The Avery's: Yellowstone Bear World

After 15 years of living in Idaho, we finally ventured over to see Yellowstone Bear World. I was just expecting driving through the park and that would be it. Little did I know they had a little petting zoo, and amusement park with rides for the little kids. It was a pleasant surprise.

Chris and I wouldn't have gone to the park if it were not for Clint and Wendy Bodily (family friends, Clint was Chris' mission companion. Also, we double dated a lot with Clint and Wendy, they got married shortly after we did.)

The Bodily's came up unexpectedly and we were able to clear our schedule to be with them and enjoy their company. It was a fantastic afternoon in which we got to see many many bears. I couldn't believe how many bears they have in this place. Lucas loved seeing all of the animals and especially loved to see the buffalo. He has really like buffalo since our trip to Yellowstone a few weeks ago.

At the entrance of the park they have the mountain goats. Enclosed in their pen was on old car wash scrubber. I guess the goats like to rub and shed their thick coats with the help of this gizmo.

Next, came the Elk. When we arrived at the elk we noticed the bull elk rolling around the river getting muddy, we also noticed that they had white elk. They say they are not albino since they have some pigmentation and I can see that. Their eyes are brown not read and you can see a slight difference in color around their neck where it meets up with the torso of the body.

He is the dominant male from what I could tell. The other bull elk was hiding under the bridge. He was also directing the females away from the other male.

Lucas' favorite was next. The buffalos were huge and lazy, but Lucas didn't care. He just loved seeing them and pointing them to me saying, "Bufflo, Bufflo." There is no "a" in buffalo when he says it and it makes me happy. PS. He named the buffalo stuffed animal from Yellowstone, Bilbo. Wonder where he got that name from? Dad Da.

Along our way there were mule deer everyone and I have to admit they were a lot more scrawny than I thought they would be.

We finally came to the bear enclosure. When we got there this grizzly bear was straddling the log and when we went through again he was rolling it around. I am thinking this is more a toy than anything else.

After we saw the grizzlies, we went to see the black bears and I couldn't believe that they were everywhere. Here is an example since a lot of them were watching the lonely lone moose. We kept thinking that maybe the bears were thinking "Lunch".

This bear was double the size of most of the bears in the enclosure. He was gigantic.

I didn't know Bear World had wolves and were surprised to see these guys our second way through the park. At first I thought it was a dead dear or elk until we got closure and could see that they were the wolves of the park. Too bad they were sleeping. I would have loved to see them roaming around.

After we went through the park two times, we headed to the amusement park. I couldn't believe they let Luke on some of the rides but as long as he had an adult he could ride and it was a good thing, he loved it.

I was worried about this ride since he is so tiny. I mean, look the picture, he is tiny. But he had a grin on his face the whole time.

Finally - after the amusement rides we headed over to see this years baby cubs and then go into the petting zoo. Lucas loved this and was entertained the whole time.

-Meet Andy - The domesticated deer that was abandoned by his mother after his birth. Someone found him and brought him here and now he is just a big lovable guy.