{"id":5391,"date":"2012-06-14T14:37:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-14T14:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=5391"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:56","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:56","slug":"a-perfect-day-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=5391","title":{"rendered":"A Perfect Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last Sunday was one of those days that struck me as being about as beautiful as life gets here on earth.\u00a0 I kept telling the kids that we were truly privileged to be in a position to where we could be on a trip like we have been on.\u00a0 (I am writing this on Wednesday evening – June 13 – and we don’t expect to be home yet until late Sunday night. We left home two weeks ago today!)I have to record the highlights of the day in an effort to capture a bit of that perfection and preserve it here in a way that I am sure will escape my unaided memory:We arrived in Custer, South Dakota Saturday evening after a beautiful drive across Wyoming.\u00a0 We had rented a cabin for two nights in Custer sight unseen.\u00a0 Well, there were pictures online, but you always know that the pictures are capturing only the best angles.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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So a picture from this angle might appear on the website…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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But not from this one!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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And you might expect a cabin to have a kitchen, but it turns out the "kitchen" fits in the corner of one of the bedrooms!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

But the kids loved the place because they could run around outside and there was a pond to poke around in and a few rocks to climb on.\u00a0 So we were happy enough.\u00a0 And I actually liked the challenge of cooking breakfast – because you’ve got to have a hot breakfast when you are “camping” – so I used the charcoal grill out back to do some bacon and eggs in\u00a0a frying pan I bought at the Dollar General.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Princess looked so sweet early in the morning with her kitten from Gig Harbor, Washington.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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After breakfast, we headed into Custer State Park and took the Wildlife Loop road.\u00a0 The donkeys are always waiting for a handout.\u00a0 They surround a vehicle and beg for food.\u00a0 Here Dats (age 11) feeds one a bit of bread, apparently a bit disgusted by the experience.\u00a0 We had donkey slobber all over the van's windows by the time we moved on.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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We had been a bit disappointed\u00a0in not seeing as many animals in Yellowstone as we had hoped to (no moose and no bear!) so it was good to see actual wildlife along the Wildlife Loop.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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We saw tons of buffalo (literally!).\u00a0 And the kids thought the calves were cute.\u00a0 At one point, a herd surrounded our vehicle.\u00a0 At another, a herd bolted into a stampede across a road where we had just passed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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As soon as we got a little further into the park and started to see the large rock outcroppings, our little monkey boy, Ida (age 8), was almost visibly vibrating with anticipation of all the climbing to be done.\u00a0 I was almost afraid to let him out of the van for fear he would disappear.\u00a0 The kids all loved the climbing – including The Princess, who proved she could keep up with the best.\u00a0 It gave Mom and Dad the nerves, but on our perfect day there wasn't so much as a skinned knee or a turned ankle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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On to Mount Rushmore around noon.\u00a0 The kids were duly impressed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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For me, part of the joy and "perfection" of this day was sharing with my kids a part of my past that I love. My dad grew up in South Dakota so we traveled there often when I was a kid and every few years we'd get out to the Black Hills.\u00a0 So on this trip, it warmed my heart to hear my kids say they liked the Hills better than Yellowstone.\u00a0 The other joy for me was exploring some aspects of the Hills I had never seen before – including a trail at Mt. Rushmore that carries you a bit closer to the carving.\u00a0 The kids and I hiked this little trail while Mommy enjoyed some alone time … apparently\u00a0with a bowl of ice cream back at the gift shop!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Speaking of gift shops, each of the kids has put a lot of thought into what souvenirs they might want.\u00a0 They each had from Uncle Ryan and Aunt Suzan, .50 from Grandma Gross and from Mommy and Daddy – which we promised before we knew they'd be getting money from other sources!\u00a0 Among other items, Ida got himself an eagle because we saw eagles in Washington…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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The Princess got herself a "fairy dog", as she called it.\u00a0 (She was unfamiliar with the word "prairie" apparently.\u00a0 Later, we all laughed when she was looking for "Big Orange Sheep" when her\u00a0siblings were looking for Big HORN Sheep.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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After a picnic lunch, we climbed a bit of rock and spent some time reading from Scripture together and admiring God's creation.\u00a0 Psalm 19: "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.\u00a0 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.\u00a0 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.\u00a0 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world."<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Next we went to my favorite spot in all the Hills – Sylvan Lake.\u00a0 It's a small lake with a trail that loops around the water.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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The Drama Queen (age 10) poses for a picture on top of some rocks at the far end of the lake.\u00a0 This was the site of the only injury of the day … some chunky kid whipped a stone toward the water and managed to hit me in the arm instead, mainly because I was standing between him and the water.\u00a0 I survived.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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The kids were excited later as we drove through a tunnel on the Needles Highway to see a mountain goat up close.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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As we were\u00a0driving back to Custer for dinner, Dats screamed, "Turn around, turn around!" "What?\u00a0 Why?"\u00a0 "I just saw a mountain lion!"\u00a0 We whipped around and parked and Mommy took this picture.\u00a0 We watched in awe from a distance while the thing scratched around in the pine needles.\u00a0 Then the creature lifted its head … and it was a dog.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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We grabbed some hotdogs and bratwurst (and supplies for smores) from a grocery in Custer and headed back to the cabin to build a fire.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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A strong wind whipped the fire up so hot that Dats had to hide behind a rock to roast his dog.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

After we tucked the kids in, Melissa and I had a few quiet moments to enjoy the campfire by ourselves before turning in for the night and ending our perfect day.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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Last Sunday was one of those days that struck me as being about as beautiful as life gets here on earth.\u00a0 I kept telling the kids that we were truly privileged to be in a position to where we could be on a trip like we have been on.\u00a0 (I am writing this on Wednesday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5391"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5392,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5391\/revisions\/5392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}