Sunday, September 28, 2014

Pipestone, Mn

Before I tell you about pipestone, thought I would let you know what we are doing.

We are sitting at Bay Landing, a Thousand Trails park west of Fort Worth Texas.  Before we left Sioux Falls our Jeep broke down on a Wednesday, had it towed to a garage which said they couldn't look at it until Friday and rented a car from Enterprise for the week.  They had it fixed the following Wednesday and we left on Friday morning.  We had only drove it 2 days before we left and everything seemed fine.  We get to Fort Worth and are driving into Fort Worth and it does the same thing it had done before.  The skid light comes on and we start losing power.  We were able to make it into a church parking lot and called Coachnet our towing service.  It was like Da ju vu all over.  They couldn't get it in until Friday to even look at it.  So we had it towed to a Jeep center and rented a car from Enterprise for the week.   So here it is Sunday and still not sure about the Jeep.  I told Ed when it gets fixed this time we need to drive it on the highway before we head to San Antonio.  I am hoping since it's  a Jeep place maybe they will find the problem.  So here we are just waiting for news.

We visited Pipestone, Minnesota  before we left Sioux Falls.  Never had heard of it but we had some friends visit us that were staying there and told us it was worth the visit.

It was really nice place to spend the day. 
 

This is the Pipestone County Museum,
Beautiful building, made with the Sioux
quartzite.
 

Another building and it was trimmed with the pipestone

This was in front of a museum
The donkey is made out of metal

This is what  pipestone is know for, Indian pipes, this was huge
Ed bought one like this, only a lot smaller.  haha

This was in the fort, a huge trap, looked
like it was a real one

Fort Pipestone, an authentic replica of a Minnesota for,
which had a gift shop inside

Ed asked the gift shop sales person if they had a restroom.
She said yes and they had heat and running water.  It was very rustic
but someone had taken the time to paint the walls.
This was the handle

Water fountain inside the fort, do you
suppose that was original.
 
Than we visited the National Park of Pipestone.   Pipestone is a stone that the Indians mined and made their  pipes out of.       Only American Indians are allowed to quarry pipestone.                                                                 
 
From the Fort we went over to the Pipestone Monument

This is all quartz and they have to dig below this to get the pipestone.

They had path through the rocks.  We thought this was the pipestone, but
a ranger told us the pipestone is below this.

They  consider this place holy because of the Oracle. You would look
through here to see it.

Here is the face of the Oracle

Another face made by nature

Tree growing into the rock

They even had a small water fall

A frog trying to get comfortable

Such a pretty walk 

 
The Indians would hang these in the trees
as a memorial and their prayers.

 I thought these were hung by the Indians but Ed
thought it was the tourist. 


These were from the early explorers, they asked that
you didn't do it now.

Not sure how this guy make such neet lettering
This once formed one large bolder which was deposited here
by glaciers, now know as the "Three Maidens."

There is nothing in the area that matches their substance so
they say they were brought down by the glaciers and deposited here.

 
Nice day for a walk

 
 
So if you are ever in the area of Pipestone, Minnesota I would recommend it.  It's not a big tourist's area but we did enjoy it.       
 
 
Happy Trails    Ed and Lyn
 
 
                                                                                                                

2 comments:

  1. Somehow your blog is no longer on my page. I will investigate.

    Interesting place. Sorry about your Jeep. Seems we are all having problems with our vehicles.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hope you pick the blog back up. Not sure what happened.

      Delete