Bearizona

I never knew such a place existed. The husband alerted me to the fact a few months ago. He got a coupon and thought it would be fun to take the children there. But we never went.

Lately I feel that I would like to go on more fun, memory making, day (or overnight) trips with our little family. We have so many great things to see all around us, yet we don't see them. It makes me sad. Plus it would make me happy to feel like I am actually getting a break from the every day without having to spend a ton of money to do it.

So a couple weeks ago we decided to finally head up to see what Bearizona was all about. It was so much fun. And the weather was AWESOME! And on the way back we got to stop and see our friends in Flagstaff, whom we miss terribly and are sad they don't live so close anymore.Then we headed home. And it was so fun to get home just in time to put the kids to bed and still have the evening to enjoy with my husband.

So get ready for a bunch of pictures. But not too many, because, you know, I took over 400. You are getting the WAY abbreviated version!

OH- and a week or so before this we took the afternoon and headed down towards Mt Lemon. We took a picnic lunch and pulled into a camp ground and ate lunch and went for a walk/hike. And just explored. But I will share those pictures (and story)  in another post.

 So you have the choice of driving through the park in your own car (with the windows up), or riding in the bus with the windows open. We opted for the bus ride. Can you tell that I am not happy in this picture? I don't remember what was bugging me now.

 These are just some of the animals you see on your tour. Bison, White Bison, Brown and Black Bears, Wolves, Goats, and a couple others. They have a person in a cart that goes ahead of the cars and gives the animals food so that they are right by the road when you drive through.

 

We also went to the bird show. Last year, or earlier this year (I don't remember), when we went to the Arboretum in Flagstaff we saw a bird show. It was the last week that they were doing it there before they closed it down. It was a lot of fun. We all enjoyed it. So we decided to enjoy this one as well. The moment this show started I realized it was the exact same show. They must have been able to move to this venue.

They had a little (and I do mean LITTLE) pumpkin patch there that you could buy a pumpkin from. It is the only pumpkin patch that we are going to get to this year so I tried to get the best angle to make it look like a legit patch. I think I did OK. And the pictures are pretty cute....even if the girl DOES look like a pumpkin herself. haha The pumpkin patch was at the entrance and exit to a hay bail maze. It was short and easy, but the kids had fun running through it anyway. And I think at one point the husband even got in there with them. It is pretty ridiculous to see a taller than 6 foot person "pretending" that they can't find their way out. But the kids loved it and ate it up!

 There were also animals in exhibits. They had wolf cubs and bear cubs. The wolves were not on exhibit though because they kept figuring out how to get out!

This little bear climbed all the way to the tippy top of that tree. It was amazing to watch! There was also and exhibit of racoons that we saw. They were also climbing trees. There were about 7 or 8 at the top of one tree and then there was 1 raccoon sitting on the ground at the base of that tree looking up at them like they were dumb or something. It was funny.

 

There was a family of 4 or 5 little boys there with what looked like their grandparents. They all had their own DS. We saw them at the bird show, and I think they were taking pictures with them. Can you do that? I don't know anything about them. Anyway- when we got to the Linx exhibit later on, they were there and the older man (grandpa?) was sitting on a bench holding one of the boys (looked like the youngest), who was crying and VERY upset. Come to find out, he had dropped his DS into the Linx cage! Poor little guy! We saw them as we were leaving the park about an hour later. They were sitting eating lunch, and the boy had his back. So good for a happy ending for him. Too bad the Linx never got to figure out how to play that thing. He tried though. He was SO curious about it!

 There was a little "Haunted Cave" you could walk through. The boy was kind of nervous about it. And wouldn't you know that just as he was relaxing and starting to have fun with it (right at the end), his mean ol' dad jumped out at him and scared him half to death! It was funny and sad all at the same time.

 The last place we visited, before leaving, was the petting zoo. They had all kinds of animals there. But mostly the kind that are normally found on a farm. So, NO, we didn't get to pet wolves or bears. But we did get to pet a baby white bison who was being kept there because they were having to bottle feed him until he was old enough to go out into the park with the rest of the bison. His momma wasn't producing milk. And this pic that the husband is petting was SO funny. The husband walked over and started to pet him on the back and all of a sudden he just flops over on his side. He wanted him to scratch his tummy! We had a good laugh over that one!

It was such a fun day. We were there for about 3 hours, which was just perfect. Long enough to see everything. Not so long that the kids got bored or cranky.

I can't wait to tell you all about our next adventure....after I tell you all about our previous one.