The past few days we Kings have been down in Yellowstone National Park, relaxing. Dad, JD, and Cody went down early Friday to pick up a 5th wheel camper, and try it out while flyfishing and barely avoiding a close encounter with a grizzly bear. We ladies and little boys met them after church on Sunday in the Lamar valley of YNP.
Upon meeting them, we split into the 2 vehicles: Dad, Mom, Wyatt, Will and Jed in the big old Ford pulling the camper, and JD, Cody, Hannah and I in the Suburban, in which we would have followed Dad. I say "would have" because Mom had forgotten she had the 'burban keys in her pocket. However, if one must be abandoned by one's parents for half an hour, the Lamar valley has a lovely view. Finally they realized we weren't following and came back to fetch us. We spent the night at Fishing Bridge, all 9 of us cozied up in the camper.
I've got to say this before I go on: a buffalo is almost a cow; if you've seen one, you've seen them all. They are really not that exciting, and definitely not exciting enough to stop traffic for 5 miles and cause a 45 minute delay for everyone who has already seen the past 476 buffalo. Anyway...
Yellowstone is a beautiful place, and I enjoy getting to go there once in a while. Hot springs, wild animals, rugged terrain, rushing rivers, mountains, cliffs, and canyons all stand testimony to their Creator as a shadow of His power, majesty, and creativity. We took the little boys to see Old Faithful for their first times. We also saw a black bear, lots of buffalo, and 2 elk.
Yesterday evening, we went to the Imax theatre and saw the film "Bears." As JD put it, "I felt alienated in the first minute of the show." It opened with Native American's mystical view of bears, and later the propaganda of global warming endangering cute cuddly polar bears touted as truth without any statistics or facts. (Perhaps we should be brainwashed enough we shouldn't catch things like that. Oops.) Grizzlys were portrayed as "more like a cow than a killer" and severely misunderstood, with we "bad" humans forcing them out of their habitat and hunting them too extensively. There is a reason the bear's habitat has shrunk: people have taken dominion of the wilderness, and have gardenized it. Of course, there is still a place for the grizzly bear: in National Parks or on remote mountains with a healthy fear of man and his .360 Winchester magnum. The whole film disappointingly yet predictably smacked of environmental activism and modern-day creature worship. It brought to mind Romans 1:25 : "[they] exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen." I was glad the propaganda flew over the heads of the little guys, and we could at least enjoy their simple delight at seeing fearsome bears on a 6-story screen.
One thing that didn't fly over Jed's head happened this morning as we were getting ready to leave. We went down to the Madison river to skip rocks, and Will accidentally threw a bad one off poor Jeddie's head and hit him hard. He had a good flow of blood down his blonde hair, but he is alright now. I am so thankful for the Lord's kind providence that it wasn't worse. Just goes to show that skipping rocks is an extreme sport.
Well, that was kind of a lengthy post, but I'm still learning how good blogging works. ;)
Grace and peace,
Audrey
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