Saturday, June 1 and Sunday, June 2

Well, the weather on Saturday really was horrible, about 50 degrees, rainy and brutally windy. We almost abandoned our plans and went straight to Minneapolis. However, we decided we would probably never get back to this part of South Dakota again and decided to stick with our original plan, and am I glad we did!

 

We went to the Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead site in DeSmet South Dakota. For a map of where DeSmet is, click here. This was a very cool place! It is set on the quarter mile site where they actually lived from 1879 on, starting in the book "The Long Winter". They had all sorts of things for the kids to do that were "pioneer-ish".

 

 A covered wagon just like the Ingalls family would have used.

 



 A dugout. Damp, chilly and smelly! Also extremely small. The Ingalls family never lived in this one, but they did live in a similar one in Minnesota.

 

 An exact replica of the log cabin they actually lived in. They recreated it with the specs from the land claim her father filed in the early 1890's. There was a lady in there who explained all sorts of things about the cabin to the kids, including what their mattresses were made out of, how to make a toy with buttons and string and showing them the pump organ and sewing machine.

 After that, we took a covered wagon ride about a half a mile away to a one room school house, which was a similar one to the one that the Ingalls girls would have gone to. Their burned down in the early 1900's. The kids got to dress up and pretend they were in school. Very fun!

 All of us on the porch of the cabin.

 

This was a really neat place. I'm so glad we got to go, even though we were frozen by the time we got done. The kids have renewed interest in reading more of the books and being pioneers.

 

After that, it was off to Minneapolis (what a long drive, too!) When we got into Minneapolis, we checked into our hotel then drove to the Mall of America for dinner and some shopping.

The kids in heaven at the Lego store in the mall. Ironically, none of the kids bought anything there. The boys bought toys from a different store and Grace spent her money in the Hello Kitty store (yes, a whole store devoted to Hello Kitty!)

 

Sunday we spent the whole day at the Minnesota Museum of Science. A great place, on a gorgeous day! 

 Will helping a guy during a presentation we went to!

That night was Chinese food and a movie on TV in the evening. We were running out of steam for vacation by this day, I think!