After church yesterday afternoon, with thunder rumbling overhead, we took the Jeep to Rockerville Road to explore the backroads of the Black Hills. We had the dog and a picnic dinner, so essentially nothing was lacking!
Had it been dry, we would have gotten out and done a little hiking, or at least picnicked outside, but we drove in a steady drizzle and the dirt road was muddy and puddled. Not to mention, wet and muddy dog doesn’t smell very pleasant, and the backseat of the Jeep would have been pretty uncomfortable with a muddy Trixie sitting on our laps. The higher the road climbed, the louder the thunder got. We nearly bottomed out the Jeep once or twice, in places where the road was slick and deeply rutted, but Dad’s an experienced driver – Those places were the most fun, of course!We followed a side road for a little ways, right as the sun burst through the clouds. Dad stopped so I could get some pictures, and the aspen trees along the road caught my eye, sparkling in the rain, with the sunlight behind them and shining through the raindrops, making the leaves like glass. I was with a coworker recently on a walk over our lunch hour, and I had my camera along. I showed her a picture I took while on our walk, and her response was, “How do you see that?” Well, you have to look for it. You have to determine to see beauty – If you look, it is there. “The heavens declare the glory of God!” There is so much beauty to revel in – Sometimes it is almost overwhelming, like the beauty of the aspen trees, and other times it is subtler, and becomes apparent only with a change in perspective. The knee-high, rain-wet grasses along that muddy forest service road seemed pretty mundane, until I crouched down in the mud to see the sun is glistening behind the golden stems. Then a whole new world of beauty opened up!It was a sun-spangled, rain-washed world.

Save