Friday, May 20, 2022; Farewell to Winnebago Factory, Jolly Green Giant, Peace Pipes and Propane Fix.

Friday, May 20, 2022; Farewell Winnebago Factory, Jolly Green Giant, Peace Pipes, and Propane fix.

The winds and rain were intermittently severe during the night.  It was a good thing we were at least a little sheltered by the surrounding giant Class A rigs and the small building we were parked by.  

When we awoke, we used the bathrooms at the visitor center and Ben walked down to the Factory Service Center to see if they would be open over the weekend.  At the very earliest, they might see the replacement hose by late afternoon, but if they didn’t have any weekend hours, since it was Friday, we’d have to stay put at least until Monday or Tuesday.  Since the problem was isolated to a damaged main propane hose, we were safe if we simply left the propane system turned off at the main tank and didn’t use any propane appliances.  It turns out the Factory Service Center is only open Monday through Friday.  Ben talked with the service advisors to see if they might splice the damaged section of LP hose out, but they said they could only replace the entire line as a factory authorized service center.  But they were willing to cancel the part order and close out the service ticket so we could be back on the road.  They ended up giving us a discount and only billed us $100 for the labor.  The original ticket was $320 but the service manager adjusted the total down ostensibly because they weren’t able to fix it for us before we had to be back on the road.  

We used the dump station at the rally grounds to dump our tanks, and proceeded to head west.  Ben’s eye was caught by a sign on I-90 pointing out a “I-90 Golden Spike Historical Marker, next Exit” which turned out to be a rest stop in the town of Blue Earth.  

Ben was surprised to learn that I-90 was completed in 1978 and that a Golden Spike ceremony was held at the location of the Blue Earth rest stop because it was the halfway point of I-90 between the East and West coasts.  Instead of an actual gold spike, they tinted the concrete gold and had a ceremony with national guard vehicles meeting at the East/West meeting point.  A 52’ Jolly Green Giant statue was commissioned and displayed for the first time at that ceremony.  

Well, you can’t not want to see a 52’ tall Jolly Green Giant, so we Googled it and found ourselves driving into the town of Blue Earth.  

Surprisingly, we learned that the town was established in the 1800’s and did not get its name from the Earth looking like a Blue planet when viewed from space.  After all, unless you believed the plot line of Cowboys versus Aliens, nobody knew what the Earth looked like from space until the 1950’s when satellites and then men were launched into space.  There was a mineral deposit along a river bank that was blue in color making the ground look blue- thus blue earth.  This was what the Lakota Indians are named for.  In their language Lakota=Blue Earth.

The Jolly Green Giant was a major economic force in the area which was surrounded by corn and pea farms.  The company is now owned by Canadians after being sold recently, and there are no factory tours.  There is also little activity until the new crop of corn and peas comes in for canning.  The museum has lots of Jolly Green Giant marketing memorabilia as well as some exhibits on the technology used in canning and the history of the company.  

We had lunch at a very nice, but a bit expensive, restaurant called the Farmer’s Daughter in Blue Earth.  The decor was upscale urban farm chic and the food was delicious and plentiful.  

The museum also had a small exhibit by the front door highlighting a dinosaur claw and suggested a visit to the nearby Blue Earth Public Library and Dinosaur Discovery Center.  So we drove from the Green Giant museum/Visitor center to the center of Blue Earth, which has a lovely brick court house in the middle of the city’s central square, a very cute Main Street like most other mid-western towns, and a rather plain public library on the outside.  We didn’t have much in the way of expectations, but when we got inside the library, we were immediately impressed by the very extensive and high quality displays of fossils, archeology and paleontology they have in that building.  

They had two complete Oreosaur articulated skeletons right by the front door.  These were actual fossilized skeletons carefully carved out of the surrounding matrix- not resin casts or replicas.  There were lots of other fossils and skeletons on display, as well as other artifacts uncovered by fossil hunters.  In the back of the library, they had a large room bordered by shelves with bound copies of newspapers dating back to the mid 1800’s that you could pick up and open on the desks to look back through history.  

So our little detour to Blue Earth proved to be quite productive.

We got back on I-90 and resumed our westward journey.  When we needed to stop for fuel, we saw a sign for the Pipestone National Monument.  

We had never been there, but Janet read that it features a quarry where a sacred mineral used for carving Indian ceremonial pipes and other sacred objects is located.  This mineral- Catlinite, aka Pipestone, is a metamorphic clay with a reddish color and hardness of 5- similar to soapstone’s hardness, making it suitable for detailed carving.  It was used by many tribes throughout North America and extensively traded among tribes.  The visitor center was small and informative, but the most unique feature was a gallery where two Native American artisans were crafting objects from pipestone that they had harvested from the quarry in the National Monument.  

One was generous enough to let us have some samples of the pipestone- wastage from the project he was working on, but suitable for making small carvings from.  

We then hiked along the park’s trails that go by the quarry sites and creek that lead Indians to the site where the very rare mineral is exposed.  It tends to form in very thin layers between much thicker layers of a pink Quartzite stone that is much harder.  The Indians have to chisel and break up the overlying layers of the pink quartzite to get at the thin layer of red pipe stone that runs in a vein that is exposed because of tilting of the rocky layers and erosion by the creek.  Most of the quarry sites are flooded, and only accessible for mining during the early fall after the water tables drop.  Mining is only allowed by native Americans who have a permit to mine for the pipe stone.  There are a few named features in the pink quartzite cliff faces, and a nice waterfall on the trail.  

The trails had been closed recently due to recent flooding damaging a bridge across the creek, but we were able to step around the barriers to see the water falls because the water levels had dropped to normal levels in just the last day or so.  

Diesel was expensive in the town of Pipestone ($5.29/gal) so we only put in $40 (7.552gal) with 25089 miles on the odometer instead of filling it up.  We anticipated filling up in Sioux Falls a little later.  But we ended up continuing westward because we had good daylight and ended up filling up in Mitchell, SD at a Cenex for $5.199/gal, taking on 22.442 gal with 25201 miles on the odometer. We averaged 11.3 mpg driving mostly at 75mph with stiff crosswinds.  

We stopped at a couple of stores in Mitchell to buy the parts needed to repair the propane hose (hose clamps and 1/2” hose barb splicer, hose cutter), and then had dinner at a Mexican restaurant El Columpio, across the street from the Menards hardware and building store.  The food was good and came with chips and salsa like what we are accustomed to on the West Coast.  

We had anticipated dry camping at the Mitchell Cabela’s store, but encountered signs all over the parking lot forbidding overnight camping.  There were a couple of semi-trucks in the parking lot, but they may not have been planning on spending the night.  It was getting dark, so we drove a little past the Cabela’s and found an industrial area that appeared to be unpopulated and a potential boondocking site.  There were a couple of unfinished industrial trailers parked on the gravel near the road, and several windowless buildings scattered about on the lot.  There was a pile of gravel next to a building that allowed us to be partially hidden from view from the nearest road.  We ran out the slide and will take our chances here. Since tomorrow is Saturday, there’s a good chance nobody will be showing up early in the morning.  

Ben got out the hydraulic jack and lifted the passenger side rear frame of the RV high enough that he could get his head in the wheel well over the tires to access the main propane hose where the damage had been discovered.  Ben used the hose cutter to cut out the 1” segment where damage was readily visible.  Then he used the stainless hose clamps and 1/2” hose barb splice fitting to splice the hose.  He used soapy water to check for leaks and although there were no leaks at the splice, he could still hear and smell some propane leaking when he turned the tank on at the main valve.  A close inspection by feeling the entire length of the hose where it was accessible revealed another chewed area of the hose beside the clamp holding it to the top of the chassis frame, a couple of inches closer to the manifold end.  

Ben had to remove the hose clamps from the frame to get enough mobility in the hose to be able to cut out the other damaged section and splice the good ends together.  This removed about 5” of hose, and rodent chew marks were evident on the rubber hose.  This time, when the main valve was opened again, there was no longer the sound of gas running through the line, and a soap bubble test showed the splice to be solid.  Ben applied some duct tape to cover the rubber where it was near the top of the frame where a rodent could sit and chew.  Hopefully, they will not like the taste of the duct tape.  We will have to wrap the line in something more permanently protective after we get back home.  Ben purged the lines by turning on the cooktop burner, and then restarted the hot water heater.  That worked as well, so Ben could wash his hair with hot water as a reward for fixing the propane problem.  Since the temperatures are supposed to drop into the 40’s tonight, it will be good to have the furnace working so we can keep the RV warm enough.