Cedar Pass Campground, Interior, South Dakota
After Jacob had stayed with him for a whole month, Laban said to him, “Just because you are a relative of mine, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be.” Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel was lovely in form, and beautiful. Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, “I’ll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel.” ~ Genesis 29:14b-18 So given the fact that Jacob was smitten with Rachel from the beginning, of course he wants Rachel for a wife. But what does the fact that “Leah had weak eyes” mean? Some versions say her eyes were ‘delicate’ (which doesn’t help me at all). Others say things like, “her eyes had no sparkle”, or “her eyes were nice, but Rachel was beautiful”. I don’t know about you, but seven years seems like a really long engagement. She must’ve been quite the prize! And I don’t think Laban was a fool. I’m certain he knew the attraction between Jacob and Rachel. Maybe Laban was looking for a way to keep Jacob around because he was a good worker?
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Being as how it’s supposed to get into the mid-nineties today, we left as early as we could get ourselves moving – about 7:15am. We were done and nearly home by 10:30 or so, stopped at the Visitor Center to return the shirt I bought yesterday that wasn’t made right, and popped in the Gift Shop on down the street to look for a few items I’m still searching for – namely, a t-shirt, and a tiny bowl to hold my wedding ring while we’re out climbing on rocks. I’ve been searching for these things for the past 6-8 weeks with no luck. My mom says I need to go to the beach and find a shell to use as a ring holder. Nice idea, but what can I say? I want what I want. I’ve seen exactly what I want in the museums we’ve visited, so I know it’s out there, I just can’t find it. And you’d think it’d be easy to find a touristy t-shirt, but not for me. I’m pretty picky. It has to be the right fabric, I have to like the picture on it, and the color, and it has to fit properly. So far, I’ve bought shirts I really liked, they met all the criteria, but when I washed them, they shrunk! I didn’t think clothes shrank anymore. Grandkids will get those. As I mentioned, the one I bought yesterday wasn’t made right. The sleeves were wrong and it was uncomfortable if I moved. How can this be!? And so I keep searching. I don’t care for shopping, and neither does Blaine. And I know you really don’t care, so I’ll move on.
Up first this morning was the Notches Trail. They give you lots of warnings about this trail.
One of the great things about Badlands National Park is the fact that while they have designated trails, you’re free to roam about wherever you want. Isn’t that great?!? You just need to be mindful of where you came from and how to get back. They say it’s easy to lose your way here, and after the things we saw and did, I can see that happening fairly easily.
There’s such awe-inspiring scenery here, but probably when you look at pictures, you’ll think it all looks the same. You’ll just have to trust me that our pictures can’t hold a candle to seeing it with your own eyes! And as you’ve probably guessed, we went off-trail quite a bit today.
but by the end of the day, we still had a lot. : )
I don’t know if you remember.
He’s kinda hiding from us. : )
When you include even a little of the sun in the picture, it goes dark, and I can’t fix it.
They were prettier than the picture shows.
Just going to see what I can see. : )
Same place, different camera angles. : )
They’re firm and hard to walk on, but they look fragile.
And if you pick at them, even a little, they crumble beneath your fingers.
That’s the walkway we were on the other day when we spotted people in The Notch.
We’ll check it out when we get back.
Note the people – some waiting to go down, some just coming up.
We don’t usually carry it with us because it’s heavy,
adding weight to Blaine’s already full pack.
The only difficulty we had was me going back down the ladder on the Notches. It was scary! And not only for me, but for others as well – of course, not for Blaine. 😊 Because I mostly slid down each and every step (very slowly, I might add), I’ll be surprised if I don’t develop bruising down the length of my left leg from knee to ankle, and also my right knee because I used it to brace myself. We’ll see. I don’t bruise easily. It doesn’t help the nerves when you know people are waiting on you – both above and below.
Before we moved the Jeep, we set off towards our little plateau. It took some time, although we didn’t get far before we realized that was never going to happen. Darn! Oh, to have the feet of mountain goats!
Hey, at least we started out on a path.
As we discovered, it was most likely a path worn by Bighorn Sheep! : )
Meanwhile, I waited and took a few pictures.
We stopped one other place near a road sign that says “Cedar Pass”. There are no actual marked trails here. You just park and go. So fun! And such wonderful things to see!
But we found another way to the top.
Terrific morning!
Around dinnertime, storm clouds began forming, but all we got were a few sprinkles, some small hail, rumblings, and a spectacular sunset! We were also privileged to be able to see some fantastic lightening displays!
