Kiki, do you love me? Are you riding? Say you never ever leave from beside me? If you're just joining us now, welcome to the Happy Trail Series. We're taking some time to explore parts of Oregon and Utah, Wyoming.

And this week, we're in the heart of the Jewel Basin

just outside of Big Fork Montana at Camp Misery.

What a name. And as we explore some of the parts of the country that we live in,

we're also anchoring our hearts in the Psalms of a scent. These 15 Psalms that occur 120 through 134 in the book of Psalms are basically old school

equivalents of the road trip playlists that all of us would make that we would kind of have to sing and kind of pass the time with us we would travel.

Only back in the day the traveling that would take place in Israel would be going up to Jerusalem.

So the city of Jerusalem was 2,500 feet above sea level and that meant that no matter where you came from

you would have to ascend to go up that plateau that Jerusalem

sat upon north south east or west you were going up to get there but the lowest

part of the earth is actually in Israel the dead sea which sits some 14, 1500 feet below sea level.

And that means that potentially where you were coming from, if you lived in that Dead

Sea area, you could actually be going as much as 3,900 feet to get all the way to Jerusalem,

from way deep down low to way up super high.

And while you were traveling, imagine that, Pilgrim streaming in.

The closest equivalent in our culture would probably be traveling to your

aunt's house in Ohio for Thanksgiving. But three times a year Jews from all over Israel

would come streaming in on the trails, over the hills, up the mountains they would

climb as they would make their way to Jerusalem.

But not only were they ascending physically because of these 15 songs

that they would sing together as a family,

they also were ascending spiritually.

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