June 26, 2012

We had breakfast and then hooked up and drove across the street to WalMart.  I bought a postcard of the Jolly Green Giant to send to mother.  While at WalMart the doctor from the VA hospital in Iowa City called to tell Jim that the blood test did come back positive for Ehrlichosis.  All the other test were fine.  He asked how Jim felt and told him to finish his antibiotics.

We went to the rest stop about ½ mile down the road and read the sign about the two highways merging.  In the rest area were two geocaches that we found.  We left and along the highway stopped at two more rest areas and each had a geocache.  Some of these are very cleverly hidden.

We went to Pipestone National Monument.  This is where the Indians have been coming for hundreds of years to get a soft rock called pipestone.  They carve their pipes out of it.  We watched  a good movie about pipestone and the Indians and then we walked a loop trail.  This trail takes you by a pretty little waterfall and the area where they dig for the pipestone underneath a layer of quartzite.  One of the rocks was called "The Oracle" -- it looked like the profile of an Indian.  Inside the visitor’s center there was a woman and a man who were carving pipestone into items for sale.   

We drove to Maynard, Minnesota and got a campsite at the Lions Park.  There are six electric hookups in the park and we are the only ones here.  They have pit toilets and water.