Laura Day 7

Daisy and I slept very late this morning. We were pushed to check out on time. It was a good thing we weren't going far. We were going about 30 miles up the road.
State count update...
Tennessee
Kentucky
Missouri
Illinois
Iowa
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Minnesota
South Dakota

We thought we were taking today off but it didn't work out that way. We only traveled about 30 miles though and did one stop. It was a long stop but an easy one. We were at the homestead site in Desmet S.D. I took a lot of pictures and there is lots to see. It's all replica's of the time but it is a beautiful 160 acre farm. Everyone was so nice. We made a corncob doll and I made a rope for my boys. It was a very relaxing day.

We got here around noon and didn't leave until about 5


Daisy in the mud house. We decided we wouldn't like it.

A baby kitty in the barn. I wanted to stuff her in my purse.

This lady knew her stuff! She was very sweet.

Pet and Pat

A baby mini. 5 weeks old

Can you solve this riddle? It was on the blackboard in the school.

The 5 cottonwood trees Pa planted for his girls are still there.

The monument to the Ingalls/Wilder families

Done for the day. We are staying in the area tomorrow. We have barely begun to see all there is here.

We saw so many dead fur stuff on the road here. I have totally lost count. However I have added some new species to the list.

A not quite dead flopping bird the car in front of us hit.

2 smelly dead skunks!

Off to bed.

Peace

Laura day 6

On the shores of Plum Creek/Walnut Grove.
Daisy and I had a hard time going to bed last night so we slept in later today. House keeping was in a fired up hurry to clean our room. Then as a crowning touch to our morning we had no hot water. So we got off on a sketchy start in Minnesota as it was. We reached the museum in Walnut Grove. It was an OK museum but not our favorite so far. It has very little that was actually Laura's. It just has a lot of period pieces. Not much personal things. It is mostly about the TV show. Which in its self wasn't a bad show, just wasn't the story of the books. So that wasn't our favorite place. Then we headed out to the site for the dugout on the shores of Plum Creek. It was beautiful! It looked just like Laura described in her book! It might be better at a different time of year but I don't know when. It was soooooo awful with the gnats! They were swarming us! I kept trying to swish them off of Auntie and she kept swishing them off of me. I was afraid to talk. I just knew I would inhale a swarm. IT WAS SO GROSS! Auntie got the worst of them. I will not miss Minnesota because of the gnats. HORRID!

The Museum


Auntie in the wagon. We were glad to have our air conditioned gnat free car!

This place was just beautiful!

We could just imagine Laura and Mary playing here.

To bad about the bugs! It was really a beautiful place.

We looked for 3 different letterboxes today and got skunked all 3 times. I don't know if it was us or if they were missing.

Our animal count is rising.

5 more dead dear. One of which I mean DEAD! Think of the way someone play acts and "dies" with all 4 feet straight up stiff in the air... EXACTLY how one looked. GROSS!

1487 dead fur somethings.

1 fly raccoon

1 couch cushion

Tomorrow we are just going to go up the road a ways to a better motel and then take a day off. We need a little break. We have been moving pretty steady and covering a lot of territory. We are hoping that S. Dakota is a little cooler and a lot more gnat free.

Peace

Laura Day 5

Daisy and I were up and on the ball this morning. We were both very excited! We were headed to where it all began. The Little house in the big woods. It's about 7 miles out of the town of Pepin. We were off!

The plaque outside the house.


The little house in the big woods.
It's not very woodsy anymore but you can look out the window's and imagine how it must have looked a very long time ago. The little house is a replica on the original spot. It is such a sweet little home. The house is very tiny. They just lived so simply. The house is a tiny 3 rooms and a loft.



We found the Letterbox we were looking for there. The stamp is hand carved and is so sweet! We were pretty pumped to find it.

One end of the little house.

The other end.

There was another letterbox we wanted to find. It was another direction out of town about 8 miles. It was called the Plum School. It had nothing to do with Laura Ingalls Wilder but sounded very interesting. When we got there Daisy said Oh Nikki this is just like the school your Mom and I went to! It was so sweet!

The letterbox stamp.


My Daisy reading from a primer on the desk. It was a very sweet place. It's hard to imagine so many kids in a one room school house.

It even had a bell tower with a bell and we rang it!

Then we went to Durand Wis. which was the county seat at the time of the Big Woods and Pa had to go there to do business regarding the land. It was a sweet town except the sign in front told a story about a man who murdered 2 lawmen and was lynched right in front of the courthouse! Just drug out and hung from a tree.

Old Durand court house.

Us on the shore of Lake Pepin. We stopped at Lake City. Which is where the Ingalls crossed when they headed West.

We then headed South towards South Troy. It is where Charles and Caroline's son "Freddy" died and is buried. His grave was unmarked and they don't know where it is. Just that it is in the area. They were visiting Charles brother there when he died. He had never been a well baby.

This is just a little marker along side the road. We are by far not the first people that have taken on this journey.

This afternoon while we were driving I looked over and there was a little bug on my aunts neck, I picked it off and said is this a tick? YES! Squish! Only my aunt in one little walk around a school house would get a tick. We have and will spray tomorrow.

Now we are headed on to Walnut Grove.

Peace

Laura Day 4

Miss Daisy and I got up and got on the road shortly after 10. Our first goal was Burr Oak Iowa.
Laura and her family lived here for about 18 months. Laura didn't write about here because it was a bad/sad time for the family. Her brother had died and the locust had eaten the crops the year before. So there is history about the time but she didn't write a book about it.
The museum is the only building of Laura's that is the original building on the original sight. It's very tiny but 3 floors. The kitchen and the room where her whole family slept is in the basement. The main floor had the parlor, and the front room and 2 bedrooms. The upstairs has 3 bedrooms and a landing area where someone could sleep. They have some original things and some are just period pieces that have been donated to them.


The Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum - Burr Oak Minn.


The entire collection of Ashton Drake dolls - The Ingalls family plus Nellie and Almanzo
I want to write it so I don't forget it. Almanzo was only 5'2" and Laura was 4'11". They were tiny people!


Original letters Laura wrote to school children.


Her books are in MANY languages. She is loved all over the world.

Bank front now the gift shop and start of the Museum tour. We had our own private tour and tour guide. It was VERY interesting and she was very sweet and was as excited about our trip as we are.

After the tour we went and looked around the cemetery. Laura played in this cemetery and there are several pictures of headstones from that time.

This is one of them that Laura would have seen.

I had clues to a letterbox that was suppose to be hidden here but could not for love nor money find it. Better luck next time.
I have been to Iowa as a kid, I didn't realize then how pretty it really is. We passed some beautiful farms. There was several signs for Amish buggies. We saw several but no Amish.

Iowa barn quilt

Dinner on the Upper Mississippi River. A barge pushing stuff up the river.

Crossing into Wisconsin. Tomorrow we tour The Little House in the Big Woods.

Peace

Laura Day 3

Miss Daisy and I got off to a great start today.

We didn't get off in great time but we aren't punching a time clock for anyone. We hit the road at 11. We headed North. We actually saw a LIVE deer this morning. I was so glad to see one that hadn't committed suicide. We haven't seen anymore turtles and think they may have been there and so many because of the floods, but we really don't know. Lots of dead raccoons and unidentifiable's.

Our goal today was Vinton Iowa. We wanted to see the Iowa Braille and The sight saving School.

This is the school that Mary Ingalls went to. Mary went to the blind school in 1881 and graduated in 1889. It is an active blind/braille school still. There is some renovations going on and I could just see how it must have looked. We had our picnic lunch at the Kiwanis Park across from the school and we heard the bells chiming. It was just beautiful. It's such a beautiful part of the country.

Tonight at dinner a young Amish family came in. They had the most beautiful baby girl. She was in a dark blue dress with a white bonnet and white bib with chubby bare legs with black socks on. She had dark hair peeking out from under her bonnet. Miss Daisy wanted her. She was just darling!

It was a very comfortable 82' today. It has been very nice.

Tomorrow on to Burr Oak.

Peace

Laura - Day 2

Alternately titled Driving Miss Daisy.

We slept in until 8 this morning. It was a good thing we were up by then because at the late great hour of 8:30 it was decided by who knows who that it was necessary to blow the sidewalk off right outside our door. We got our morning under way and went and had breakfast. We hit the highway at 10:30.
This is the state count so far,
Tennessee
Kentucky
Illinois
Missouri

The animal count so far is this...
6 VERY dead dear
75 dead raccoons
46 dead turtles
869 unidentifiable fur somethings
and 1 dead cat
and lots of vultures.
NOTHING alive besides cows and a few horses.

My windshield has had a beautiful rainbow of Cicada guts.

As we came through St. Louis we saw the arch. We got to see it from several angles. The only real traffic was in St. Louis. Tonight we are in Hannibal Missouri. It is where Mark Twain is from. Its cute little town.
What is it that makes driving all day that makes you feel so grody?
Well that's it for today.
Peace

Laura Day 1

I am on the road. My Aunt and I are on a Laura Ingalls Wilder trip. My flights today went well. It's very warm though coming from where it wasn't warm at all. Our goal today was to get out of Tennessee.
See this bag? It was full of all my toiletries and make up and stuff. My shampoo that had never been opened was FULLY open and all through the bag AND the bag that it was in got it too.

Sweetest smelling bag EVER even if it did look like someone puked in it!



The counter with all my washed off stuff! The bags I had to rinse in the tub. So many bubbles!

The Bluegrass state welcomes us!

Peace