A Bear of a day

Conestoga Campground
White Sulphur Springs, MT

We've done and seen pretty much everything

in the immediate area that we can do.

However, sitting around on our days off gets boring :-)

So yesterday we hopped in the truck,

intending to drive down to Bozeman just to get away.

Near Bozeman is a little place called

Grizzly Bear Encounter.

This place was set up by Casey and Ami Anderson

to protect bears that were rescued from the wild

or other sanctuaries.

Currently there are 5 Grizzly bears housed there,

Bella, Jake, Maggi, Sheena, and Brutus.

We paid our $6 entrance fee, walked through the gift shop,

and out into the compound.

Each bear has their own den where they stay

until they are allowed out into the main yard.

Not all the bears can be out at the same time,

as they don't all play together well :-)

We got there in time to see Bella out in the yard playing.

She is so cute!

The yard is big enough to run around in,

filled with rocks, trees, logs, and a big natural pool with waterfall

for them to roam around and explore.

Bella would run around like a kid,

stopping once in awhile to play with a log..

...then decided to cool off in the pond..

She found an Elk bone in the water to chew on.

There were some logs floating in the pond,

so she started playing and chewing on them too.

She got out to dry off and run around some more,

and hopped on a log to explore.

Her 'dad' Casey Anderson came out

and was talking to some of us about the bears.

Bella heard his voice and whipped her head around to hear him.

 These bears can smell things up to 3 miles away,

and their hearing is very keen,

but their eyesight not so much.

We laughed at her antics as she meandered from one thing to another..

After a bit, Bella went back into her den,

and Jake and Maggi came out.

Before they let another bear out,

Casey puts fruit, candy, honey, and other treats

so that they keep up their foraging skills.

It was fun to watch the two find the treats!

We really enjoyed seeing these creatures up close.

The rescued bears would never make it in the wild,

so seeing them cage free made us smile.

I'm glad we decided to stop in!

We went into Bozeman afterwards to eat lunch

at Olive Garden.

George loves his pasta!

On our way back to White Sulphur we stopped in Livingston,

our favorite little town,

and had a cold beer.

Today we're going to start our walking again.

Got to get ready for Amazon in a few months!