Little House on the Prairie!!!!

Today the focus was definitely on Laura Ingalls Wilder and her little house on the prairie. Have oodles of pictures but chose these representative ones. Sorry they aren't in better order but I'm tired from hanging out on the prairie and don't want to rearrange them! From the top down they are as follows:

1. The house Pa Ingalls built in town after leaving the homestead.

2. A school building on the homestead property where Laura taught school

3. Gerry and one of the very friendly kittens gamboling around the prairie homestead

4. Lee sitting at the teacher's desk in the school

5. Ma's house. Pa built this with wooden rain gutters

6. The Ingalls family plot in the DeSmet cemetary. Laura's baby son is buried there but Laura and Almonzo are buried in Missouri

7. Windmill on the Homestead property. Pa dug the well.

8. Lindsay roping a stationary calf

9. Judi ringing the school bell

10. Gotta Go Girls in a cornfield

11. The Visitor's Center

12. Welcome to the homestead

13. A claim shack like Pa built to establish their claim to the property. Then he had to get 10 acres under cultivation to secure the claim

14. The Gotta Go Girls are abandoning the Toyota Avalon and taking to the open road in a covered wagon!

It was a rather raw and blustery day today and we changed our plans for the wardrobe! Jacket and sweaters came out and after a fabulous breakfast at a very fancy truck stop along with Lindsay and Sam we headed out across the prairie.

DeSmet is about an hour from Watertown and we drove through cornfields, soybean fields, and more cornfields. The old Ingalls homestead has been bought by a family who have restored buildings, built new ones and done a fine job honoring Laura Ingalls Wilder. You truly get a sense of what it might have been like to be a little girl on the vast prairie. We did comment that we were there at a perfect time when all the star struck little girls and boys have returned to school and peace and quiet descends on the Prairie.

I have been wanting to see a claim shack and a very old example similar to what Pa built is on the property. We walked and walked from building to building and garden to garden and sent Lindsay with her 14 year old exuberance ahead to take pictures. She did a great job and thanks a bunch, Lindsay. We have spent the day promising to read all the books when we get home. Things are so familiar but some of the details escape us. I talked to Barbara Lawrence Emanuel from the claim shack She is the only person I have ever known who had longs tracts from the books committed to memory. She called Lisa and the next thing I know I am walking across the prairie talking to my daughter. She pointed out it was only fitting that Lee should be there too since she gave Lisa the full set of books over 30 years ago and now Lisa is getting her old well worn and loved copies out for Zoe and Mae. The circle continues.

We traipsed over the prairie reeading every plaque, label, and monument marveling all the while about the peace and quiet. When we had petted the kitties, bought some souvenirs, and loved every minute of the visit, we headed for town and a drive around to see where Pa built a house and moved the family to town from the homestead. We also drove up to the cemetary where we found the graves of Ma and Pa, Carrie, Mary, and Laura and Almonzo's infant son.

It was a wonderful day and it was such a pleasure to have Sam drive and show us farms, prairie pot holes, little communities, and places he knows well. We would have never ventured as far off the road as he did. Then we polished everything off with a dinner at a very good Mexican restaurant. It was hard to say good by to Sam and Lindsay but they have school and work tomorrow and we are headed for Fargo. Hope we don't run into any wood chippers!

Love, The Gotta Go Girls