Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Little House in the Big Woods


Yesterday we went to Pepin, WI, the town closest to where the Ingalls family lived in the big woods.

The museum is in town. It's small, and we had the place to ourselves.


This quilt belonged to Laura.


In the books, Laura doesn't go to school until they live on Plum Creek but based on the signs here, apparently she actually did go to school in Pepin. Her teacher was Anna Berry.


This dress was Anna Berry's. There were other things that belonged to her and her family in the case next to it.


A tin lantern.


There was a room set up like a one room school.


A replica of a farm wagon. Imagine packing everything for a family of 5 into this space and traveling across the prairie!

Another room had an area for kids to play. I love the kid sized cook stove!



There was a pump organ. They had the keyboard blocked so kids didn't mess with it. But the curator said she'd unlock it if we wanted to play it. Mom knew how it works, so she showed Ashlyn and Ashlyn played a couple songs.


A clove apple. I didn't realize they covered the whole thing, I assumed they did it more like we've done clove oranges, with just a design of cloves.


There was a wardrobe of vintage clothes donated by people in Pepin. Lexie asked the curator if she could remove some of them to see them better. The curator said sure, just be careful. Lexie was giddy and spent the rest of her time there examining everything.


Baby shoes. Ashlyn pointed out that they're not very different from the Robeez soft shoes I used for my babies :)


This cape had a note pinned to it saying it belonged to one of the Ingalls aunts.

After we left the museum we headed out to the actual site of the cabin.

The cabin, and woods, are long gone but they've built a replica.


Finally, we went down to the shore of Lake Pepin. There was a small beach area that we went down and waded. The shoreline is all beautiful rocks. No wonder Laura ripped her pocket trying to collect them all :)


We'd planned to stay in Pepin last night but couldn't get the campground to return our calls, and nobody at the affiliated hotel knew how to get ahold of the campground owner, so we gave up and drove an hour or so toward Walnut Grove before spending the night in a Walmart lot.
posted from Bloggeroid

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