Bear Country

Located just south of Rapid City, Bear Country offers tourists the opportunity to view, and if you’re lucky, get up close and personal, with a host of wild critters. We all enjoyed the experience as we led the caravan through the self-guided tour around the park and got a close look at the moose, bison, arctic fox, bighorn sheep, elk, coyote, bobcat, and mountain lion. As we passed through the massive steel gates at the entrance to the first animal enclosure, memories of Jurassic Park flooded my mind. Luckily the only time we found ourselves under attack was when a grizzly decided to take a little nibble out of the bag on our cargo rack (Aidan was in the car behind us and insists the bear was making a meal out of our cargo bag but I think one of the seams had just begun to pull a bit.). We finished our afternoon at the Bear Country by visiting some of the smallest creatures at the baby enclosures. From the three-footed red fox (dad bit her when she was pregnant and they couldn’t operate immediately so they had to amputate her infected leg after the pups were born – sounds like a nice guy…) to the baby bears (where we spent much of our time watching the cubs play with some lucky visitors who had won a drawing) to the badgers (who were running around like maniacs the whole time), we ended our day in the gift shop where we did not – thank goodness – buy any stuffed animals for the dogs to chew up when we got home or $5 lollipops that had small furry creatures ‘hugging’ them or even a T-shirt (although they had some really cute ones on sale). Nope. Just got the one bear-paw bumper sticker which is now displayed on the roof box. We left Bear Country and headed back to Keystone where we looked to find a place to eat from which we could do some people-watching. The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was on the week we were in South Dakota which made for some really cool sights (never saw so many motorcycles in all my life!) in downtown Keystone.