Somewhere between Shelton and Port Townsend, Shauna picked up a little brochure for the Olympic Game Park. There was a brown bear of terrifying proportions on the cover, and pictures of all kinds of exotic fauna on the inside. It wasn't on either of our lists of things to see on the peninsula (we'd never even heard of it before), but it was close enough to The Dungeness Spit (something we had planned to see) that we couldn't help ourselves. There was a nice map on the back of the brochure, and we found it with very little trouble.

I must admit to being a little dubious pulling up to the place. It all seemed a little dumpy, a little cheesy, and I wondered if it could possibly be worth the 20$ price of admission. I was positively concerned, however, when they asked us to sign a vehicle damage waiver. In retrospect, all I can say is buy plenty of bread at the gate, remain in your car at all times, and don't tease the buffalo!

From the gate we followed the narrow gravel road up a hillside, where we were greeted by a couple rangy looking lamas, and a few dozen prairie dogs. Not particularly exciting, yet.

Next, the road dropped down the hill, and suddenly we were surrounded by a herd of yaks (yes, the infinitely smelly wild cousin of the domestic cow!), all poking their heads into our rental for a morsel of bread. We fed them for long enough to get yak spit and yak snot smeared from one end of the Escape to the other, before moving further down the road.



We passed a gigantic old white Rhino in his own enclosure, and a wild hawk perched in a tree above.


The rhino...


The Hawk...

I came to the park expecting to see one, maybe two really big brown bears. They have like 20 of them! All living and interacting in gigantic enclosures. These aren't enclosures in the conventional sense, though. Really, all that separates you from these 1300 pound relics of the ice age is a 4 foot tall wire fence and a pathetic looking string of electrified wire scarcely 3 feet off the ground. No metal bars, no moats, no concrete barriers. It was a little spooky at first. There's little doubt that any one of them could have jumped, or destroyed the fence at any time.


That bear bringing up the rear is a giant; half again bigger, perhaps, than any of the others.


He appears to have gotten into it with another bear, though. His scalp is sliced wide open, down to the skull. Gnarly!

We fed the bears until the three loaves of bread we had bought at the gate were completely gone. I felt like we were playing with big, happy dogs. Some of them were doing tricks, waving, and rolling over to get more food. It felt like we could walk right up and scratch them between the ears. I had to remind myself that these brown bears are the largest, most volatile predators on the continent.


Hard to do when they look like this!


And this...



And these guys...

After the bears, we drove through several rows of enclosures containing cougars, wolves, bobcats, lynxes, coyotes, lions and tigers. It was all very cool, and we got to watch a buffalo beat the crap out of a Toyota Camry before leaving.


This is the big guy that dislikes Toyotas, or maybe yuppies, who's to say?

In the end, the Olympic Game Park felt like a bargain at 20$ per vehicle. There's so much more than just bears. The temptation is to post every photo of every animal that we saw, but, that would be indulgent (like this whole blog isn't completely indulgent?) and probably a little boring. Besides, I'd hate to spoil it for everyone.

Two thumbs way up for the Olympic Game Park.