Roadtrippin' to Southwest Minnesota

I needed to get away for a bit. First let me say that I am fortunate to have work through all this weirdness and that work has been from home. However, I needed a break from the routine of getting up, having breakfast, taking a shower, then sitting in front of my laptop for hours.

I have been wanting to visit Blue Mounds State Park in southwest Minnesota for a long while. It sounded like an interesting site for three reasons: one - it has natural, undistributed prairie; two - a herd of bison; and three - it could be done safely as an outdoor event.  It did not fail on all counts.

I also got the chance to share this with my friend, Bud. We drove down through miles and miles and rows and rows of corn being harvested. It was astounding just how much corn is grown in Minnesota. There really was no other crop and very few animal farms of any kind. I would say horses out numbered cattle.

Blue Mounds State Park is the site of a geological wonder. Out of the extremely flat prairie is this palisade of red quartzite rock! And on top of all that rock is a pristine prairie. We parked at the State Park entrance and rode our bikes around the palisade to an incline up to the top. To say it was windy does not begin to describe the conditions. It was insane wind!

Once on top of the mound we hiked/walked to where we were told we could see the bison. The bison are kept within a fenced area of the prairie. It took a bit of imagination and binoculars but we did find them. We also got to see the quartzite up close.

I used the new teleconverter attachment for my Olympus Tough camera to get this shot of the bison which were very far away.

Those dark dots are bison

Selfie in front of Eagle Rock on top of Blue Mounds

Click here for a bike ride along Blue Mounds

quartzite

After getting blown off Blue Mounds, we found a corral where it looks like some bison are kept or segregated so we did get to see some of them closer. The grey barn and silo in the photo above is where the bison corral is.

We then drove to Pipestone, Minnesota about half hour north of Blue Mounds. When researching Blue Mounds State Park I came across Pipestone National Monument where there is more of the red quartzite but also pipestone stone.

Pipestone, the town, has many buildings made using the red quartzite. Here are examples...

A beautiful inn that is currently condemned

Three facades built in the late 1800's

Pipestone stone is only here in Pipestone and a small amount in Iowa and South Dakota. It is a very rare vein of stone that is used by Native Americans to make...you guessed it...pipes. It is a soft stone that is quarried from a limited vein between the very hard quartzite. Pipestone National Monument highlights the history of this stone and provides for Native Americans to maintain this in their heritage.

We were definitely past leaf peak but there was an occasional flash of color

Pipestone Creek leaving the Park

"The Oracle"

Bittersweet

Gazing at the quartzite palisades

It is a beautiful park with prairie, quartzite walls, a waterfall and historic quarries.

Click here to see the waterfall

The pipestone vein is where the gap is. This has been quarried out between the layers of quartzite

We headed back to Minneapolis through more miles and rows of corn. We could no longer tell one set of grain elevators from another. These sites along rail corridors are really big. 

We stopped in Redwood Falls to see one set of falls...apparently there are more but we didn't find them.

It was a great roadtrip and a break from work. It was also great to spend time with my friend, Bud, and to see more of Minnesota.