Cedar Pass Campground, Interior, South Dakota
Then God remembered Rachel; He listened to her and opened her womb. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, “God has taken away my disgrace.” She named him Joseph (means ‘may he add’) and said, “May the LORD add to me another son.” ~ Genesis 30:22-24 In order for Rachel to be blessed by God, it seems reasonable to assume that she finally gave up her superstitious and manipulative ways, and humbled herself before God. Hebrews 5:5b-6 tells us ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.’ And now, after many years, is born the son who will become what scholars call a pre-cursor or ‘type’ of Christ; meaning that his life points to Jesus through their similarities. I found the following on thegospelcoalition.org:
Here is a list of similarities that should cause you to marvel at (God’s) sovereignty.
- He is the object of his father’s special love.
- He had promises of divine exaltation.
- He was mocked by his family.
- He was sold for pieces of silver.
- He was stripped of his robe.
- He was delivered up to the Gentiles.
- He was falsely accused.
- He was faithful amid temptation.
- He was thrown into prison.
- He stood before rulers.
- His power was acknowledged by those in authority.
- He saves his rebellious brothers from death when they realize who he is.
- He is exalted after and through humiliation.
- He embraces God’s purpose even though it brings him intense physical harm.
- He is the instrument God uses at the hands of the Gentiles to bless his people.
- He welcomes Gentiles to be part of his family.
- He gives hungry people bread.
- People must bow their knee before him.
How blessed we are to be able to hold copies of God’s Word so it can teach us, and show us His ultimate plan of Love for us!
Sunday was a day of rest for us. We watched our church on-line since there are no churches for miles and miles. We lounged around all day. And about 8:30pm, Blaine walked over to the amphitheater to see what their night time show was all about. I had intended to go with him, but by that time, I was nursing a headache, a neckache and was exhausted. Not from all the lying around all day! Because we’ve been having trouble sleeping for various reasons – wind, mostly. On his way back, he almost literally ran into three deer who were peacefully minding their own business, until Blaine snuck up on them. Startled all of them, including Blaine!
On Monday, we made a plan to go to the Minuteman Missile Visitor Center; but not until after lunch. In the morning, we hiked another section of the Castle Trail; this time hiking from Saddleback Pass to the Fossil Exhibit trail and back again – roughly four miles round trip.
Blaine forgot to take his phone this morning, so all the pictures of our hike were taken with mine, and mine isn’t nearly as good as his. Kinda like my eyes. You’ll see things, but some aren’t as sharp as Blaine’s and mine doesn’t zoom in well, so they come out a bit blurry, or looking like Claude Monet paintings (to quote Cher in the movie ‘Clueless’ – “From far away, it’s OK, but up close, it’s a big ol’ mess”. Can’t help it. I love that movie! It’s one of my guilty pleasures.). In addition, since we only had one phone, we had to trade off on picture taking a few times.
Because someone told him he could. : )
Too bad Blaine doesn’t have his phone. : (
before taking a few minutes to explore the area.
I didn’t listen because it didn’t seem any more difficult than Saddleback.
Which is what I do when I’m waiting for him – take random pictures. lol
We still didn’t get very far.
Oh to have the feet of bighorn sheep!
I don’t know what that line across the picture is . . .
Doesn’t look like much from here, does it?
I sure was enjoying the view though!
As you can see, they took his suggestion and ran with it.
Maybe literally, since it didn’t take them long to get up there. : )
It was full of mud and still held some water from the rain this morning.
Wonderful hike! Except I still don’t like sliding back down the Pass. And that’s exactly what happens – you have no choice but to slide. The trail is very steep, and the rocks are like ball bearings under your feet. I squat a lot to keep from pitching forward down the slope. 😊
A quick lunch, and we were back on the road again. It’s a nine-mile drive through some of the most beautiful land God created to get to the Minuteman Missile Visitor Center. As we were driving along, we saw this humongous billboard advertising “Prairie Homestead Visitor Center”. We had no idea what that was, and it wasn’t on our map.
Turned out, it was an old homestead from the early 1900s! There was a gift shop, and a video about how the Brown family ended up and then lived here, and for $6/each, you could go out to the back yard and check out their old place! Soooo cool! I picked up a brochure about it, then took pictures of the pages so you can read about it if you want.
Definitely not something either of us would’ve taken on, but I think people were hardier back then. 😊
And to top it off – – they have a bunch of these white prairie dogs living here!
There weren’t any signs up about them, but I did find that picture online (because we didn’t take a good one), and a postcard in the gift shop that said, “Prairie Homestead is home to unique white prairie dogs that are descendants of one caught on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and given to the Prairie Homestead by the Oglala Sioux Tribe.” And that’s it. No year, no more information.
And some people thought I was crazy for going with Blaine!
It said one day of rain produced two more days of run-off. Yikes!
It also said that many people whitewashed their homes to help alleviate that problem.
Don’t they need privacy too??
Just up the street, we came to another tourist hang-out – the Ranch Store. This one came with a giant prairie dog just begging to have its picture taken, so we stopped. It weighs eight tons, and towers above the parking lot at over twelve feet tall. It was erected in July, 1959.
For a pittance, you can toss peanuts to the prairie dogs that live here (no white ones) as you walk around their burrows. We didn’t do that, but it was pretty obvious that they were used to people. If you really want them to eat what you’re feeding them, it’s probably best to arrive before lunchtime, because what we observed was, they weren’t a bit interested in eating anything.
and then drop them on the ground. : )
Back on the road, we came upon our destination – the Minuteman Missile Visitor Center. Only it was closed! Gates and cones barred the entrance from the road, and we had to turn around! Blaine pulled off the road and looked at their website. Turns out they’re closed on Monday and Tuesday. ☹ We had assumed that because it was part of the National Park, they’d keep the same hours as the regular Visitor Center, once again proving, you should never assume.
At least we still have Wednesday. We’ll head back then, without the extra stops. 😊
Back home, we checked out the moth that posed on the side of the coach, and watched the storm clouds bloom in the distance.
