The Tarbets: Yellowstone Day 1

Our family vacation this year was a roller-coaster to say the least. Last year we wanted to do Yellowstone this year but last July when we tried to book the time share it was already full so we decided to do Las Vegas. Well up until 4 weeks ago (the last day possible to cancel) Vegas was booked but after Grandma JoAnn's accident, J.T.'s accident and Chases Vegas just wasn't gong to happen. So we stewed over it for a good week and a half if we should just bag a family vacation this year but we decided we were going back to our original plan of Yellowstone. So we improvised and found a cabin in Island Park.
Day 1
We woke up bright and early Wednesday morning loaded up the suburban, dropped Cleo off at her babysitters and hit the road by 8 A.M. We lucked out and were able to do early check in at our cabin in Island Park so we could drop off the food and luggage and grab a quick lunch. Then we headed into West Yellowstone.

Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center

Our first activity was the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center. Um I LOVED it!!! My favorite thing of the whole trip!!!! It's a not-for-profit wildlife park. They take in naughty bears, wolves and hurt birds. For example the bears are bears who continually being caught in campers camp sights, peoples garbage's ect. So before they were any harm to humans or vise versa they were put into the Center.

Of coarse we had to get a picture by the Owl recycling bin!

The Museum

Keagan loved all the videos

Kabree loved that you could feel bear fur

This one was a little sad to me :( it didn't share how this Momma and her babies died

Keagan was so EXCITED about the Polar Bear!!!

This was just for Grandpa Vance! The number of bear incidents has went from 50-1 from 1960-2016. Zach says it's because of dumb asses kicking bears in the butt Elmer Senior might have done this and then turned and high tailed it out of there leaving his grandkids to fend for themselves!

Bears
Kobuk and Nakina are a brother and sister. When they were only 8 months old their Mother and brother were shot by a landowner so they were both brought to the center to be raised.

The kids wanted to look through the telescopes so bad!!!

They have the bears exit the exhibit and workers bring in buckets of fruit, fish and honey and hide among the exhibit. My favorite thing they do with the bears is they test bear containers for companies. So these particular bears are in the center because they have a history of getting into human things so who better to test them. Companies send them their containers/coolers ect, the center then fill the containers full of their favorite fish, fruit and honey and then set it out in the exhibit. If the bears are able to get into the container it fails if they are unable to the container passes.

Spirit is a bear that before 2002 had been relocated 6 times in an effort to divert her desire to obtain food near the resort community of Whitefish, Montana. She ran to the container, jumped on it, pried at with her claws, flipped it over and over and chewed on the container to no avail! She seriously went to town on it and could not get into it. It was fascinating to watch her try every imaginable way to get in. You could tell she had experience getting into things.

Here are a few of the containers that failed the bear tests!

Wolves

These wolves were beautiful! Kabree loved that they were white! Adara the girl of the group was very active walking and sniffing around. Summit the male however was very chill, he laid in his shade the whole time we were there.

Birds
All the birds in the center were injured and unable to return to the wild. Several were hit by cars and nursed back to health but unable to fly anymore. A couple were born with birth defects and one had his wing shoot (one of the Bald Eagles).

Gift Shop

Gotta get our smashed pennies

Old Fashioned Candy Shop
We hit the candy shop at the perfect time, we got to watch them pull, cut and wrap the huckleberry taffy! Talk about fresh candy!!! They told us the machines they use to pull the taffy is from the 1940's and the machine they use to cut the taffy is from the 1920's. We might have stopped here on more than one day for a sweet treat ;)!

Mack's Inn Playhouse

We ended our day with dinner and a show at Mack's Inn Playhouse. Holy smokes the food was amazing and the portions were huge!!!! The show for the night was Ramona's Big Fat Family Reunion. The kids thought it was hilarious that a man was dressed up as a woman and thought the skits were pretty great!