TORREZ TRAVELS

Wow have we had a great day! We started in Idaho Falls this morning. Unfortunately it was raining plenty. We ate breakfast and then loaded up the car and headed for West Yellowstone.

It was a little over one hundred miles, and mostly the road was good, but the rain made it harder to drive in. When we got to West Yellowstone it wasn’t raining much, so we walked around the town. We found this place called Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center. I had seen a billboard about it on our drive. It’s kind of like a zoo. Except it is designed with the animal’s comfort in mind. When bears, especially Grizzlies learn to see human’s and their belongings as a source of food they usually have to be euthanized. It is very sad, but once a grizzly learns about a food source, they remember where and how it worked for more than a decade! There are a few places where the bears can live and be cared for and kept from harming humans. This is one of those places. They have six bears there now, and four wolves. They also have two Great Horned Owls, two Bald Eagles, a Red Tailed Hawk, and a Turkey Vulture. And they have five River Otters. All of the animals are unable to live in the wild due to injury, or lack of training at the right age. It was an incredible experience watching and learning about these animals! Here are some pictures.

This is Nakina. She was born in 1998 in Alaska.

While we were watching, the wolves started howling!

We found Yogi and Boo-boo in South Yellowstone!

As you can tell from the pictures we are pretty cold! We’ve been considering sending some of our warm clothes home. I don’t think so!