Headed West

We had a slow, easy morning at camp. We all had showers and Pat talked the boys through vital motorhome systems in the daylight, while everyone was rested, and full of homemade egg Mc Muffins. The mini blowtorch we brought along was, in theory, supposed to be a super toast maker. Not so much. Now it's only purpose is to rattle when we cross over bumps in the road. We all showered and the boys burned off some steam on an old-school playground merry-go-round. I hadn't seem one of those in years and was glad they got the chance to play on something that's no longer considered 'safe.'

 EVERYWHERE in Southern Minnesota we saw these giant wind turbines. These big white pinwheels planted by a slightly OCD child are EVERYWHERE in Minnesota. (Yes, there are even some there, too.)   It's hard to get an sense of scale driving down the road, but these things are somewhere in the range of crazy-big to gianormous.

Pat drove us through the town where his dad grew up, pointing out where aunts and uncles used to live and we headed north to Pipestone. We are driving along when Pat and I had, at the same time, one of those "Stop the car!' realizations. We turned down a little road a behind an industrial building and parked the camper -- in the middle of a storage yard for the HUGE wind turbine blades we had been seeing everywhere! We climbed on old damaged generator housings. We looked down some open hollow blades. We knocked on one end chased echoes going down the blades. We took comparative photos. We had a blast!

 

 

The Pipestone National Monument is situated around the Native American pipestone quarries. The bright red stone that is quarried here is carved into the bowls of the pipe (think Peace Pipe from bad western movies) that is the central to Native American religion. The pipe is to native people like a Bible or cross is to Christians. And this holy stone is only found here, at this one spot in Minnesota. All the stone is quarried by hand by Native permit holders. We watched the video in the visitors center before we headed out to the 3/4 mile trail that weaves through the exposed rocks and quarries. The boys became official Junior Rangers.

We headed to Mitchell, South Dakota, home of the Corn Palace. It was getting late, so we checked in at the campground and then drove downtown to the Corn Palace. Yadda, yadda, yadda. We ate dinner at Culver's.

Wait! Wait! Wait a minute, you skipped over the best part! No, I mentioned Culver's. Alright already, the great Corn Palace is decorated inside and out with murals made out of corn, 12 different colors of corn. Every year they change the murals as the grasses and corn are harvested. It also houses a basketball arena, one of the ten best places in the country to play high school basketball. Oh, and as we were walking back to our parking spot, we saw a pigeon perched on a mural, eating corn straight off the cob. That was pretty cool.