#4: [13-Mar-13]

#2: [30-May-02]

#1: [20-Oct-00]

09-Jul-2003 -- I bought a GPS receiver several months ago and I've been an enthusiastic browser of confluence.org, so I was excited to visit my first confluence during a visit to a lake cabin in southwestern Minnesota owned by my relatives. Although this confluence had been visited twice before, I was still looking forward to going there myself. I enlisted the help of my aunt, uncle, and two of my cousins (aged 7 and 11). My aunt had grown up in the area but had long since moved away, so none of us are locals.

We drove through Pipestone, a town of about 4500, and turned east on Minnesota Highway 30. This confluence is located in a field not far north of Highway 30, east of the very small town of Woodstock. Keeping close tabs on the GPS receiver's readout, we turned off the highway and pulled up to the side of a farmer's field.

My aunt Theresa stayed with the car, and my cousins and uncle and I walked along a fence line, and turned into the corn at the appropriate point (this summer, corn is growing in the field containing the confluence - but next year it could be another crop). Although the ground was a bit muddy, fortunately the corn was not too high nor was there, amazingly enough, any bothersome mosquito presence. Careful not to bend or damage the cornstalks, we found the spot and documented it for all posterity before walking back through the corn to the quiet and dead-straight country road and our car.

As another earlier visitor said, this part of the country is quite beautiful. The vast expanses of open farmland have a majesty all their own.