Little Town on the Prairie

By the Shores of Silver Lake. Or, in this case, what used to be Silver Lake. It is now essentially dried up and at best is a marsh, shown behind Alex.

The girls climbing on Pa's trees. He planted these in the late 19th century when he homesteaded here. It is expected that they have a few more decades in them.

Today we visited De Smet, the final home of the Charles Ingalls family. We were able to tour the Surveyor's house (the Ingalls first home in De Smet), Pa and Ma's primary (and final) home in town, and De Smet's first school house where Laura and her sisters attended school. We also visited the Ingalls homestead site, the Wilder's homestead site, and the cemetery where Pa, Ma, Mary, Carrie, Grace, and the Wilder's son are all buried. It was a fun day and Alex loved it. I found it amusing that in some instances, Alex knew more details of the books and the history than the tour guides.

The girls enjoyed the now huge cottonwood trees on the Ingalls homestead site that Pa planted and we stopped by what was once the shores of Silver Lake. The lake is now drained and marshland, but you can imagine how pretty it must have been.

Oh, we also saw our first two signs for Wall Drug. We're going to attempt to keep a tally. Margaret and I remember hundreds when we drove across South Dakota after graduate school.

This afternoon we had time for more watersliding and relaxing in the room. Our Laura is glad to be done with the little house stuff as it didn't really groove her, but she's been looking forward to Mt. Rushmore for months so Tuesday should be exciting for her.