Wolves, Bison, and Bears, Oh My: #AVMTour Recap Part Seven

Since the girls have started back to school, I figure it’s time to wrap up my series on the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Tour we took back in June. Previously on the tour, the girls and I made an epic journey east through California and Arizona.

After a night at our favorite hotel of the trip, we spent the next morning in Williams, Arizona, a tourist- and pedestrian-friendly town along Route 66 just an hour south of the Grand Canyon’s South Rim entrance. We had breakfast at the Pine Country Restaurant (tasty, but the service was slow) and visited a few gift shops (picked a jackalope figurine, naturally) before packing up our car and hitting the road.

Our first stop of the day was Bearizona, which is the best name for a wildlife park ever. When planning our two days at the Grand Canyon, I knew the instant I read about Bearizona that we’d have to make a stop there. I was doing my best to put the kids’ interests first on this trip (while looking for some photo ops for myself along the way), and I knew that bookending the trip with animals–whales in San Francisco, then bears in Arizona–would be a win. I’m glad I did, because Bearizona was a lot of fun.

The drive-through section of Bearizona features seven or eight species of large mammals, including, yes, bears. The girls loved it, oohing and ahhing over the animals and taking hundreds of photos. Given our rate of speed (very slow), I let Hannah sit in the front of the car, which made the ride even more fun for her. Since I was driving, Hannah worked the video camera. As I review the footage now, I see that it has a Blair Witch Project feel to it. I’ll have to work with her on holding the camera steady!

While driving through the wolf and bear exhibits, you’re asked to keep your windows rolled up and to drive away slowly if one of the animals approaches your car. We didn’t have to do so, as most of the animals were lounging around in the shade while we were there. The buffalo were the most active, first nosing around a backhoe that was in their exhibit, then coming right up to the front of our car. Seeing these giant animals up close was pretty amazing.

The buffalo weren’t the only active animals, however. As we drove into the bear exhibit, I spotted three bears, a cub lying in the shade and two other bears that were clearly a mommy and daddy, if you know what I mean. I didn’t really want my girls to spend much time watching these two bears, since I didn’t have a good answer to the inevitable “What are they doing?” question. But, at this point in the tour, I wasn’t sure if there were more bears to be seen, so I was hesitant to drive by too quickly. As it turned out, I needn’t have worried–there were at least a dozen other bears further down the way. But I didn’t know that at the time!

Here’s a transcript for a bit of the video that Hannah shot that day. On screen, the mommy and daddy bear.

Lily: “This is hilarious.”

Me: <sigh>

Hannah: “Black bear, black bear, blacky blacky black bear.” At this point, Hannah uses the video camera to overlay some sparkles on the two bears, which I don’t find out about until I type this transcript.

Hannah: “He’s riding on top of him!”

Me: “Oh, don’t film this.”

Hannah: “What?”

Me: “When we watch this when you’re thirteen, I’ll explain what’s going on.”

The rest of the bears were, thankfully, engaged in more G-rated activities. And the walk-through section of Bearizona was lots of fun, with adorable smaller mammals such as beavers, raccoons, foxes, and baby bears. The weather was great, the animals were cute, and the girls were having fun, so we took our time here. Bearizona even had a nice gift shop, although that meant Hannah spent out all her trip allowance, setting her up for trouble at the Grand Canyon.

The moral of this story: If you’re near Williams, Arizona, take a couple of hours to visit Bearizona. It’s well worth your time and money. And if you see a couple of bears reproducing, just drive on by.