Headed to the Little House on the Prairie!Day Two started at 6 am. Vacations are meant to be a time to relax and sleep in, but when you have at least 6 hours to go before your next destination it becomes necessary to get up and get moving. It was hard to pull away from the Fisher's house. Seems that we let too much time pass before talking to each other, each with our own lives and schedules and then visits are also too far apart. We had a wonderful evening catching up and now we were off again. Our plan had been to go up the western side of Iowa into South Dakota, but we were alerted to the fact that several places along the highway we would have needed to travel were flooded so instead we headed north into Minnesota and then west to South Dakota.
The morning started off with a very heavy fog.
Once the fog was lifted and we were in Minnesota we saw mile after mile of wind farms. I know that people say they are ugly, but there is something almost majestic about these towering windmills along the highway. They are peaceful and against the farm land even beautiful.
Not only did we see the windmills we also saw a lot of flooded farm land. In one place, after crossing into South Dakota we even saw an area of road that appeared to be raised up between two small lakes. The only problem was that they were not two small lakes but rather fields that were simply under water. It brings to mind all the people that depend on farming for their livelihood and how weather certainly effects them.The other thing you begin to see as you are traveling into South Dakota are signs for Wall Drug. They have many different messages and were quite interesting to read as we went along. Around 1 pm, after a picnic lunch stop in Minnesota, we arrived in De Smet, South Dakota home of the Ingalls family. If you are familiar with the books at all it is in De Smet that they spent the long winter in the Surveyor's house when Pa had gone west to work on with the railroad. The Surveyor's house is still there and we were able to tour it as well as a replica of the school Laura would have first taught in, and the actual school where Carrie got in trouble for rocking the bench.
We also went through the family's home.
Hearing about the family first hand, and what really happened in their lives was intriguing. I'm interested in seeing if I can find any more of the books about the family, the Caroline years as well as the Rose years from the library. I always loved the television show, so knowing that life wasn't quite like that is always a bit hard to understand. Having read the books though, as a family, we realized that many of the things that happen on the show were added to make a good television series and not because they were true to life.After visiting the museum and house tour we continued to the grave sites of Ma, Pa, Mary, Laura and Almanzo, Carrie and Grace and their spouses. It was sad to think about the fact that the family line ended there in De Smet with no one left to carry on the Ingalls name. A short ways away from the grave site we arrived at the site of the original house on the prairie. It is now the Ingalls Homestead and offers camping, in either tents, their bunk house or in covered wagons. This tip I had gotten from our good friends the Perry's and so I had secretly reserved a covered wagon for the night. The kids were so excited! It was a really neat experience to be out on the prairie in a covered wagon for the night.
The Ingalls Homestead http://www.ingallshomestead.com/information.html, is a neat place to visit. The kids were able to ride miniature horses,
and in a buggy, make corn cob dolls, rope, and do laundry with wash tub and ringer. 
As a family we were able to explore a dug out home, a barn, and a replica of the house they would have lived in. We also took a covered wagon ride across the prairie and visited a school. In the school the kids dressed up and the teacher led them through a sample lesson. 
Katie absolutely loved the horses! 
I know she would like to have one someday, but I don't foresee that happening! The main area of the Ingalls homestead is open to 6pm and while we did see the majority of the things we had wanted to we had not had a chance to look through the house before that time. Just the same the lady who was dressed as Ma, stayed an extra hour to show us around the house 
and teach the kids about life on the prairie. While we cooked our dinner the kids had a chance to try to wash clothes again 
and then we settled in for an evening on the prairie. The wind was whipping around so shortly after dinner, and of course some smores, we settled into our covered wagon for the evening. It had been another long day, as we had gotten up at 6am and it was now close to 10pm.The prairie was beautiful, the prairie grass swaying in the wind, the birds and crickets chirping. As I cooked dinner I could hear cows mooing in the distance, and you could just feel the vastness of the space around you. The sky was huge
. Clouds were starting to roll in and as we drifted off to sleep it was hard not to think about Laura and her family and all they went through living out in this area.
No comments:
Post a Comment