It was a really hot night. I don’t think it even dipped below 65 degrees. I’m really glad I didn’t put the rain fly on the tent, or we would have been staying in a sweat lodge. As it was, everyone but Phoebe had a difficult time sleeping both because it was too warm, and the full moon was lighting up the tent (Jada actually thought that someone had turned on a street light above our tent during the night. That’s how bright a full moon should be in the mountains. It cast a shadow when I made my midnight walk to the bathroom). It was really windy most of the night too. It wasn’t constant, but gusty. We decided to go ahead and just get up at 6am when Phoebe woke up. We made breakfast, packed up, and were on the road by 8:10am. Jada took the first shift driving today. She was worried about fighting the high winds at 75mph, but she adjusted to it quickly enough. We successfully resisted the urge to stop at Wall Drug. For those who don’t know, they put up road signs for hundreds of miles (we saw our first in Montana, I think), and then intensify them in South Dakota where the town of Wall is that hosts this drug store turned store/playground/restaurant/dinosaur museum/gold surveying establishment. Jada completed 150 miles of the drive before relinquishing the helm. I had to switch with her. I just couldn’t get comfortable in the passenger seat. Believe it or not, I just didn’t have the options for movement that I do in the drivers seat (8-way adjustable seat). We entered the Central time zone at 11:19 CST, so we lost another hour, but it also meant that the time we were shooting for on the Garmin just because that much closer. We had lunch at an Arby’s somewhere along the roadside in one of the many construction zones we had to drive through today. After leaving the highway, we were once again on these deserted roads all the way into De Smet (we really made our Garmin mad by referencing a map to second guess it’s directions. I think it was a little cold in its directions after that. Maybe it was just me.) [Definitely just Dave, I keep reminding him that it is just a machine!]
We reached De Smet by 3:20pm and found our hotel on the main drag in town. The Cottage Inn seems like a really nice place, and it’s very close (like every where else in the town) to the Ingall’s family sites. These are the sites from the books, not the “Little House on the Prairie” TV show. After getting settled, we headed over to where the tour starts at the Surveyor’s house, formerly of the Silver Lake area. The tour cost $24 for the 4 of us. The gift shop didn’t have any bumper stickers. Maybe I can find some out at the homestead tomorrow. The tour covered the sites in the town itself from the books On the Shores of Silver Lake Little Town on the Prairie, The Long Winter, These Happy Golden Years, and The First Four Years, as well as bits of information between, before and after these books. As I mentioned, the Surveyor’s house was the first on the tour. It has been moved from it’s original site into the town to better preserve it. Plus, Silver Lake was drained in the 1920’s, so it’s not there any more either. Then we saw the Brewster School house which was also moved in (That’s where Laura had her first teaching gig, and Almanzo would come to pick her up to bring her home every weekend). The De Smet first school house where Laura and Carrie went to school was there as well. They’re restoring it, and they’ve found that when it was converted to a house after a new school was constructed, they seem to have just papered over the chalkboards without erasing anything, so there’s still writing and drawings on it. Ellen was having fun impressing everyone with her knowledge of the kids in the classroom and where they would have sat since she had just been re-reading the books on the trip. Then we went over to the house that Charles Ingalls (Pa) built for Ma. It’s still the original house in the original location. The girls both got to play the working pump organ. (Photos weren’t allowed in the buildings, so I can’t show you). The store that Pa owned in town where they spent the Long Winter wasn’t there anymore. It had been torn down and the wood reused elsewhere long, long ago. Laura and Almanzo’s house is also not there because it burned down while they were living there prompting their eventual move to Missouri.
We took a break after the tour and went to have dinner at the Oxbow Restaurant across the street from our hotel, and then we took a drive out to the cemetery to see the grave sites of the family (except Laura and Almanzo who are in Missouri). Then it was back to the hotel for teeth brushing and bed. We got the girls to bed early (by the time we started the day in), but a little late by CST (7:30pm). It didn’t take them too long to fall asleep, surprisingly, since the room is a little warm, and the AC cranked up to high isn’t able to rectify that much.
We have a very limited WiFi signal. We only had it over in the restaurant while we ate, but we’re supposed to be able to get it here as well. They’re owned by the same people. We have no cell phone coverage here at all. However, I’m still cranking out these entries in the hopes that we can start firing them out one night. I get a shower tonight too. Woohoo! Though I think I’ll wait for Sioux Falls to shave my luxurious beard. It’s quite gray.
July 1: De Smet, SD to Sioux Falls, SD
Today is the shortest drive of our trip at 1.5 hours and only about 115 miles, but it gave us a lot more time to be at the Ingall’s homestead site this morning. Plus it was a rough night with the girls waking up at around 3am and being awake for at least an hour. It was just so hot and stuffy in our hotel room. The AC never did really do anything but provide white noise. We finally got back to sleep around 4am and woke up for good around 6:30am. It was already hot out in the sun, but the wind was blowing hard to keep it from feeling too hot. We are not accustomed to sleeping in such hot temperatures after camping for the last week waking up in low to mid 40’s. We ate cereal in the room for breakfast and did our dishes in the sink (shhhh. Don’t tell anyone). We picked up a bag of free ice from the front desk to put in our cooler and headed for the homestead site at 9am.
None of the original structures are present except the cottonwood trees that Pa planted for each of his girls. However, there are replicas of all the original structures including the house Pa built for Ma, the barn he built, and examples of a dugout sod house and shanty that are also featured in other books. The girls each got to pump water from a well, rope a (fake) calf, and ride (real) ponies. They also got to drive the mules, Suzie and Sally, on the wagon ride to the school house that was moved to the property to teach everyone about how 1 room school houses functioned back then. It was fun for the girls to have school since they got to put on frontier dresses to go along with the bonnets that they brought with them. At around 11:30am, we realized that we hadn’t given the girls a snack at all since breakfast. So, the blowup in the gift shop was not totally unexpected. They didn’t sell bumper stickers in the gift shop, but the lady at the counter thought it was a good idea, so she made a note to ask about getting some. I put the sticker to show that we were on the tour on the box instead.
We drove back into town to the Subway/Dairy Queen combo that was also a WiFi hotspot for lunch. I tried one of the pizzas that they make at the Subway. Not bad, but probably won’t get another one any time soon. We were on the road around 12:30pm. We arrived at our Country Inn and Suites destination in downtown Sioux Falls, SD just after 2 in the afternoon. The girls each did some piano since it had been a week since their last practice, and Jada and I rested as much as we could after a week of hard driving and playing.
For dinner, we walked to a place called Mama’s Ladas downtown on west 11th street. All they serve are enchiladas, but they were very good. Jada and I each had 1 chicken and 1 broccoli/cheese, Ellen had the chicken, and they made Phoebe a quesadilla. If you ever find yourself in Sioux Falls, SD, we highly recommend it. Go early, though, there’s not a lot of seating. We enjoyed the sculptures that the city has on display downtown on the walk to the restaurant and back along Phillips Street also. It’s something that they have up all year and people can vote for their favorites. I’m not sure if they rotate them every year, or if this is the first one. The girls really had fun looking at them all too. When we got back to the hotel, the girls got to go swimming. We got them to bed a little late again, unfortunately.
Tomorrow is a long day in the saddle into Rockford, IL.