Little House on the Prairie

August 23, 2009

Today was Day 3 of our trip. We started the day with quick stops at Pinky the Elephant, Muffler Man & Long Horn Steer. Past many Amish families on their way to church. The little girls looked like Laura in their bonnets.

Making it to Spring Valley for the Laura Ingalls Church & Barn sites. No pictures allowed in the church, which was crazy!! Beautiful stain glass windows, but I couldn't take any pictures. These is nothing in the church that belongs to Laura and the family, mostly just history of the town. The tour was a bit long and boring. Wish we could have done a self guided tour here.

After a long guided tour, we headed back to Burr Oak, Iowa for another guided tour of the Bank & Hotel associated with Laura Ingalls. Laura did not write about her time in Butt Oak, it was time of which she consider not a good or happy time. Grace was born in this town. Tour was great. Though other then the Hotel and Bank, there is nothing to this town. I would recommend this stop, since there is allot of history here. The tour guide was great, very knowledgeable, even though he was just in college.

But stops were shorter than expected, so we arrived in Rochester, Minnesota for the night very early. We will get some much needed rest before a very long day tomorrow.

We crossed the Mississippi River for the 6th time this morning starting in Wisconsin, crossing into Iowa. We then crossed the state line between Iowa & Minnesota three times just north of Burr Oak, Iowa.

windmills		Amish families on their way to church
	Pinky butt shot
I found Pinky!!	Pinky is wearing Jellybeans hat! :)
	Naomi and Pinky
	Mitch and Pinky	Long Horn and Cowboy
	Donny hugging Long Horn		Butt Shot!!
		Church Laura, Almanzo and Rose attended
Trying to ring the church bell

Wilder Barn.	still a working farm	Giant Cow
Figured I needed at least one picture of these, since we keep seeing them	Giant Fishy		Burr Oak
old bank	this county's first bank robbery happened here		Hotel the Ingalls managed and lived in

		Fantastic tour guide!!!! Best one on the whole trip.	saloon
owners room
		palor
soft sculptures of the Ingalls family		Ashton Drake dolls, why I don't have these dolls, I will never know!
Every stop we went to, had one of these organs and the kids always got to play on them		room off the palor
	Laura's handkerchiefs
very narrow stairs	upstairs rooms, very small and non had doors, heat more important then privacy		showing how narrow the stairs are
restaurant that Ma cooked for		room the Ingalls lived in, right below the saloon, and off the kitchen/restaurant in the basement
		pantry
Little House books in many languages	Mural on the stairs leading to the basement		basment

	back of the hotel with a covered wagon to play on	creek where they got their water
		the Ingalls/Wilder park behind hotel
there was once a house here, that Grace was born in			back of hotel
	ready to ride cross the prairies in our covered wagon		map of the Ingalls families travels
picture taken by request of Carolyn
Corn!			Corn water tower
	corn coming and going
			Giant Rooster
	cool spinning art thing on the side of the street		Duck
	world famous Mayo Clinic.		Mayo Clinic park

		Donny in the hotel pool

Little House on the Prairie - August 2009

August 23, 2009