Tuna
Wednesday 10 April 2024
After a leisurely breakfast, aka Tuna didn’t get out of bed until 8.45am, we headed off to our first excursion, Montana Grizzly Encounter. This place rescues grizzly bears from across the country. They currently have three, 1 male and 2 females. The grizzlies have either been born in captivity and in cruel situations or were abandoned when they were young and not able to fend for themselves. Unfortunately, none of the bears will ever be released back into their natural habitat as they don’t know how to fend for themselves and have become used to humans being around and providing them with food. With the three they currently have, they are not out at the same time as they don’t like each other. We got to see Max, a 5-year-old male grizzly, was rescued from Alaska when he was about 3 months old and his mother died. It really seems that they are doing a good thing here and Max didn’t seem distressed at all. Max was having fun playing with this buffalo skin, digging a hole (when he shouldn’t have and got told off but didn’t listen and seemed to smirk like a naughty teenager) and playing in the water with his log.
We had to eventually leave as it was flippin’ cold, we should have worn our thermals. Getting back into the warmth of the car, it told us that it was actually quite cold at 37F.
Back into town to the Museum of the Rockies which is closely linked with the local Montana State University and is a Smithsonian Affiliate. Its main attraction is dinosaurs!! We had an enjoyable couple of hours wandering around, except for the times that there where little kids school groups talking loudly. They have an awesome collection of triceratops and t-rex heads, which range for child size through to adult size.
Apart from dinosaurs they had a good small information section on the history of Yellowstone National Park and a stuff bison. And a small section on the local indigenous tribes.
Our feet were hurting by this time as we’d been standing on concrete for a few hours, so we headed home for a late lunch. After lunch we decided to go out to a local lake that the butcher at Safeways recommended to us yesterday. Unfortunately, it was closed for the season, so we stocked up on food for dinner tonight filled up the car with petrol.