(Written on the 1st from notes taken previously)
I was up and on the road relatively early, and gratefully undisturbed through the night. I’m really grateful to Wyoming for having these parking areas along the side of the highways. It really makes it easy for those of us who are self-contained. 🙏
My route today took me pretty much back the same way that I had come, back North past Martin’s cove, Devil’s Gate, and Independence Rock. I only briefly toyed with the idea of going to Devil’s Gate before deciding to simply continue on.
I stopped off at the Walmart in Casper and then went to the Sportsman’s Warehouse to pick up some stuff for Hans.
Being as tired as I was, I didn’t get up early enough to make it to Casper in time for any morning temple reservations (small temple, so there isn’t really anything after… 12:30? until evening), so I reserved a spot in the earliest evening endowment session.
Since I had a long wait ahead of me, and since I was pretty exhausted, I decided to just crash in my van. Gratefully, that worked out super well, because a powerful thunderstorm rolled through, hammering the van with rain which both kept the temperature cool and delighted the senses. 😊
After a lovely nap, I got up some unfortunate news affecting people I love, news that to me was indicative of pretty hefty injustice, which is quick to make my blood boil. 😅
So I fought off the negative feelings, the angry, vengeful role-playing internal interactions that I allowed to parade across the stage of my mind, trying to get my emotional state in a better place to go to the temple. 😅
Gratefully, the temple is generally quite grounding for me, bringing peace and light, and it was good to be in there. 🙏
Since it was an evening session, by the time I got out, the sun was going down or maybe was all the way down? I don’t remember which, and I began my drive east toward South Dakota. Oh wait… this shows it!
Darkness tried to make its way in again after going to the temple, but I think I was mostly able to fend it off.
I think one of the reasons I was able to fend it off was that shortly into my drive, I received a reply message from someone I had reached out to a few days ago, an amazing woman I’d connected with way back in 2018. We had corresponded for a while (she lived four hours away), before she felt like it was best to cut connection.
I don’t remember exactly why, but going back through Facebook messages, I found a thread with her and reread it and decided to reach out.
So when she replied back, trying not to use my phone while driving, I pulled over in a parking area and then spent I think probably a couple of hours writing a veritable book as a reply message. 😆
By the time I finished writing, I just about could have been back in South Dakota. 🙃
Back on the road again, I didn’t get far before I was just… cooked. So I pulled over at I think the last parking pullout before Orin, and called it a night.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 