Vacation Pictures - Rapid City

News to me was that Rapid City has started placing life-size bronze statues at the corners of many blocks of their downtown!! The presidents are designed in the clothes of their time period, doing something for which they are remembered. I think 26 of the presidents have been done so far. We saw some of them as we were driving by, and I got pictures of four. I look forward to 'spending some time with them' on another trip through Rapid. There are about 15 attractions around Rapid City that we want to do through the years!!





We drove TO Mount Rushmore, but didn't go in this trip; we felt we didn't quite have the time to do it justice, nor are N & J old enough yet to enjoy it very much.



Next we paid to drive through Bear Country U.S.A. We've never done anything like this before, and it was a HIT!!

Elk




Check out this big ol' dude, just lying there, bored!



Caribou getting fed




There are three arctic wolves in this picture. One white, lying down; one gray, just to the left, walking toward us; one lying down in the shade of the rock at the left.




Mountain Goats



Mountain Lions




Bison



Big Horn Sheep - my personal second-favorite wild animal (Elk is #1)



And now my favorite of the bear pictures I took!

Traffic was at a stand-still and we got to watch this bear for a long time, walking back and forth on this log, 'til he finally found a way to CLUMSILY get down! True tho', he didn't fall!




Lots of the bears were remarkably shaggy! We asked about it and were told there is no set cycle or time that bears shed; each bear's coat does its own thing. >hm<



At this point in the tour, there is a large parking lot, and visitors go into a gated section where they keep the grizzlies, a handful of other smaller wild animals (raccoons, foxes, badgers, etc.), and ... THE CUBS!!

So here is the male grizzly. It was quite warm the day we were there, and a worker told us, "He's a jerk" because he won't ever let the female in the water; she just sleeps in the cave. This grizzly is a jerk ... compared to WHAT?!? ... I wondered. Do we expect him to, what, 'take turns'??



Since it was mid-day when we were there, most of the animals were sleeping in the shade, so I couldn't get pictures. The cubs, however, knocked my socks off. When we arrived in their (huge!) pen they were all sleeping, in a big, fuzzy pile. One was sucking on the ear of another; a worker told us it is common for them to use each other as pacifiers!!!



This picture shows the bear sucking on another's ear, on the far right, the dark brown bear that's lying on top of the light brown bear...? Hhhhhhhha!!!!



Then a worker came up with snacks, like dry dog bones kinda. She told us that at this point each of these cubs eats (if I remember correctly) five 5-gallon buckets of meat every day. The grocery stores in the area donate past-date lunch meat, hamburger, etc.



The cubs got very excited about the snacks!




Bear Cubs in Action!



After that we took a few pictures in spots that were clearly designed for that purpose, and visited the gift shop where we of course bought nothing. LOL But that was one of the most enjoyable 'tourist spots' we've visited in a long time!