Day 6 – Little Minivan on the Prairie

Jackson, MN to DeSmet, SD

Breakfast!

 We managed to get on the road by 8:15 today, no thanks to malingering children who’d stayed up too late telling stories the night before.  (Zoe has a whole series going starring the stuffed animals that each of them brought, visiting each place we’ve visited and having misadventures.)  After depressing ourselves along the three-hour drive with The Long Winter, we reached the Ingalls homestead, where this book and a couple of others were actually set. 

On top of a dugout, just like Laura used to live in!

This was a pretty cool place.  There was a replica of the Ingalls’ homestead shanty in the exact location where it really existed, which was exciting if you happen to be someone who’s read the books about three times in the recent past.  There were wagon rides, a lesson in a schoolhouse, crafts and activities, the farmland and prairie, and various buildings from the books, including an original claim shanty.  

The girls made corncob dolls and button strings, braided ropes, did laundry (I was hoping our accommodations came with their own washtub since they really seemed to enjoy this), ground wheat into flour, and learned to twist hay into burnable logs.  (Believe me, this is an important skill to have if you have a very severe winter and the trains can’t run and you run out of coal.)  If you ask the children, however, they will remember none of this.  What they will remember is (1) getting to go on a pony/miniature horse ride, and (2) playing with the little kittens that we found in the barn.  This was pretty much where they wanted to spend all their time.

 

Can you believe the size of this horse?  You had to be under
5 to be allowed to ride it.

The girls did this multiple times.  Have I mentioned that
Nadia is obsessed with horses?

The evening was lovely here.  We rented a covered wagon for the night, and it was an unusual camping experience – instead of being nestled in trees, with short-range views on every side, there were just a few covered wagons scattered over the hillside in the midst of the prairie.  We were very lucky in that today was a cooler day – no A/C in the covered wagon, alas, and it would have been an oven on a hot day.  In fact, as the sun went down it actually grew chilly, and we had to get our fleece jackets from the car – definitely a change from our previous evenings!  We can tell we’re in the west now, with no humidity, because of the beautiful cool that descends as soon as the sun disappears. 

Our accommodations

Snug inside the wagon

Spaghetti, just like Ma used to make

Despite substantial wind (Laura wasn’t kidding about that prairie wind), we managed to cook and eat dinner outside, looking out over miles of prairie.  This is a really laid-back place, and while we were cooking the girls ran back to visit various locations they’d enjoyed earlier in the day (e.g. the kitten barn and the pony barn).  We’d planned an early bedtime since the previous night had been so late, but it proved to be a challenge.  Out on the exposed prairie, it was still light out at 9:30 at night, and no one felt sleepy.  (I’m sure that Ma would have been able to handle this situation with a single word, but no such luck for us.)

The best part -- making the kids wash the dishes!
Just like Laura used to do.

*****

From Bob:

Why I think that future generations will love to read our blog and road journal is because standing in the claim shanty they built on the Ingalls homestead, looking on the wall at the proof-of-claim papers Pa filed on this property 100+ years ago, I was mesmerized.  A photocopy posted in a facsimile hut, and I could’ve looked at it for hours.

 I might have just; I can’t account for my whole day here.  A long time ago I heard about this phenomenon of tourists in Israel losing their marbles and assuming the identity of biblical characters.  They just walk around thinking they were King David.  I may have had a similar experience today except with Little House characters.  There was the time I can’t account for, except for a vague memory of reaching for suspenders that weren’t there.  I think I was Mr. Edwards.

Tonight we get to sleep in one of several covered wagons they have scattered on the lawn here, but the best part is that we haven’t had to go anywhere since before noon today. First off, as Mr. Edwards I would have had a devil of a time figuring out the horseless carriage.  But also, we got to enjoy a sweet and slow prairie sunset.  It’s not as quiet here as it was in 1880, but it is wonderfully peaceful.

Another thing you should know is that we’ve gone through two whole days and a half since eating in a restaurant.  This evening we dined on camp-cooked pasta with home-canned meat sauce and it was great – definitely a cut above yesterday’s lunch, which was Cheezits and Fruit Leather.  We’re not peanut-buttered out yet, and we’re keeping some jerky in storage for when we really get out west.

Except that we are out west now.  We’ve crossed over the spiral divider in our road atlas spread of the US.  Also, the terrain definitely changed when we crossed from Minnesota to South Dakota.  There was definition to the landscape, gullies and grottos and washes and gulches and other things that we read about in westerns.  This is, I think, some foreshadowing for the Badlands, which we’ll be seeing tomorrow afternoon. 

Prairie sunset over a replica of the Ingalls' claim shanty