Pottery, Shoes, Stoneware, Hiking, Fossils, and Annoying Kids

Sunday, August 26, 2007
10:11 p.m. Central, 11:11 Eastern

Wow, we had a really busy day today. The howling kids and the puppy woke us up at the buttcrack of dawn. The dog quieted down after breakfast and a potty break, but the kids wouldn’t shut the cake trap. I was about to go over and let the parents borrow the Duck Tape. I went back to sleep after a while.
We headed to Red Wing, Minnesota, which wasn’t too far off from the campground. Our first stop was Red Wing Pottery, which just turned out to be a cute little giftstore, with some awesome kitchen ware. They did have this old fashioned candy store connected to it, so we helped ourselves to a pound and a half of hard candy’s, caramels, taffy (I love that stuff), and numerous other sweets. I absolutely adore old fashioned candy.
You’ve probably heard of Red Wing shoes, they make work boots and the like. Guess where we went next? Yeppers, we heard that there was a Red Wing Shoe Museum. It turned out to be quite small. One room, a couple signs and articles, and that was about it. It took us about a half hour.
We grabbed some lunch and headed down to a park next to the Mississippi River. The river was rather lovely at this time of day, and there was an awesome breeze. We hung out at the park until it was time to head to our next stop.
Red Wing Stoneware was awesome. They make pottery, such as jugs, coffee mugs, plates, crocks, beaters, bowls, juicers, and anything else you can imagine. You’ve probably seen one or two of their products. They have their signature color- the cobalt blue, with the clear glaze. We were the only ones that were there, besides another lady, and the owner gave us a tour. They only have about fifteen employees, and the amount of stoneware they make is astounding. The tour was really good.
We headed back to Goodhue County because we read about a place where you could go fossil hunting. It happened to be out in the middle of nowhere, we were lucky to find it. If it wasn’t for another group, a geologist, a lady and her girl, we would have never found it. The fossils were of shells, cephalopods (take a guess Crockett, Becky and V, there in Biology) and other things. Nothing huge, but, according to the geologist, Minnesota was under water half a billion years ago (or during the flood just a couple thousand years ago).
We weren’t done yet. We headed back to Red Wing, where there’s a “famous” Barn Bluff. It’s a 300 foot Bluff (I think that’s how high it is, it seemed higher) and when you climb it, you can see miles of the Mississippi and the town. It was really steep in parts, but we made it up with out any injuries. It was unimaginably beautiful. The wildflowers and prairie grasses covered the bluff. The sun was setting on the river, and the full moon was behind us. You could see for miles. It really gave you a realistic idea of how vast the Mississippi was. As we were going back down the mountain, my mother swore she heard a rattlesnake. Nobody believed her. I was reading a sign about the bluff, and how somebody described it as “indescribably beautiful, and teeming with rattlesnakes”. I showed my mom and she started flipping out. It was quite funny, but kinda disturbing…
Tomorrow shouldn’t be as busy, we head to Minneapolis/ St. Paul. Right now I’m exhausted, so I’m going to bed.

SMILES!
~Morgan~