Offspring #2 and I went on a Saturday drive.  Our destination is near Comfrey, Minnesota which is about a 3 hour drive.  We zigzagged south and west, south and west, and more south and more west.  We stopped for a picnic lunch beside a lake in Sleepy Eye and got to the Jeffers Petroglyphs historical site at five minutes after 1.  The tour started at 1 so we hurried out there.  It was a long walk from the parking lot, through the building, and out to the petroglyphs out on the prairie.  The prairie soil got shallower and shallower until a quartzite rocky outcropping appeared.  This quartzite is the same rock that extends from Pipestone to the hill in Northfield where St. Olaf is situated.  The size of this irregularly shaped outcropping was about 20x50 feet or so. Glaciers etched deep groves into it by pushing rocks across in a mostly north/south orientation. Rock carvings are hard to see on a cloudy day.  During sunny moments our guide used a 2x3 foot board to shade the carvings and held up a 4x12 inch mirror to reflect light onto the rock face and then we could see them easily.  The best time to come would be when the light is at a low angle in the early morning or evening.  The hours of the site are 10-5 so that doesn't usually work. Having a guide point out the figures makes it much easier. I think it is allowable to visit the site even when the building is closed. We saw carvings of hands, people, snakes, turtles, bison, spears, and atlatls.  Atlatl is such a strange word but it means a spear throwing stick. The atlatl stick has finger loops, a notch to hold the spear, and a rock counter weight.  You load the spear in the atlatl and throw the atlatl.  You keep a hold of the atlatl and the spears goes farther and faster than it would if you threw it without an atlatl.  Many tribes came to this spiritual place to make carvings.  Although we have Dakota tribes around here for the past 200 years, other tribes were here first.  As the European settlers moved in from the east, tribes kept moving farther west.  Some came here after a period of fasting to carve what they say in their visions.  So some carvings are abstract.  Some carvings showed families and children.  I saw some thunderbird carvings.  Some of these carvings must have taken a long time to complete; weeks maybe.  This rock is hard.  They carved with other quartzite rocks or possibly pieces of flint. Several of the oldest carvings are of a species of bison with a pronounced hump on their back that went extinct 7,000 years ago (5,000 years BC).  That means these carvings are at least 7,000 years old.  7,000 years ago is before the Egyptians made the pyramids and before Stonehenge.  That these carvings survived the wind, the weather, and the people is amazing to me. Some people still come here to pray or meditate.  Anyone can fill out an application to use the petroglyph site for personal spiritual purposes.  After the tour of the rocky outcropping we went back into the building to watch a video made for the television show, "Native American Watch."  I've seen this show on TPT before.  The video did a good job explaining everything and at the end one of the Native American speakers told us that if we go back far enough, we all come from an indigenous and nomadic people.  That is a new thought for me and it bent my mind a little.  My thoughts flashed back quickly.  What did my ancestor look like in 1900?  1800? 1700? 1600? 1500?  Etc.  I must have had ancestors that go all the way back.  I've never thought of it before but I had ancestors that go back 7,000 years!  With my mind properly bent and my curiosity sparked to learn more about petroglyphs I knew I had a good visit.  We drove north and east toward home.  Traveling through New Ulm I saw a sign from the Brown County Fair that mentioned free admission.  What the heck?  Free admission. Even though sprinkles were falling we found the fair grounds and parked the car.  Polka music brought us in.  We bought some fair food and visited the rides, the 4H exhibits and watch some "dog jumping high into a pool of water" trials.  I watched one dog jump 5 feet 6 inches to grab a training stick with it's teeth and splash into the pool.  Looked like the dogs and the people were having a good time.  After the fair we zigzagged north and east.  We saw several trees (maples?) that were a color combination of lemon and lime. One side of the tree would be lemon and the other side was lime.  These beautiful trees looking amazing but I worry they could be a sign of (hate to say it) fall.  The days of summer are too short the way it is.  I'm glad I spent this day having a good time instead of cleaning the house or watching televison.