Today, we hit the road on our adventure. It seems odd to start at the end, but I did promise to share the plan for the final leg of our trip.
We left you in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Now we'll continue east across South Dakota. Our destination--DeSmet, S.D. If you're a fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, you'll know that's the mecca for Little House fans. I think five of her books were set there, including "The Long Winter," "On the Shores of Silver Lake," "Little Town on the Prairie," "These Happy Golden Years," and "The First Four Years."
The Surveyor's House where the Ingalls family lived during "the long winter," is now a museum. While Silver Lake no longer exists, Lakes Henry and Thompson (where Almanzo took Laura for buggy/sleigh rides on many Sunday afternoons) are there still. I hope we can walk on the land bridge between them, because I know their buggy crossed over that very place. I wonder if it will look as it did when they courted there? Spirit Lake, in the northerly direction from DeSmet, is there still, as well.
We'll take the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway (US Highway 14) from DeSmet to the places the Ingalls family lived in southern Minnesota, including Walnut Grove. The museum there is geared more to memorabilia related to the television series. From there, we'll head south to Burr Oak, where the Ingalls family lived for more than a year, but which wasn't recorded in any of the books. I did find two books available at the museum gift shop there. I read Laura-biographer William Anderson's nonfiction "The Iowa Story," already, but not the fictionalized version of Laura's time there--"Old Town in the Green Groves," by Cynthia Rylant. I can read in the car, so maybe I'll read aloud as my hubby is driving, so we'll both be on the same page when we get to Burr Oak.
Depending on how much time we have, we may make the trip to Vinton, Iowa, the location of the School for the Blind that Mary Ingalls attended for about five years. (Click on the link for the school to learn more about Mary's time there.) The school building is still there and only just closed as a school for the blind in the last year or so.
From there, it will be time to head home.
But this trip is now ready to go from planning stages to the road stage. First, I must finish packing my not-so-virtual suitcases. I'm going to enjoy this experiment of blogging about the trip and am glad you've decided to follow along!
