A Quick Post About a Day of Driving!

Going back to earlier in our trip, the day after Sleeping Bear Dunes was a driving day. I happened to take some fun pictures that day so thought I'd share them in a quick post:


The campground we left that morning had tetherball that the girls had fun playing with while we were getting ready to pull out.


We crossed the Mackinac bridge to the UP that day.

Having fun with my phone while we drove:




That night our campground was right on Lake Superior. This was the view out our window

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On the Banks of Plum Creek

We spent today exploring Walnut Grove, MN.



The museum included lots of hands on stuff. Little Bit enjoyed playing in the post office


And bank


Papa explained to Lexie how telephone switch boards worked.


The store was fun to play in too.


I'm not sure what it had to do with Laura Ingalls, but there was a doll collection, including a bunch of Kewpie dolls. My Grammie collected Kewpie dolls.


Lexie loved getting to see a wood cook stove up close. Now she's trying to figure out how to get a chance to actually cook on one.


There was a reconstruction of a dugout at the museum.


Also a house the size of the "big" house Pa borrowed money to build in Walnut Grove. It wasn't very big lol


If a person had the time, there were lots of notebooks of information about people and places. This woman is one of the other people that Laura combined to make up the Nellie Olsen character in her books.


Almanzo's sister Eliza who taught in De Smet.


A replica of the writing desk Laura brought with her from SD to MO.


A little fur cape and muff.


One of Laura's quilts.


There was also a buffalo coat like Pa wore when he waited out the blizzard on the creek bank. I wanted to take a picture of but the reflection on the glass case was too bad.

We also drove out to the dugout site. The creek picture above is from there.



It was smaller than I'd imagined.

We followed a walking trail near the dugout and were eaten alive by mosquitoes but the prairie flowers were pretty.


The church bell that Pa helped pay for was later sold to the Lutheran Church and is still being used so we stopped and took a picture of it. The book says Pa gave $3. The museum said he gave $26!

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Sleeping Bear Dunes

We spent Aug 29 at Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan.



The girls and my mom earned their Junior Rangers which required driving through various parts of the park. As part of that we stopped by a cool covered bridge.


And found Alligator Hill


These dunes had big signs warning you not to climb down. People were doing it anyway and the ranger we talked to later said they end up having to rescue people frequently.


Then we moved on to the dunes you're allowed to climb. Little Bit, my mom, and Lexie climbed them. You can see Little Bit's bright pink skirt. They climbed on up out of sight but said it just kept going so they turned around.


Finally we headed back to the visitor center to get their Junior Ranger badges.

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Missing picture

For some reason blogger was giving me fits when I was posting earlier today and, since I needed to get it posted while I was in Sam's with WiFi because of it having the video in it, I went ahead and posted it without the picture that was giving me fits. But can't leave it out so it gets its own post. One of my favorite things from the Pepin museum, they had a pig's bladder there!

It was smaller than I expected, probably because the picture in the book makes it look bigger.

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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.

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Cuyahoga Falls, OH

We spent the third day of our trip (Aug 26) Cuyahoga Falls.

The girls, and my mom, earned their Junior Ranger.

One of the requirements was to jump on one foot in a canal lock.



Another of the requirements was to find a "quest", and stamp their books.



After they finished their Jr Ranger books we hiked to the falls.



That evening, in the motorhome Little Bit attempted to paint the waterfall we'd seen.

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