Vermont 2021 {Getting There: Laura Ingalls Wilder Sites}

(Day 2, cont) Friday, 24 September 2021: De Smet, SD to Lamberton, MN

We pulled into De Smet juuust before sunset, so all the Laura Ingalls Wilder buildings and tours were long closed up for the day, but I was still thrilled to be able to walk around the grounds, reading the signs on each of the buildings and homes that were connected to the life of Laura. I hadn't even thought of stopping at the Laura sites until I got a text from my aunt Nikie asking about our trip. When I told her we were going the northern route through South Dakota and Minnesota she mentioned a friend that loved the stops about Laura but she hadn't ever been to any of them herself. Lightbulb! Why didn't I think of that? So I started looking at our route and it worked out that we would be going right by De Smet and Walnut Grove. We had to stop, even if we got there after it closed! So we did. :)

De Smet is where On the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, These Happy Golden Years and The First Four Years took place.

We pressed on into Minnesota afterward and stayed in a cute little motel in Lamberton that night. 

They've moved a handful of buildings and homes and an old
wagon all to this corner of a block and made a sort of park around them.
The do offer tours, but they're only at certain times of the day due to 
covid and the whole place closes at 4, so getting there at 7 or so was way too late
for any of that. But each building is lit and has an informational sign (I love those!)
so I was still happy we stopped.

Laura and Carrie's school.

The whole square (the schools and wagon are kind of between
and behind these two white homes).

Across the street near a big parking field is the bathrooms.
They made me chuckle.

Also across the street was a playground, which
the kids were most eager to check out and I can't
blame them.

The park also had a little free library! We love to peruse the choices in these at all the parks we come across. Cal spotted this book about Hiawatha and kept it out to show me when I got back from the bathroom. It is actually one I had put on hold when I wanted to learn about Hiawatha after our bike ride, but it never came in before we left. But now we own it! (Still have yet to read it, but I’m excited we found something relevant to what we’ve been reading recently in a random little free library in the middle of nowhere South Dakota!)

I convinced the kids to walk around the homes with me
but it was getting really dark and photos were not good.

(Day 3) Saturday, 25 September 2021: Lamberton, MN to Walnut Grove (Plum Creek), MN

The next morning we backtracked about 15 minutes to Walnut Grove, another spot the Ingalls family lived and Laura wrote about. We drove past the square where the museum and gift shop and other buildings were since they weren't open yet and went to the Ingalls Dugout Site just a bit further out of town. This spot is on private land, but is very well kept up and is where On the Banks of Plum Creek took place (we went backwards in time since she moved east to west and we were coming west to east). We loved walking along the shores of the creek and seeing some of the notable spots like Big Rock, the Spring, and the actual hole in the ground where the Ingalls family dugout actually was! Amazing! It was a beautiful morning and really pretty cool to be standing right there where her story happened!

This is looking back from Big Rock toward the fields and
parking area and big sky of Minnesota.

The creek was perfect!

Across the creek where that big sign is is the dugout spot.

Crossing the creek

We took one of these mown path hiking loops through the prairie
grasses and sunshine.

Way back there is the farm house and barn of the current
owners (it was built long after Laura's family
lived here).

Back up the hill to the dugout site for one more
sign to read that I missed before.

One more glimpse across the creek.

 Thanks, Nikie for reminding me about Laura! We'll have to come back and do the full tour someday!

Vermont 2021 {Getting There: Eden to De Smet}

Never did I expect to turn our magical trip to Vermont last year into a yearly thing, yet all the stars aligned again to make it happen and here we are, on our way across the country to spend a month at Jay Peak. This time we have friends coming, and family visiting, and no quarantine period to deal with, so it is bound to be a new experience, even if we live in the same spot and see the same things and eat the same donuts. Can't wait!

Another difference this year is our route to get there. Last year we came across I-80 the fastest way possible. This year, we wanted to see some new country, so we picked a more northern route (mostly I-90, but a lot off the beaten path) and took almost a week to get here. It was a like a vacation before our "vacation" and it was awesome! (We saw so many cool things, I decided to break down the journey into multiple posts called "Getting There". This one is the first and most boring. ;)

(Day 1) Thursday, 23 September 2021: Eden, UT to Rawlins, WY, to Casper, WY

We loaded up the ol' Sube almost full the evening before so Gregg could work and the kids and I could do school on Thursday morning. Around 3:00 (actually exactly at 3:00) we pulled out of the driveway and headed toward Wyoming. We made a stop right before it got dark in Rawlins to stretch our legs and use the potty and then continued on our drive to Casper for the night.

He fell asleep just outside of Morgan! (Less than
an half hour into our drive!)

Not Cal, though! She "never can sleep in a car".

We stopped at "the train park" in Rawlins,
just like we did on our way to South Dakota
three years ago!

(Day 2) Friday, 24 September 2021: Casper. WY to Lusk, WY to Wind Cave National Park, SD to Mitchell, SD to De Smet, SD

About an hour or two outside of Casper we reached Lusk and saw that the rest area had a playground so we stopped for a quick minute to stretch and play. Then we drove on to Wind Cave National Park, which we wanted to stop at since we skipped it two years ago on our South Dakota trip with the Elwoods. We were there for just over an hour and got to look around in the visitor's center and the kids completed a junior ranger booklet, but we didn't hike like we wanted to, and we didn't take a cave tour because we didn't have much time. So we want to come back, for sure!

The rest of the day was driving, driving, driving east through South Dakota. We ordered pizza hut to pick up in Mitchell, SD at dinner time (Friday night, after all!), and as we drove through town, we noticed all sorts of signs for "Corn Palace". That struck a memory from K12 school last year with Cal, where in one of the reading warm-ups, we learned about the famous Corn Palace so we made a detour to be sure to see it as we drove through.

We saw lots and lots of corn as we continued on to the edge of the state for our pre-sunset stop in De Smet (which I'll talk about in the next post!).

I didn't know anything about a Highway Beautification Act!
Who knew rest area history could be so interesting?!

I learned that the wind of Wind Cave switches directions
of flow based on the air pressure outside. It tries to equalize
air pressure so will flow out or in to balance.

Workin' on booklets at the visitor's center.

We were there and we want to come back!

The world's only corn palace! (You don't say!)

We were waaaaay too entertained by the car shaow
on the corn fields as it changed sizes as we drove along.
Just scroll down and see how the car grows and shrinks
as the terrain changes.