Yellowstone Family Trip-6

July 4th. Today was a kind of rest day. We spent the day outside the park in the small town of West Yellowstone.

We started out with breakfast at Running Bear Pancakes House for the nine of us. Bacon, eggs, hash browns, pancakes, cinnamon rolls, and assorted drinks— it was the full spread. Then it was a few blocks over to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center.

This nonprofit “rescues” grizzly bears that are habituated to humans and would be dangerous for people. Such bears would have been euthanized if left in the wild. The wolves were all born in captivity and raised there.

They have a great naturalist program where we learned all about the animals.

One fun program for the kids was where they got to go inside the grizzly enclosure and hide snacks for the bears. To replicate the bears’ foraging behavior, the Center makes their food harder to find. The bears must find it hidden under rocks, logs, buried, or in out-of-the-way-places in their enclosure. Of course, the bears are moved out of the enclosure while the hiding goes on.

After the Grizzly and Wolf Center, we learned that the local fire department was holding a burger and hotdog lunch fundraiser at the city park. We were right there with a hungry crew.

After lunch, there was a very popular pie-by-the-slice event at a local museum down the street. We joined several hundred people to secure our slices. Then it was back to the Airbnb to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

At 6 p.m., we walked a block to watch the 4th of July Parade. This small-town parade featured all the usual trappings of homemade floats, horseback riders, local businesses, throwing candy for the kids, legions of bike riders, police sirens, fire trucks, old cars, and plenty of spectators lining the streets. Later, at 10 p.m., there was a fireworks display that could be seen and heard all over town.