(written on the 13th from notes taken previously)
The Mexican food last night didn’t sit well with either of us. 😅
Each time I would wake up in the middle of the night, I wondered whether or not the upset stomach was going to turn to a need to head on over to the bathroom to sit on the throne for a while.
😅
Finally got up for good somewhere around 6:30 or 7:00? I ate breakfast down in the breakfast place, john, I think, still resting a little bit from a rough night himself.
Watch some YouTube videos and again tried to add uplifting comments.
Though still sick, John wanted to go back to the Hippie Hole, so we did, spending a little bit of time there jumping in, taking pictures and videos, etc.
On the hike back, we ran into two mountain goats, one the same as the other day, I think, and a new one as well.
Cool stuff.
I realized that somehow my camera settings had all been reset, so the reason my pictures were blurry when zooming in was that they were taken with the 12 megapixel camera and 1080p video instead of the 50 megapixel camera and 4K video, so my first two and a half days of pictures are all with crappy resolution. 😕
Must have been some kind of an update that reset everything.
From there, we drove by Rushmore again, as it was on the way to the Crazy Horse monument that continues to be under construction. We stopped on the side of the road as you come around the bend and see Rushmore from a distance, stopping to take pictures, and then to help a gentleman and his lady friend back up after he stopped his motorcycle and didn’t realize the hill was sloping the way it was and ended up laying the motorcycle down on himself and his lady friend.
No injuries, gratefully.
We did a drive-by of the Crazy Horse, as there’s not all that much to see, despite it having been worked on for several decades.
And that one, as I understand it, also has a bit of controversy surrounding it, as even though it’s meant as a tribute, some Native Americans consider it a desecration of sacred land and disrespectful to Crazy Horse himself who didn’t want to be photographed and requested an unmarked grave.
From that brief stop, we headed to Custer and found a place to eat lunch.
I think it was somewhere around that time that I saw the news about Charlie Kirk being killed in Utah during one of his events.
I’ve mostly stopped paying attention to the political sphere because of the constant barrage of negativity and what I have felt to be massive misinformation no matter who the source is. It seems like every time I dig in to find the truth of a particular situation or circumstance, I find that both the left and the right have misrepresented what is going on in order to suit their purposes.
So I’ve mostly unplugged and don’t know much of what has gone on lately, but this was everywhere, and I started following what was going on.
I used to react much more passionately, but these days there’s just a lot more sorrow. Seeing everything from people cheering for his death to the grief of having lost a friend.
I’m grateful for the widespread condemnation of the killing from all across the political spectrum.
I’m grateful for the calls of civility.
I hope we can move away from the dangerous use of superlatives, the extremist language that in my opinion, encourages these kinds of incidents.
[sigh]
In other news, I’ve continued to deal with a JA question, for days, that has become quite the uncomfortable blessing. The customer just needs to know where the ECM relay is in his car, and my system gives the exact diagram, but… it’s not there in his car. It’s not anywhere we’ve looked. It’s not on the wiring diagrams. The dealer has a part number, but even their system can’t tell where it is.
😶
So it just goes on and on and on, and I can’t help him because no one seems to know where it is on his particular car.
🤷
Anyway, drove through Wind Cave National Park, hoping to see more bison because I think you usually do, but there weren’t any.
From there, we headed down to Hot Springs and over to Cascade Falls. We picked up some snorkeling gear from Hans, and then John and I did some snorkeling Down River from Cascade Falls.
He and I had some political conversations after that. We are on different parts of the political spectrum and different parts of the religious spectrum, so there’s a pretty significant amount of difference in our perspectives, but we had good little conversations.
John grabbed a hotel for the night in Hot Springs, and we hung out there for the night before crashing.
Gratitude to My Father:
- I’m grateful to have been able to spend time with John. He’ll be hopping a plane to Utah tomorrow.
- I’m grateful John got to be able to see Mount Rushmore both lit up at night and during the day.
- I’m grateful for the means to be able to easily provide food and shelter for ourselves.
- I’m grateful to Hans for providing John with snorkeling equipment.
- I’m grateful to have had beautiful weather for John’s visit, to be able to enjoy both the Hippie Hole and Cascade falls and whatnot.
- I’m very grateful for my sobriety and the miracles of my recovery to this point. Today is my 4-month mark. 🎉Contention drives away the Spirit—every time. Contention reinforces the false notion that confrontation is the way to resolve differences; but it never is. Contention is a choice. Peacemaking is a choice. You have your agency to choose contention or reconciliation
We. Celebrate. Successes!!! 🥳:
- Though I’m always a bit on edge when conversing with people about divergent perspectives, it was great to be able to share ideas and perspectives with John.
Reflections on Where I Can Improve:
- I want to be completely comfortable talking to people about different views. I feel like I’m pretty good at it, but it’s certainly not comfortable when discussing topics that are often the most highly charged in our culture today.
Thought of the Day:
Contention drives away the Spirit—every time. Contention reinforces the false notion that confrontation is the way to resolve differences; but it never is. Contention is a choice. Peacemaking is a choice. You have your agency to choose contention or reconciliation.
~ Russell M. Nelson
May each of us focus on the good hearts that I believe the vast majority of us have and not on the external application of the internal values we hold in common.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 