North American Bear Center and International Wolf Center

August 14

 More dead straight roads running through swamp land and timber stands. We ran along lots of lakes and found out why MN is the land of ten thousand lakes.

 First stop was the North American Bear Center in Ely. They have four black bears in residence. They were raised by humans and cannot go back into the wild because they will want to rummage through the trash and get to close to people. It turns out the black bears are really big chickens and will shy away from human interaction. The researchers at the NABC have found that most black bears will bluster and stomp, but will not attack, so when I hear someone being killed by a black bear, I know they had to do something that really made the bear angry.

 Polar bears.

 Lots of things to read. Lots of information.

 Meet Lucky. They have a scheduled feeding session for the bears so people can watch them roll a pvc tube around and pick berries and nuts out of it.

 We did a behind the scenes tour (included in the ticket price) and got to see the other bears who were in their own areas. This guy is feeding peanuts to the bears. They loved him.

 When we came back inside the girl at the desk asked if we enjoyed the tour. Said yes and that I was especially impressed when the bear came swinging in on the vine yelling, "Hey, hey Booboo, grab me that pickinic basket!" She was not amused.

 Becky was enchanted with the cat stories of treeing bears and bears licking cats. Cats also scared bears out of the houses they broke into. She felt safe in the trailer with her fat cat.

 Second stop was the Wolf Center. I wasn't as impressed with these guys as the bears.

 Route 1 out of Ely was curvy and bumpy. We lost a lot of things off our shelves on this road. The trailer was a mess. I always wonder what one of those tiny houses like they make on TV would look like after a day of driving on roads like these. Especially since they have open shelves and no locks on most of the drawers and doors.

 We stopped in Finland for petrol and Becky wanted some firewood. She found some locally made root beer. Ranks in the top ten.

Spent the night at a MN state park outside of Finland. Everywhere else I called was full.