Minnesota State Parks

[xl_target]

Thanks CK and Brihaji,

CK,
Here's what some of that Blue Earth River clay looks like

[brihacharan]

Thank CK and Brihaji,

CK,
Here's what some of that Blue Earth River clay looks like!

Mother Nature - The Best Alchemist..Ever!!!!!
Briha

[ckkalyan]

Thanks xl_target for the image of the 'Blue Clay' - I wish I had the energy to play with it - would love to make natural forms...a la Plasticine!

Today's version is called 'Blu Tack' - loved this product when I was a kid in India (this was really rare earth back in the day), amazing invention; reusable adhesive putty!

[xl_target]

On the weekend of the 26 and 27th of September, my friend Jeff and i decided to head out for one last camping trip as the nights will start getting too cold to sleep outside. This time we headed out to the Upper Sioux Agency State Park.
There were two agencies on the Minnesota River that were supposed to care for the Indians who had reservations along the Minnesota River. The Lower Sioux agency is close to Fort Ridgely and the Upper Sioux Agency is in the relatively sparsely populated western part of the State. Both Agencies were burned to the ground during the Dakota War of 1862.

We got lucky and it was a clear, cloudless, beautiful day. These are the gorgeous Minnesota days you remember with fondness, a few months later, when the mercury dips into the minus thirties. After picking Jeff up, we left from St Peter, Minnesota and took the Fort Road that passes Ft. Ridgely and the Lower Sioux Agency. This park is about a hundred miles from my house. On the way there, I got a little bit of a jolt as we passed this small town.


I guess we didn't take a wrong turn somewhere.
It is Delhi, Minnesota (pronounced Del-High).


Several hours later, we pulled into the Upper Sioux Agency State Park

After stopping at the Ranger station to register for our campsite; where the doors were open but not a soul was anywhere to be found.....
We headed out to our designated site and pitched our tent.


This is only the second time I have pitched this Eureka Timberline 4 tent.

It is commonly called the Boy Scout tent and has been used by BSA troops since 1974. As a testament to its simple but sturdy design, it is still made today. However, unless they are very small boys, I don't know how you are going to get four of them in there. With just two adults in it, there is plenty of room.


Our site was within 20 yards of the placid Yellow Medicine Creek which flows into the Minnesota River.


This park has Tepee's on some of the sites.
These are huge. They have an 18 ft. circular wooden sleeping platform inside.
However, they are heavily in demand and are booked in advance for almost the whole season. We tried but were unable to reserve one.

Jeff had done some Internet research and found out that there was a WW2 museum about ten miles away. So after we got our site squared away, we programmed the address into the GPS and went looking for it. The closest town is Granite Falls, MN. We drove out of the river valley and then we hit what used to be the Prairie. Today it is intensely cultivated with immense corn and Soybean fields stretching to the horizon in every direction. On this beautiful Saturday afternoon there was absolutely no one around. In the ten miles that we drove to get there, we saw, maybe, four or five cars and no one else. This part of the state has very few people per square mile. Who puts a museum near Timbuktu Granite Falls, Minnesota?

We finally pulled up to the Granite Falls airport.


So we missed the Airshow but as we found out, the museum was open for a couple more hours.


There were four large hangars and a few smaller buildings.

I walked in, looked around in amazement and took the first photo.

A 1944 Harley Davidson WLA in full wartime trim with Thompson scabbard et. al.
In the background is the World War II GMC CCKW; the famed "duece and a half" truck.

Then,....$%#@!!, my DSLR died..... Gulp! Nooooooooooooo!
In my haste to pack everything the night before, I forgot to charge the battery.

http://www.fagenfighterswwiimuseum.org/

...more to come......

[brihacharan]

xl_target,
Thanks for sharing this delightful trek....
Yeah! Got a bit 'foxed' looking at the road sign "DELHI"!!!!
Can imagine your frustration at the DSLR packing up!
Awaiting more.....
Briha

[ckkalyan]

Thank you for sharing your last camping trip for the season xl_target! The WWII Museum is indeed a bonus and so was Del-High; nice to see Indian cities in the US of A!

[xl_target]

...so continuing the war museum thread after a long hiatus, here goes:

After my camera's battery died, I realized that I had another camera in the glove box of my truck. It is a small point and shoot but doesn't have the best metering capabilities. So please bear with me as these photos are rather bland.


A half track with a quad fifty mounted on it. These things had a phenomenal rate of fire.
They were often used for airbase defense against aircraft.


A closeup of the quad fifties. The gun is run by a small gasoline engine.


The Willy's MB


A full size diorama of soldiers spilling out of a landing craft on Omaha Beach


Yaaaaah! How the Germans must have felt


"Screaming Eagles diving from the Sun".
A paratrooper of the 101st Airborne,in full "battle rattle", drops on occupied France.


The Legendary Merlin engine and a Hamilton Standard propellor.
Its hard to forget the distinctive sound of the Merlin as a Mustang flies over.


A P-51D Mustang, one of two owned by the museum. Both still fly regularly.
It was so reflective that the camera had a hard time focusing on it.
"Sweet Revenge" was delivered to the USAAF 8th AF in January 1945, and then went on to serve in the Swedish and Dominican Republic Air Forces.


One half of the six fifties that gave the Mustang its punch.


The infamous Vultee BT-13, affectionately known as the "Vultee Vibrator".


The Grumman Wildcat (actually a General Motors FM-2 here) that American carriers started the Pacific War with.
They held the line against Japanese Naval and land based aviation till the Grumman Hellcat showed up.


Another view of the Wildcat. The narrow undercarriage wasn't as bad as it looks.
They were replaced with the awesome Grumman Hellcat that finally finished off Japanese Naval Aviation, once and for all.
During the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" (the battle of the Philippine Sea) 600+ Japanese aircraft were shot down by the Hellcats of the US Navy for the loss of about 43 Hellcats (in combat). This ended the Imperial Japanese Navy as a carrier force. They still had carriers, just almost no planes or pilots.


The B-25 Mitchell bomber


"Paper Doll" still flies. She was based in Corsica and flew a total of 125 missions in WW2.


A model of the USS Hornet, loaded up for Jimmy Doolittle's famous bombing mission


The Hornet with its usual complement on board. That's a lot of aircraft!


The Messerschmitt Me-109. This is the only aircraft in the display that does not fly.


The Curtiss P40 in "Desert Shark" garb.


The P-38J Lightning "Scat III". Like all the aircraft there, it was in pristine condition and still flies.
This Lightning was built in 1945 and never saw combat.


An overhead view of some of the aircraft.


A Marine's loadout in the Pacific Island hopping campaign


A Tommy Gun (one of CK's favorite weapons)


What the Marine's had to eat and what a very large number of them earned.
The Purple Heart medal was given to those wounded in combat.


A recovered Japanese canteen that might tell us a little of what happened to its owner.


A Japanese Officers sword.


A Dodge Weapons Carrier with a 37 mm cannon on it.


The inside of a recreated USAAF briefing hut as it would have appeared in WW2 England


Me pointing at Berlin on the target map.


Shaking hands with Clarence "Bud" Anderson outside the briefing hut.

Unfortunately, the museum was closing and we had to leave, unable to spend as much time there as we wanted to.


We came outside the building and this just taxied off the runway and parked there.

We hopped back in the truck and decided to head back to the camp site to see if we could get some hiking in before chow time.
It sure seems like we do a lot of chowing down on these camping trips.

[ckkalyan]

Nice images xl_target, even though 'only' point-and-shoot!

Drool-worthy write up and great photos for the WW2 fans! From your post, here is my list of I wants and I likes, not necessarily in order.

• Quad 50 Mil Machine Guns (gas powered, yet!). Much like a modern Mini-Gun but 4 X? Wow!
  A Flame Thrower (very rare to get even in the US of A).
  A JEEP - Willys MB - the original.
  A Motorcycle powered by a Merlin Engine (in Jay Leno's Garage - maybe?!)
  ME-109 - The Jet that never took off (Hitler's Folly)!
  A Tommy Gun with a Drum Magazine.
  That Dodge Weapons Carrier sure reminds me a lot of the Nissan JONGA (design predecessor).

Comments:

• Many of them still fly 'regularly' - Awesome!
  Too many aircraft, very little carrier - amazing organization!
  The 1/6th barrel of the 6x50 Mustang is Un-Silenced? Or is that an airborne Bazooka?
  Ration Cans - wonder how they would work out in today's camping world? Substantial - I am sure. Can't go wrong with Meat Balls and Beans in Tomato Sauce!
  That Punctured Japanese Canteen - looks like a tortured human face - OUCH!
  Did they have any Bi-Planes? I simply love them - e.g. the Tiger Moth.

Check this site out for some rare machines, right in my backyard - Langley, British Columbia. Sad to say I have just discovered it and haven't had a chance to fly over.

http://www.canadianflight.org/


Here is a Sopwith Camel (replica) of Captain Bigglesworth fame

[kshitij]

@xl_target,
Thanks for sharing these wonderful inages. Good thing you had the spare camera else we'd have missed out on these wonderful images.
>The quad .50 setup looks deadly, what i'd pay to be able to shoot something like that!! What do mean by they were run on a gasoline engine? Were these on automated turrets of some kind?
>That Japanese canteen immediately had an imaginary scene run in my head
>The "Marine's loadout in the Pacific Island hopping campaign" looks like a flamethrower to me. For some reason I thought the germans were the ones to use those...

[xl_target]

Nice images xl_target, even though 'only' point-and-shoot!

Drool-worthy write up and great photos for the WW2 fans! From your post, here is my list of I wants and I likes, not necessarily in order.

ME-109 - The Jet that never took off (Hitler's Folly)!
A Tommy Gun with a Drum Magazine.
That Dodge Weapons Carrier sure reminds me a lot of the Nissan JONGA (design predecessor).[/list]

The first German jet fielded by any air force (in combat) was the Me262 and it did take off. At least one squadron flew in the last year of the war. It was composed of a few surviving "Experten" and was led by Adolf Galland. They were the scourge of the giant bomber formations that pounded Germany at that stage of the war. They were too fast for the Mustangs to catch. Many were shot down while taking off and landing as they were slow at that time and it took them a while to build up speed. Chuck Yeager shot one down in Europe. They also flew on the Eastern Front and the Russian Ace Ivan Kozhedub also shot one down (In a pure dogfight). The 262 tried to get in a turning fight with his Lavochkin LA-5

The Tommy gun was heavy and the drum magazines were very cumbersome and heavy. The GI version had a cut down barrel and used a stick magazine. It was similar to the one you fired. Most soldiers preferred the stick magazines.

That Dodge Weapons carrier is similar to the "One Ton" trucks that the Indian Army ran in the 1970's. It was often used as a school bus for Army Officers kids so many of us from that time period are very familiar with it.

The 1/6th barrel of the 6x50 Mustang is Un-Silenced? Or is that an airborne Bazooka?
Ration Cans - wonder how they would work out in today's camping world? Substantial - I am sure. Can't go wrong with Meat Balls and Beans in Tomato Sauce!
Did they have any Bi-Planes? I simply love them - e.g. the Tiger Moth.[/list]

Yes, it looks like one of the fifties is missing from that wing.
As far as the Meat Balls and Beans in Tomato Sauce and camping today: I don't think I would want to spend the night in the same tent as someone who has eaten that.
They had one Biplane. A Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny"

Added in 19 minutes 16 seconds:

@xl_target,
Thanks for sharing these wonderful inages. Good thing you had the spare camera else we'd have missed out on these wonderful images.
>The quad .50 setup looks deadly, what i'd pay to be able to shoot something like that!! What do mean by they were run on a gasoline engine? Were these on automated turrets of some kind?
>That Japanese canteen immediately had an imaginary scene run in my head
>The "Marine's loadout in the Pacific Island hopping campaign" looks like a flamethrower to me. For some reason I thought the germans were the ones to use those...

Kshitij,
The Quad Fifty was deadly. Technically, it is actually electrically powered.
There is a small Briggs and Stratton engine (similar to what you would find on an agricultural pump) in the back that is coupled to a generator. This allows it to be totally self sufficient and portable. Here is an interesting article that explains more about the system. At the end of the article, you can clearly see the Briggs engine that powers the system. There is also a video of a quad fifty, embedded in that page, that shows the quad fifty in action at one of the US's numerous private machine gun shoots (probably Knob Creek).
As a civilian, you can shoot a quad fifty but 800 rounds of .50 Cal at about a buck a round would make for a very expensive few seconds of shooting.

Here is a video of one in action in Vietnam. You can see how fast the traverse and elevation is.
You can also hear that two stroke engine in the background.


US Marines used flame throwers extensively in the Pacific Theater during WW2. On islands like Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Saipan, etc. that is what it took to silence Japanese soldiers hidden in caves and bunkers. They also used flame throwers mounted on tank chassis. Flame throwers tanks were also used by the Allies in Europe.

[kshitij]

As a civilian, you can shoot a quad fifty but 800 rounds of .50 Cal at about a buck a round would make for a very expensive few seconds of shooting.

When, Where, How?!
I have The Big Sandy on my to-do list, if the .50 cal quad is something can that be shot, I would like to know how

As always, thanks for the detailed reply that you have given in the post above.

[xl_target]

As a civilian, you can shoot a quad fifty but 800 rounds of .50 Cal at about a buck a round would make for a very expensive few seconds of shooting.

When, Where, How?!
I have The Big Sandy on my to-do list, if the .50 cal quad is something can that be shot, I would like to know how

As always, thanks for the detailed reply that you have given in the post above.

Not sure if there is one that shows up at Big Sandy or Knob Creek but there was one at the Southern Ohio Machinegun Shoot in Minford (in 2007).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seitcE7Tf1I

apparently it costs $132 per second to fire this gun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCboIpXsfXM

[xl_target]

Once we got back to the park, we went looking for the rangers again, so we could register. Once again the ranger station had all its doors open and not a soul was in sight. We decided, forget it, we'll just go back to the camp site and they can come looking for us if they have any issues.


Then we hiked up to the site of the Upper Sioux Agency Historic site.
It was about a two mile walk from the campsite.


Some varying terrain as we climbed the side of the bluff and went up to the top.


It was relatively flat at the top with predominantly prairie grasses.


The only building left of the complex up there is this ne.
The rest were destroyed and burned down in a raid during the Dakota War of 1862.


This building has been rebuilt to the original plan. It must have been a lonely existence.
in the late 1800, there were no roads and no cars here. all business was conducted on horseback or by using the river.
It must have been a terrifying experience to be surrounded and burned out of the place, knowing that no help was available.
One was totally dependant on oneself to assure the safety of self and family.



Going back down was a lot easier.
By now, it was getting later and the sun was at an extreme angle as we headed down to the campsite.
Almost dark when we got back, it was time for a quick meal and a cigar and then kick back by the fire.


This fire was from earlier in the summer on another overnight to Minneopa State Park.

The next morning, on the way home, we passed through a small town and this Sherman caught my eye.


It was in a small park.
The plaque on it commemorated a local boy who answered the call to his serve his country and give it his all.