We were woken around midnight with a storm passing directly above us, thunder, lightning and pouring rain. AND the wind, the RV was given a good shake.
Once again, we looked outside to see if we should be alarmed but there was no movement. Everybody else had either moved to a tornado shelter already or this was nothing to worry about.
We hoped for the latter and as the storm eased we went back to sleep.
When we woke in the morning there were signs of rain but not a branch on the ground. These trees have weathered storms before.
A nice little sleep in for Noah and Wes after a big day yesterday.
Back on the road by 9.20 am with Miss USA advising us to stay on I29 for 80kms…
The landscape was filled with farms (vegetable and cattle) and cornfields, cornfields, and more cornfields.
Through the small towns of Brookings, Volga, Arlington (Pop 914) and Lake Preston (Pop 737), until we reached our destination, De Smet and the Ingalls Homestead, Laura’s Living Prairie.
I grew up reading her books and watching the television series and they influenced my yearning to hopefully, one day, visit America.
There are 9 books in the series, Little House in the Big Woods (1932), Farmer Boy (1933), Little House on the Prairie (1935), On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937), By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939), The Long Winter (1940), Little Town on the Prairie (1941), These Happy Golden Years (1943) and The First Four Years (1971).
Regardless of her books ‘political correctness’ you cannot deny the book’s insight into historic pioneer life. Plus, it always scares me when society tries to change history. The past is the past and we need to learn and grow from both the positives and the negatives.
Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family moved to the De Smet area in 1879, at the beginning of the book, By the Shores of Silver Lake.
The Ingalls Homestead was a wonderful historical experience and educational for us all. It did make me appreciate and feel very glad that I was born in the modern-day and not pioneer days.
We saw the different types of Ingalls old homesteads, drove in a covered wagon across the prairie to the one-room schoolhouse and participated in a schoolhouse session to learn about what school was like for children living in Dakota Territory in the 1880s.
Noah and Wes loved washing clothes ‘pioneer-style’, making a jump rope and corncob doll and driving in a pony cart and riding on a saddled horse.
The walk to and visiting the historical church was gorgeous.
We were also very lucky that the attraction was not crowded, it was a beautiful day and we almost had the experience to ourselves.
Time to move on and drive into the De Smet township. A lovely simple, fresh and cheap lunch at the Ward’s Store and Bakery with the sweetest young waitress in existence.
A small look around the Surveyor’s House and De Smet’s first school at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society and then a drive to Third Street to see the last house that Pa built.
The day had crept away from us. We decided to see if the small RV park we had seen when we arrived in De Smet had any sites available. They did and we were able to secure one right on the pretty pond.
Dinner across the road and down the street at the simple dinner, Oxbow Restaurant.
An unexpected, very lovely day.
BrownFamily. Blog 
What an awesome day and experience….. xx
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