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Prairie Adventure: Prairie House Manor Bed and Breakfast
I didn’t actually count how many nights in a row we slept outside. Kevin might have. I do know that in the first town we drove through that featured a large store of any variety, Kevin pulled the Tahoe over and went inside with cash and came back out with one self-inflating sleeping pad. (Yes. One. I guess after seeing my expression he turned around and came back out with a second one.) At any rate, we slept on the ground for more nights than we did not sleep on the ground. When we reached DeSmet and toured the surveyor’s house and the Ingalls’ Homestead, we visited the house…
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Prairie Adventure: These Happy Golden Years, a DeSmet Pageant
If it is a July weekend in the town of DeSmet, there’s probably a crowd of people gathered on benches in a wide open field in view of Pa’s Cottonwood trees waiting for the sun to set a little lower and the prairie play to begin. Nine nights each summer a cast of all-local, primarily high school students performs scenes from one of the four novels Laura Ingalls Wilder write that took place in DeSmet, South Dakota on the very prairie landscape these thespians are gracing. You’ll want to pull your wagon up early to the vast field of a parking lot so you can ride on a real wagon with…
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Prairie Adventure: The Ingalls Homestead in DeSmet
I think I might be about to set some new record for photos on one blog post. (It’s not a record I care to take the time to actually validate, but I think I’m right anyway.) On our westward journey each stop had its own treasures and surprises to discover. You can’t exactly compare one location to another – but, you sort of can. When we reached DeSmet, South Dakota and pulled up to The Ingalls Homestead out on the for reals prairie, we all felt like it was exactly as Laura described it in her last several novels. The Ingalls Homestead is only a few miles from…
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Prairie Adventure: The Wilder Pageant at Walnut Grove
Walnut Grove had lots to offer the Laura Ingalls fan. I’ve already told you about the museum and the sweet campground and the Laura Look Alike contest and, of course, one of my personal favorite stops – Plum Creek. But what I did not tell you about yet was the summer’s big evening event – The Wilder Pageant. The pageant is performed only six times every summer and the tickets for next year’s pageant nights will already be on sale this fall. It’s performed every weekend in July except the July Fourth weekend. The performance doesn’t begin until 9 p.m. to accommodate the sun being allowed to set – but…
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Prairie Adventure: and other DeSmet offerings
There’s more. More DeSmet. I’ll try to keep this one simple. Just out of town is the tree claim Almanzo and Laura tried in vain to homestead. There’s just this simple marker to represent years of hope and heartache and hardship. Two babies born here. One baby died here. The highs and lows of love and loss on this speck of prairie that cost the Wilder family so much. And there are trees here that Almanzo planted. Trees here that he stood beside and hovered over and hoped against hope they’d survive. The prairie has taken so much of that back. And the land is living on. Being farmed by…
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Prairie Adventure: The Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society in DeSmet, South Dakota
DeSmet. South Dakota. In regular life, DeSmet is this one street, not much to talk about kind of town. In Laura Ingalls terms, DeSmet is a big deal. Like a mecca. I don’t even know where to start or how to wade through the two hundred and fifty four pictures I took while we were there. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote nine books. Five of the novels take place in or around DeSmet, South Dakota. See? A big deal to Laura fans. In DeSmet, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society offers guided tours of the four buildings they manage. I guess that’s a good place to start. And you guys, of…
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Prairie Adventure: running on the prairie
Would it be okay if I just share a handful of sweet pictures of my girls running on the prairie? Okay. Great. Thank you.
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Prairie Adventure: Walnut Grove’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Days
For several Saturdays each summer the small town of Walnut Grove, Minnesota hosts their annual Laura Ingalls Wilder Days. The town’s park is filled with tents and prairie exhibits and traditional pioneer food like cotton candy and funnel cakes. The girls made corn husk dolls. We were again so fortunate that the weather, while warm, was not the usual summer time stifling heat. All of the kids loved the craft station where they were able to hammer designs into leather and create necklaces or ornaments. The festival lasted most of the day but we were more than satisfied to wrap up our experience after an hour or so. One station…
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Prairie Adventure: Plum Creek campground
Our days on this epic road journey have been so filled with adventure and mosquitoes and prairie wind and incredible photo opportunities that we are all pretty much walking around in a state of overload. Everywhere we turn we are finding new little nuggets of fascinating info about Laura and about the prairie and, you know, even about one another. The kids are out of sync with their regular sleeping routines and we’ve had an excess of hours in a small space called a vehicle. Kevin has been working as we travel along – masterfully fitting in his job at picnic tables and coffee shops and campgrounds. Goodness – what…
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Prairie Adventure: Walnut Grove’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum
Walnut Grove. If you have met Laura Ingalls primarily through the television series then you might be more familiar with Walnut Grove than some of the other Laura Ingalls spots. It’s a tiny tiny town with nary a recognizable restaurant or grocery store. We ate lunch (and breakfast) at Nellie’s cafe because it was named Nellie and because it was there. The town features a handful of Laura treasure stops though. Of course there is nearby Plum Creek. The Ingalls family lived at Plum Creek but the girls walked into town to school. The site of the original Masters Inn, Laura’s Walnut Grove’s only lodging place, is right downtown. The…
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Prairie Adventure: Plum Creek
I no longer have any idea what day it is. Does leaving your normal town and standard routine have this same effect on you? I also mostly do not know what hour it is. We are only one time zone off but that’s just enough to kick me off balance. Today was Plum Creek day. As in – on the literal banks of the actual Plum Creek. Oh my goodness. I love Plum Creek. It’s the real deal. The actual Plum Creek Laura and Mary regularly played in. The spring where they collected their drinking water. The stream where Laura sought her revenge on Nellie by leading her right to…
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Prairie Adventure: Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Pepin and Stockholm
Ya’ll. I’m a little sleepy tonight and I think there’s a giant rock under my sleeping bag but the kids ditched the comfy hammocks this evening and I felt obligated to sleep near them in the tent per their kind requests so I’m keeping this post brief. In Pepin there was a small museum dedicated to our girl Laura. It was low cost and if you’re in the area you might as well stop in. It’s a quick stroll through but there a few simple treasures to be seen. Primarily the museum holds replicas and general same era style findings. There was a sweet dress on display actually worn by…
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Prairie Adventure: the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder
Unassuming. A small cabin in a big woods. 1867. A little girl born in a gray log house. Laura Ingalls. And her voice and her story and her charming way with words have traveled across the years and the valleys to speak into my own childhood and into the childhood in which my children are living right now. Seven miles outside of tiny Pepin, Wisconsin. Once the big woods where Laura and Mary tossed the pig bladder like a balloon, now picturesque farm land with fields of corn in the shadow of the low bluffs. Oh you guys. It was so simple and sweet. No tourist trap. A sign so…
