Tuesday, August 9, 2005

Vacation destination: De Smet, South Dakota

Why? Well, it's one of the places Laura Ingalls Wilder lived and wrote about!

In De Smet, a railroad surveyor's house where the Ingalls family lived during the winter of 1879-1880 and a house built in 1887 by Laura's father, Charles, are the top attractions, Palmland says.

Sixteen other sites mentioned in the "Little House" series can be found there, too, along with the cemetery where Wilder's parents, three sisters and an infant son are buried.

A pageant that retells the Ingalls' family story is held each July.
It'd be a pain to get out there--40 miles from the nearest interstate and 100 miles from the nearest big city--but I think it'd be worth it someday. Maybe when I finally go on my nationwide road trip...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

OOOOOOOHH!! I would TOTALLY GO, TOO!! I LOVED those books when I was a little girl; THAT'S a series I read cover to cover over three times! Plus I got the other, later books not included in the popular set. And a book by her daughter. And a biography, although I don't remember if it was an AUTObiography, or not, now. When I saw the title of your post, I checked it out, because I said to myself when I read it, "Laura Ingalls Wilder lived there!"

FUN FUN!!

Heather Meadows said...

I haven't read them in many, many years, and I would never have recognized the name of that town :D