Before entering the Foreign Service I didn’t have any overseas traveling experience. Quite literally… I had only been outside of the United States three times:
1. 1. The Canadian Side of Niagara Falls, for about 5 hours.
2. 2. Tijuana, Mexico for about six hours… just to watch my dad haggle with street venders.
3. 3. And, A four day Caribbean Cruise.
That’s it… however, what I lacked in international travel (at the time), I made up for traveling around United States; I’ve been to all but four States… and I have been to a TON of National Parks. Every time we took a road trip, my mom would pull out our ‘Eagle Pass’ and plan a trip around various National Parks we could get into for free. We’ve driven longer out of our way to get to a National Park than we spent in Mexico. That should tell you something. The most famous detour is when my father insisted we go to ‘Crater of the Moon’ National Park… which I’m sure is awesome… if you’re a geologist. For an eight year old it’s total sucker-oo.
‘Crater of the Moon’ has become a bit of a family joke. And yes, at some point I plan to take my own kids to ‘Craters of the Moon’ National Park... just so they’ll be in on the joke.
However… despite ‘Crates’ six hour (roundtrip) detour through Idaho… only having about five minutes worth of hardened lava (which resembles an unlined parking lot) to gaze upon… ‘Craters’ is not the worst National Park I’ve been too.
No. That dubious honor goes to ‘Pipestone National Monument’
Take a look at the website. See the picture of the woman filing pipestone? Yeah… that’s was the same cultural demonstration going on twenty years ago. The woman was sitting in a hall that was flanked by glass cases containing arrowheads and other Native American artifacts. Now, my brother’s favorite thing to talk about regarding this trip is how bad the collection of artifacts was. We have close family friends who decorated their north Georgia lake house with things they found on the lake shore and in the woods around their house… they have a larger and more impressive collection than ‘Pipestone’. Maybe, the Matthew’s House should be a National Monument too.
As for me, I will always remember the garden (seen in the third picture on the website). At the end of the hall where the demonstration was taking place, there was a door leading to the garden. The garden isn’t very big and feels very out of place. The whole thing feels very man made, and if I remember correctly, a local garden club takes care of the landscaping. Imagine Mr. Miyagi’s back yard and you’ll have the Pipestone garden.
The whole visit took about fifteen minutes, if that. And whenever the Schutz family gets together and someone mentions ‘pipestone’… hysterical laughing quickly follows.
I would like to think ‘Pipestone’ has changed and become a more interesting place to visit… however, since they include their ‘General Management Plan’ as one of their three headings… I seriously doubt it.
