Westward Ho!

Three weeks on the road sounds to good to be true. True it is and Pete , Davyd and I left Milwaukee about 7AM. By noon we had crossed the Mississippi and took our first "back road" along Highway 16 through Houston and Filmore County in Minnesota. We walked Lansboro to stretch our legs and had a picnic lunch in a nice roadside park just outside of town. We jumped back on 90, stopping in Blue Earth to take Davyd's picture with the Jolly Green Giant and stop at the Dairy Queen next door. We hit our destination of Split Rock Creek State Park, near Pipestone MN by dinner time. Two state in one day, we were on our way!

One of three wonderful coincidences was camping the first night right next to Jeff and Barbara Rosales. It took and hour or two to make the connection, but I had worked with Jeff on the Superior and Chippewa National Forests some fifteen or twenty years ago, so it was a fun reunion. We shared evening cups of wine and morning coffee with grasshoppers singing in the background.

I had never been to Pipestone National Monument and was delighted to hike the prairie trails and see firsthand the pipestone used for pipe and carving by native peoples. The town of Pipestone with its read rock buildings was small and charming. I with the antique store was open on Sunday as we passed through! South Dakota here we come!