Cedar Pass Campground, Interior, South Dakota
Laban replied, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. Finish this daughter’s bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for seven more years of work.” And Jacob did so. . . Laban gave his servant girl Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her maidservant. . . and Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah. . . ~ Genesis 29:26-30 So now Jacob has two wives. And two maidservants. It’s important to remember these four women’s names because from them will come the twelve tribes of Israel. Why Jacob had to sleep with all four – multiple times, as we read scripture – is beyond my comprehension. And as you’ll see, the line of Judah – the one Jesus came from – begins with Jacob and Leah. As it should be, since she and Jacob were the first to become one. Love and lust aside. God honors marriage between one man and one woman. Not that He can’t honor a second marriage, but it’s the first marriage that He recognizes as godly.
It was supposed to be cooler today – only 103⁰ – so we left early and went for a hike. We had to take the Saddle Pass trail to connect with the Medicine Loop Trail. And just for future reference, the Medicine Loop sits in the middle of another trail – the Castle, which if you do the entire out and back Castle, is 11 miles. But you can break it up into three different parts, making it shorter. With the heat of the summer days, it’s probably best to break it up into sections.
And no. We didn’t register. There wasn’t a need.
We were planning on staying on-trail today. : )
Near the top, there was a wide flat spot, so we took a few minutes and FaceTimed with our granddaughter, Harper. 
She was showing us all her school supplies for Kindergarten. : )
Look what we found! He was brown, and kinda crispy feeling, and we wondered if he was on his way out. : ( 
Yeah, well they were also in their mid-twenties. lol
We may tack it on at the end of our hike today.
Depends on the temperature.
Looked like a volcano spit them out!
But God makes everything beautiful!
This was all there was!
I sat on the hard ground, Blaine stood.
Hard to share a banana that way. : )
We skipped the final mountain climb.
It was getting too hot.
Fantastic picture, hon!
The rocks going down were very steep and very slippery!
We are always so in awe of this place. Everywhere you look it has a beauty all its own! We very much enjoyed this hike – as we have all of them!
Along the way, we met another couple from Indiana who chatted about their plans for the rest of their summer travels, and we shared information about our time in South Dakota and Wyoming. We actually spoke with them twice, because they were traveling in the opposite direction we were on the loop. 😊
As I mentioned on one of the captions, by the time we were finished, it was pretty warm, so we went for a scenic drive.
Our drive took us through the town of Scenic – believe it or not. For all intents and purposes, Scenic is a ghost town. We saw one inhabited house. I’m sure there’s a few more, because if you look the place up, you can uncover that there are (or were) 9 residents – but that’s before the town was sold in 2011. Who sold an entire town? A former rodeo star named Twila Merrill. Most of the nine residents were related to her. She sold 46 acres. Sounds crazy, huh?
In looking up the population count, I uncovered this information on onlyinyourstate.com written in 2019:
What happened to scenic South Dakota?
Surprisingly, the town of Scenic, South Dakota is anything but and is currently in a state of ruin and disarray. … However, unlike most abandoned places in South Dakota, Scenic was actually sold in 2011 for $799,000 and now serves as a meeting place for its owners, the Philippines-based Iglesia ni Cristo church.
Nothing’s changed since 2011, except maybe for the church signs up on several of the buildings we saw.
Much more of a ghost town that what we went in search of at Custer State Park a few weeks ago.
Just for fun, I made some of the pictures black and white. : )
According to one thing I read, they had three at one time. lol
so I was able to get a picture inside.
Somehow, I forgot to save my color version of this one. : (
It’s not used either.
Maybe that Pilipino church will use it for a church one day?
There’s a dirt and gravel road (aren’t they all when you leave the main road out here??) called Sheep Mountain Road. It’s only about 1 ½ lanes wide, and seemed lightly traveled.
Of course, we ended up behind a large pick-up from Texas, who was determined not to let us pass, even though he was pretty much creeping along down the middle of the road, sight-seeing. Common courtesy dictates that when you have someone following close behind you on a narrow scenic drive, you pull over and let them pass; so either this guy was a really poor driver who never checks any of his mirrors, or he’s a jerk. In light of God’s love, I’m going with the poor driver version.
So we’re following them through this canyon pass and they spot a bighorn sheep on the right side of the road. The guy actually stopped in the middle of the road to take a picture, instead of moving to the edge of the road. His female passenger, pulled in their mirror, and Blaine took the opportunity to drive right between her door and the sheep. I was sure he was gonna tip us over the edge! The moral of this story? If someone is driving close behind you on a 1 ½ land gravel road, pull over and let them pass. You may just be saving a life or two.
We were without cell service for a good bit of the day today. I don’t know how they call the cows home.
It was cooler where we were today, but the closer we got to home, the hotter it got. We watched the Jeep thermometer creep up from 84⁰ to 96⁰ over the course of about 30 miles, before we entered the campground.
And it was our grandson Kade’s first day of First Grade today! So hard to believe he’s that old already! Miss Harper starts Kindergarten on Tuesday!
Siblings Cooper, Kade and Harper