Keyhole State Park, Moorcroft, Wyoming
Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz. Then Jacob made a vow, saying “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s house, then the LORD will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will give you a tenth.” ~ Genesis 28:20-22 And now we learn that despite the fact that Jacob voices his willingness to tithe, his faith wasn’t as strong as we would’ve believed. He places his own conditions on his faith – – ‘if You will . . . then I will . . .’ How often do we do the same thing? “God, if You will just do this for me, then I will . . . serve You unconditionally . . . love You forever . . . be the person You created me to be . . . stop doing _____ . . . start doing _____ . . . believe in You . . .” Surely God must weep over our unfounded lack of faith. Which makes His unconditional Love, Provision and Forgiveness all the more incredible.
Today began early with an hour-and-a-half dirt roads drive back into South Dakota. Spearfish Canyon to be precise.
They eventually got up and moved to the side of the road. : )
but it’s still pretty cool, don’t you think?
It’s supposed to be a beautiful canyon with lots of hiking and a few small towns to check out. As it turned out, everything we read about it was spot on. It was a beautiful place to hike. The trees. The flowers. The shade. The wind rustling through the pine boughs. The sight and sounds of the flowing Spearfish Creek running alongside the trails . . .
. . . . often masked by the constant roar of motorcycle engines.
It seems Sturgis has found us even here, twenty miles from the infamous town. Then again, I think, if there’s 750,000 bikes/riders here, they’re bound to be everywhere in western South Dakota for the next few days. It’s quite an extraordinary sight to see all these motorcycles and their riders in one place! So glad we did Custer State Park and those areas before they got here!
We actually did several hikes today – some were easy, paved or packed gravel along the creek, some were not so easy, but not difficult, and one that was straight up and straight down – very difficult.
It was a great day! Enjoy the time in the canyon, and then we’ll take you to the geographical center of the United States!
Each flower is perched at the end of a long cylindrical capsule bearing numerous seeds. Seeds have a tuft of silky hairs at the end. A single fireweed plant can produce 80,000 seeds! The delicate fluffy parachutes can transport seeds far from the parent plant. The fluff was used by native peoples as fiber for weaving and for padding.
This is today. Not so much is there?
The geographical center is actually in the town of Belle Fourche (pronounced Bell Foosh – why they put an ‘R’ in it is beyond me). The center used to be somewhere else – until 1959 when we added Alaska and Hawaii. This place was a nice area and had a really nice, small museum, but since they were closing in fifteen minutes, we didn’t have time to do it justice, just walked quickly around. I didn’t even take any pictures, if you can believe that!
We were hungry by the time we left, and set out to find burgers. What can I say? I was hungry for a burger and Coke. Blaine found us a Culver’s! We loaded up on the most delicious grease, salt and sugar, and then found an actual grocery store that wasn’t WalMart. It was sixty minutes from home. And it was the closest!
Long, hard day today, means not much going on tomorrow.
At least that’s the plan right now. 😊