BEARizona?

What is it about animals that just makes some people happy? Well, whatever it is, I am particularly susceptible to that. I was that kid who wanted to keep every stray puppy who followed her home, and had a variety of “pets” including a box turtle that I painted a name on with red fingernail polish. I love zoos but especially, I love drive-thru animal parks and Bearizona is one of the most best I’ve ever experienced.

It is located in the area around the Grand Canyon in Williams, Arizona, which is where we are currently camping. We had seen signs for it around town and found ourselves with a little extra time today so we checked it out. I was so glad we did.

The park is well kept and the animals are very healthy looking. 80% of the animals in the park are rescues provided by the local Fish & Game after it has been determined they cannot live in the wild. There are a few donations from zoos and the rest were born on site.

There are three options for touring and we tried all three. There is a self drive-thru route that took about an hour with paths that allow you to circle through favorite areas, which we did quite a bit. There is also a .3 mile walking path with a very impressive jaguar and some of my favorite river otters. Then there is a bus tour where the driver tells you about the park and also tosses food to some of the animals, so they come close to the bus.

Signs around the park advise you to keep your windows closed and keep moving through the area with wolves

and/or bears, and while on the bus tour we witnessed why this was necessary. A pickup truck with some fishing poles in the back was driving through the area with arctic wolves. One of the wolves kept following the truck and sniffing at the fishing pole which was barely visible above the bed of the truck. Within minutes two other wolves had joined the hunt and then they came from all directions, leaping over rocks, just as you see them depicted in movies and they were incredibly fast. From the safety of our bus it was an amazing thing to witness, but the swiftness of their moves and the singleness of purpose was also frightening.

The bear area was so much fun. The young bears were playing with logs and twigs, rolling on their backs like playful kittens. The older bears were lazing about in the hot afternoon sun and I’m sure I saw one bear smiling.

We also saw white bison (I didn’t know they existed) as well as the more familiar American buffalo and some tiny babies less than a month old. We saw an impressive long-horn sheep and some adorable babies only a week old but jumping and playing on very steep rocks – they were too fast to photograph.

Please make a point to visit this wonderful animal park if you are in the Grand Canyon area. It was started eight years ago and will keep expanding for at least another 7 years, so your experiences will probably be even better than ours.

After we came “home” from the animal park, we made a simple dinner with grilled chicken and strawberry salad. The salad is so delicious in the summer, so I’m including the recipe. Let me know if you try it.

Pat’s Strawberry salad

• 2 heads romaine, washed, dried and chopped

• 1/2 cup glazed pecans or almonds (see attached recipe)

• 1 pint strawberries, hulled and quartered

• 1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and finely diced

• 1/2 lemon, juiced

• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

• 1/4 cup sugar

• 3 tablespoon olive oil

• 1 teaspoon poppy seeds

Prepare glazed nuts and let cool. Combine first 4 ingredients in salad bowl. Whisk together remaining ingredients. Toss together just before serving.

GLAZED NUTS:

1 Tbl butter

1 Tbl brown sugar

½ cup pecan halves or whole almonds

Melt butter in small skillet. Add brown sugar and nuts. Cook and stir over medium high heat until caramel forms and coats nuts.

Turn out onto waxed paper, separating nuts and let cool.