The Grizzlies

I think it only appropriate to split our Utah post into several separate entries, considering I have TONS of photos and am still not done going through them. So for now, I will share our afternoon at the West Yellowstone Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center. Our visit fell in the middle of our trip, but left a HUGE (as in 1000 lb bear huge) impression. How often do you get to have such an intimate experience with a very large grizzly bear? I must admit I probably wasn't in the right mindset the day we visited. I should've been impressed with his natural beauty, but instead I kept watching his massive paws pushing away enormous logs as if they were twigs. You see, J.R. and I were hiking the Beartooth Mountains the next morning. Yep, beartooth! The name alone gave me second thoughts, and although I tried to take comfort in the fact that the ranger assured us that we would more than likely never encounter a bear of his size in this area of the country (this particular bear and his sister were rescued from the Alaskan wilderness), I couldn't shake a slight panic that had been building since months before when were planning the trip. I look back at the pictures now and think, wow, they are amazing! They don't look scary in the pictures at all. In fact, if I didn't know better, I would say they are smiling in a few:).