It’s always risky to take a motor home towing a van down a one lane dirt road that you have never driven before.  We must have looked like die hard Little House fans coming down that road.  It’s a good thing there wasn’t a soul in site because we did need the entire parking lot… well it wasn’t quite a parking lot but more of a turn around.  We were on the hunt for The Ingalls dug out home.  This is what we found…

 

So we thought we were going to see the dugout that the Ingalls lived in while living along Plum Creek.  It turns out that it is the ruins of the dugout.  The dugout collapsed many years ago.  Although the kids were disappointed that they weren’t able to play in a real dugout, they were all being lured by the fresh spring creek water of Plum Creek, on this hot Minnesota September afternoon.  Koah made the first plunge and the other 3 each followed in time.  We are reading On the Banks of Plum Creek so this made this afternoon swim extra special.

 

 

 

And the prairie…

Instead of Mary and Laura it is Makenzie and Freya.

In the book On the Banks of Plum Creek the Ingalls wheat crop is destroyed by grasshoppers.  While we were following a path along Plum Creek there were thousands, and I mean thousands of grasshoppers. Makenzie said they are locust and she is usually right but which ever they are, there are enough insects to completely destroy a wheat field.

The kids were super muddy when it was time to head out.  The beauty of traveling in a motor home, always a clean (well maybe not clean but at least not muddy) set of clothes and water to rinse off with. 

Jeff doesn't remember watching Little House on the Prairie growing up.... Wait... What? How did I not know this till now.  We have watched episodes with the kids from Netflix and he never mentioned this.  I've forgiven him.

This museum was fun for us Little House fans. 

There were replicas of a school house, a chapel, a dugout, jail cells and a general store.  The only original item from the Ingalls time is the bell that rang in the chapel.  It still rings to this day in a new church.

 

Playing school… whatever that means to homeschooled children.

A sermon from Pastor Koah.

Running the Olsen’s General Store

The mailman.

The banker.

Making farts noises while sitting on the pots in the out house.

This is Grandma’s House.   There was a room in this house dedicated specifically to the book On the Banks of Plum Creek.   This is where they had some hands on activities for the kids, like a slate board and chalk and dress up clothes.

If one thing was clear it was that life on the prairie for the Ingalls was not as happy and joyful as depicted in an hour episode of Little House on the Prairie.  This family worked really hard and struggled much for long periods of time.  If I am reading the time line correctly, the Ingalls were only in Walnut Grove for two years where they lived in the dugout on Plum Creek for about year of that time.

Today we made it to Minnesota.  We are staying in the town of Winona, in the bluffs right along the Mississippi River.  It is breathtakingly beautiful yet impossible to photograph. 

This is highway 14 which hugs the Mississippi River to the left in this picture and the bluffs and coulees to the right.  The word coulee was new for me.  I had no idea it meant deep ravine.  We drove this road several times while here (it’s the only road) and each time was as beautiful as the next.   When Makenzie saw the mountain in the distance she immediately said,  “That is how I pictured God’s thumb to look like from the book Holes.”  We all agreed with her the closer we got.

 

That’s the Mississippi River out there.  Like I said, I had a hard time photographing the river… maybe it’s because I’m so darn tired!

 

This is the view from the Grandad Bluff in La Crosse, WI.  You may ask why we are back in WI?  The main reason is because we found someone willing to fix the AC in the motorhome… for the price of $550…ugh!  But worth every penny as temps are rising this week into the low 80s. Oh, AC how I’ve missed you!

 

We are also in WI because there is a children’s museum in La Crosse that we were checking out while the motorhome was getting fixed.  It is part of the passport museum  program so we entered for free.  The museum was nice but was definitely geared toward a younger crowd.  This usually doesn’t stop my kids, they still always find something fun to do.  But after about 2 hours they were finished.  Off to the public library, why hadn’t I thought of this before?  Complete silence,  a beautiful thing after living in an RV for almost a month.  I almost fell asleep at one point until Koah came to me asking me questions about a Star Wars book he was reading,  “Uh, ask Daddy.”

 

We learned that this stand alone rock formation is called the Sugar Loaf, while in the Target parking lot in Winona.

 

 

This is the American Dagger… well technically it will be when it becomes a moth.  The black spikes on this are considered to be mildly poisonous by some and not poisonous at all to others… go figure.  As I’m looking at this picture I’m realizing it doesn’t look all that impressive.  Like I said I’m tired.

 

I really enjoyed this town and would love to come back to do some hiking and summer water activities.  Onward, further into Minnesota…but first some sleep.