Pipestone County continued the day’s pattern of lovely courthouses. This one, though, was a minor departure from normal identification procedures in that the flagpole was on the side of the building, not the front. Yes, I did consider for a moment that the flagpole entrance might actually be the front, but since it was a door between the courthouse proper and an attached annex, I nixed that idea. I was also interested in what the building was made of. The red stone, catlinite (the official designation for pipestone) mined from the local quarries and trimmed with equally local quartzite, was different than I had seen recently and it was especially fitting. Pipestone was named for the catlinite quarries that native tribes had been mining for millennia for stone to make ceremonial pipes. The quarries were part of a national monument on the outskirts of town and I probably would have done the EarthCache there had I not already gotten one back in Moorhead. But I ended up in the area of the monument for my cache.
In the backside of the park I found a pill bottle at an airplane navigation sign. It was a simple park and grab, but I managed to complicate things by not keeping it simple and stupid. I examined every corner and crevice of the sign until I eventually realized that it was just sitting under a rock at the base. I felt dumb, but it was hardly the first time I overestimated the difficulty of finding a cache. All that mattered was that I found it.
And, with the area being famous for its pipes and the stone that one makes them from, of course the largest pipe in the world was there in town! Where else is one going to build such a thing? And, yes, a lot of jokes went through my head, but most of my brain cells were occupied figuring out how I missed seeing it as I drove into town! I went straight past it on the way to the courthouse and didn’t even notice it! But since my work was done, there was no time to dawdle. I once again pointed myself south and continued on toward…
Geocaching While Black 