July 18 & 19

Wednesday morning we went up to Pipestone National Monument, reportedly the place where Indians from Ohio to the Rockies came to quarry stone to make pipes. They believe smoking a pipe is like communicating with their higher power. Therefore this place is sacred. The stone was clay from millennia ago, which under heat and pressure, became much harder. Subsequent layers of this area's red quartzite, formed over it. It is no problem with modern tools to peel off the relatively thin quartzite layer, but for the ancient quarriers it was major task.
The pipestone is about as hard as your fingernails, and can be easily carved and otherwise shaped. Indians made sort of pilgimiages to this area and quarried stone for thier pipes. While the rangers don't use the term "Peace Pipe", (nor Indian) it seems very descriptive to me. They passed around and smoked a pipe when they were having tribal councils and other important meetings. So while smoking a pipe was not used exclusively for peace treaties, it is easy tor see how the Europeans could come to believe that. The Indians saw the smoke curling up out of the pipe and thought it was a message to their God. 
The carver up above, from the Dakota tribe, was making pipes and other iconic pieces. He was a Navy veteran, serving on a guided missile carrier, and he had a very dry dry sense of humor, so maybe it is native to this part of the country. If you look closely at the back, of his pipes, you'll see the Starship Enterprise. 




On the way up, we had noticed a great number of windmill blades in a parking lot, and caught a glimpse of a sign for Suzlon. This is a company that makes a good percentage of the windmills we have seen out here. Minnesota is doing it's part and more for alternate power. We have seen concentrations of windmills all over the countryside. We discovered they each cost about $2.5 million, and the farmers get monthly lease payments for the land, and a share of the proceeds from the power sold. Each one supplies the equivalent of 500 households electricity! In other words 4 of them would provide Killingworth's electricity.

While my request for a plant tour was turned down we really took the opportunity to "look into" windmills closely. The generator that Liz is looking at was obviously one that had problems, and was probably being scavaged for parts. There were 75 0r 100 blades sitting out on the prarie. Looking at the manufacturing dates of 2009 and before led me to believe that they too were originally defective. The white posts you see on the end of the blade are wrapped bolts, this blade had never been mounted. The horizontal line you see next to my head is a handle to allow access into the blade. It was too bad we couldn't get a tour, but the ability to see the parts to a windmill up so close was great. 

On Thursday morning we got up early and went for a walk along the lower cliff line of the quarztite that runs through the park. It has been so warm up here that we felt the morning would be cooler. It was, however the dew point was so high that we had thick fog. So all you're going to get is this very poor picture, and my equally poor description. This ridge supposedly was one where the Indians would stampede the Bison over  and collect the meat at the bottom. The park literature says however that this has never been substantiated. No one has ever found bones at the bottom. It was a nice walk tho, and we saw many spiderwebs, birds, and a more than adequate supply of prairie hare. Later in the day we left the park, and traveled up to New Ulm for their Bavarian Blast, a weekend of music, polka, om pah, and fun.