(written on the 11th from notes taken previously)
Been a looooong time. 🕍
But I’ll get to that. 😊
It was another early morning. Darn that South Dakota sunrise time! 😆
The sun shouldn’t be rising with the clock reading five something. 🌄
Got going on my morning routine, chatted with my sister for a little bit before she went to work.
Worked on trying to gather together some of my documents for my education book, just trying to pull all the documents together from various different sources into one collection, so I know what I have and where I have it all.
Found myself a little annoyed and concerned because the dentist office screwed up and had me listed for the wrong procedures today. I was quoted three teeth to be worked on, but somehow somebody inputted it in properly, so it was only two teeth and a fitting for a mouth guard.
Gratefully, I got it cleared up a little bit, but it was like whoever was getting the messages kept getting the messages incorrect every single time.
Had me a little worried for the actual visit…
Spent some time prepping and painting the piece that I damaged on the backhoe. Flaking away the paint that had been chipped from the bending of the metal, getting it to the point where I couldn’t chip it anymore with my fingernail, and then putting the first coat of paint on it, and the second.
I then spent a few hours or so excavating the area in front of the house, as it’s going to need to be excavated down to be the proper grade for the slope away from the house for drainage purposes.
I made an appointment with the Casper, Wyoming Temple to be part of an initiatory session at 8:30 p.m., so after my dental visit in Rapid city, I was going to make the four plus hour drive over to Casper, so I wanted to be all nice and clean after my dusty work with the excavator–which meant just one thing.
Yep!
Cascade Falls. 🙃
Love this place. 😁 Did I mention that there’s this perfect little hot tub shaped rock formation just hanging out at the south side of the pond below the falls? It totally looks like it could be a hot tub– Complete with steps down inside. It’s pretty awesome.
It’s my new favorite part of the falls area. 😊
Oh, how I love nature. 🥰
I had a pretty interesting surprise when I got to the falls. The parking lot was actually filled with another four cars, I think, one of them being a big van like mine, only bigger. The surprise wasn’t the van or the number of cars, but what I think I saw when I glanced over at the big van a few cars over
A bare butt.
😶
And it seemed a little bit too small to be a male butt? 😅
As if someone were kneeling on the front seat looking for something between the two front seats, wearing… well… nothing. 😅
Gratefully, and maybe it was because I had been listening to hymns and gospel talks and whatnot all morning, but I didn’t even do a double take. I just looked away, walked myself through what I was doing and what needed to be done to get over to the falls, and managed to get where I was going without further issue.
Success!
We celebrate successes here. 🎉
I spent a decent little while hanging out in the little cool tub, not hot because the temperature I think is in the 60s? 66? Something like that.
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed myself there and stayed a little longer than I should have, but it was nice. And on my return trip to Rover, I put on my sun hat with the absolutely massive brim, so as to make it easier to keep my eyes averted for what I might see in the window of the van should my eyes had that direction again.
Gratefully, I once again was able to keep my eyes away from the triggering circumstances, backed my van up the other direction, so I would leave a different entrance to the parking lot, and drove away.
Safe. 🥳
I guess it could be a coincidence, but it’s kind of funny that that would happen on the day that I’m scheduled to go back to the temple for the first time since I think maybe 2019? Maybe even 2018?
Totally forgot that my van was mostly empty, so I ended up having to grab gas on the way out of town, but grateful that it was only $2.99 a gallon. 🥳
I don’t know what it is in Arkansas right now, but it’s nice to be under $3 here. Would be absolutely amazing to get it down to a one as the first digit.
Anyway, despite the issues in scheduling, the dentist himself not only took care of the three fillings that were supposed to have been on the schedule, but he obliged and did the additional to that I had declined at the beginning but thought better of yesterday and had left a message asking if I could add them to my visit. Normally, five teeth is going to be way more than he could do in an hour, but he was upbeat confident that he could get it done, so that was nice.
He did all five teeth that needed help, no root canals, just feelings, only three with decay, and two just because they had been worn down to the enamel, and I had originally told him to go ahead and add them to the estimate because they were sensitive to pressure, which made it not so fun to chew sometimes, and though I initially decided not to have them done, even though I was the one who asked him to go ahead and put them down on the estimate, those were the two that we added to make it a total of five.
It wasn’t my best dental experience in some ways, but it was my own choice. The last two teeth, the ones that were just taking care of the sensitive worn spots were on a nerve that apparently didn’t get all the way numbed, so it was pretty painful. The dentist offered very quickly to go ahead and put some more stuff in, but I figured that was going to take a while longer, and I might as well just grit and bear it.
Definitely hurt pretty good. Makes me wonder what it would be like to have it done without any numbing agents at all.
My appointment ended up going longer than the hour, and he stepped out to help another customer for a little bit. When he came back to finish the last fillings, there was, I guess, a customer that had been waiting for 20 or 30 minutes for her appointment, so I offered to just wait while she got taken care of, and the dentist thanked me for the offer but was close enough to being done that it didn’t really make sense to stop at that point.
From the dentist’s office in Rapid city, it was going to be something like a 4 hour and 15 minute drive on the route that I chose to the casper, Wyoming Temple, so I pointed Rover’s nose west, turned on the hymns, starting with one that Cory had linked me to and ended up listening to hymns for most of the next 4 hours. 😆
I had hoped to be able to do an endowment session, but it was packed full, and nowadays, with reservations and scheduling, as opposed to just showing up like you used to in the old days, you can hope for someone to not show up, but you certainly can’t bank on it. Not to mention that I was going to be arriving too late to do an endowment session anyway. Everything was full except for the initiatory, and I think I could have joined a baptism appointment as well?
Anyway, I got myself dressed and my Sunday clothes and headed in about an hour early, hoping that I could be of use in something before my 8:30 scheduled session. 🙃
Having been so long since I’ve been to the temple, there were multiple changes, and I was interested to see those.
I told the gentleman at the recommend counter that I hadn’t been in a really long time and wasn’t sure exactly what I needed besides my church clothes, which I realized after I went in that my church shirt isn’t white, it’s more a cream color. Nor are my pants white, but greatly even though it’s a small temple, they had a clothing place, so I could borrow everything I needed, white shirt, white pants, white socks, white tie.
😊
At first, I sat on the bench outside the dressing room just waiting for my turn that was going to be an hour away, but then I had one of the temple workers start chatting with me, and I asked if maybe there was an opportunity to serve in the baptistry while I was waiting, so he went off to check. While he was checking, some other Temple workers mentioned that one of the sealing sessions was short on men, which was exciting for me because I really wanted to see the changes to the sealing ordinance.
Loved the changes. 🥰
I got to participate both as a witness, a husband, and a son, and it was really a wonderful experience.
I’ve missed the temple.
If I ever manage to get my little butt back to arkansas, I think I’m going to go by way of Kansas City so I can go back to the Kansas City temple. That might just be my favorite. I don’t know why I love it so much, but I do. Maybe it’s because that’s where I was a temple worker, and I loved being a temple worker.
So the sealing session was beautiful, and it was good to be there for the initiatory as well.
I enjoy the temple. The peace. The light. The happiness and the joy and the countenances of the people who are there. It’s such a wonderful place. 🥰
I had just about completely forgotten about the prayer roll in the temple until I noticed it in the men’s changing room, and so I added the names of a few people and their spouses. 💚
I had taken a few pictures of myself and the temple before going in, and when I got out, there was still enough light in the sky to take some beautiful dusk photos, so I did that as well. 😊
Chatted on the phone with my sister Heather for a bit, headed over to Walmart and bought a bunch of food, found another gas station that was only $2.79, and filled up for the drive back to hot springs.
Chatted with Cory for a bit, and then just listened to uplifting stuff for the next two plus hours until I got to Mill Creek junction rest area, where, just like last time before getting back to South Dakota, I crashed for the night.
Gratitude:
- I didn’t really realize it, didn’t plan it that way, but I’m grateful that I was able to get to the temple on the first available day after getting my temple recommend. 😊
- I’m grateful that I was able to catch the errors in the dental appointment, and that they were fixed.
- I’m grateful that the dentist was willing to add two extra teeth to the day’s procedures, as that means I’m less likely to have little twinges when I bite down on things.
- I’m grateful Rover keeps getting me where I need to go safely.
- I’m grateful for evaporative cooling. After getting out of the dentist, I put my wet clothes back on from my jump into Cascade falls, which acted as a great evaporative cooler on the long drive to casper, as my AC hasn’t worked since Washington when the clutch busted off.
- I am very grateful that I was able to walk away and not look back this morning with what could have been a hugely triggering encounter.
- And I’m grateful that the experience didn’t leave a lingering issue of any kind.
Success:
- I think I’ll call the butt in the park incident a pretty big success for me.
- I made it back to the temple!!! 🥰🥳🥰
Improvement:
- It would have been better had I not even gotten a little annoyed and concerned over the error in scheduling of the dental office.
My love to all y’all! 😊
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 