Being the "go with the flow" kind of guy that I am, I figured that there was a huge game park to explore in addition to the illusive bears, so what the heck. As usual, I was not disappointed in learning things previously unknown to me and the staff was extremely helpful with background information.
For example: Did you know that the female mountain sheep is more deadly than her curved horn male counterpart? Females have these pointy little horns on their heads that can act as daggers to would-be predators. I might have to find a place in the novel about that!
I always thought it was the male who did the damage by knocking its adversary to oblivion. Not so much, although I still wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of a ram's head butt. The females will literally gore you to death, especially when they have babies bouncing around, like they do this time of year. They were too fast for me to get more than a blur in the camera, but they were quick and funny! Each one weighed about ten pounds and mom was always close.
Was I disappointed about the bears? Sure, but the venture was definitely worth the trip. Besides that, I even located an awesome place to bed down the night before in Elbe, WA near the Alder Reservoir. If you've got kids (or even if you don't) the Hobo Inn is a group of converted train cabooses that isn't your usual cookie cutter motel motif and it only adds about fifteen minutes to the drive to the park.
I'm beginning to think that I could get used to this!