Day 2: Pepin, Wisconsin

I can't believe I'm saying this but we made it from Pepin to De Smet in one day! I'm sure others before us have also, but the kids LET us and that is the point. 

Victory! For now, I want to look back on our day in Pepin. 

Just in case you didn't pick up on this yet, Pepin is my first home site I've ever visited!  I said to Joe "pinch me! Am I dreaming?!" He laughed at me and shook his head, and then pinched me. Ouch! But then I knew. I was AT MY FIRST LAURA INGALLS WILDER HOME SITE!  It was not like I imagined but then again, what did I expect? That Ma and Pa would be there to greet me? The museum and gift shop were closed, but a number was listed for someone named Mary who would come open it for me. I sort of wish in retrospect that I had, but I was feeling anti-gimmicky and pretty amped up over the Little House Wayside - the replica cabin of her birth and early childhood - seven miles out of town.   

Winding through the majestic bluffs that surround the Mississippi River, I got a real sense of Pa urging the horses up the hilly (now paved Co. Rd.CC) toward home after a day of trading furs for dry goods. The cabin itself stood alone on a slope of the Ingalls' actual homesite on the side of the road with a few outbuildings. The older kids ran straight to it and then tiptoed in. Josie tried hard to catch up, as became her role every day of the trip, and with her blonde hair and curls, I began to call her Baby Grace. I can feel an old timey reenactment of Grace's two year old tintype becoming a reality when we get home!

The Little House Wayside

I took it all in, wandering slowly throughout.  When we were all in it together, I gave a mock tour of the cabin, filling it in with bits from Little House in the Big Woods. I subsequently did that at each site, and flatter myself I did almost as good a job as our one and only tour guide at the sites (in De Smet) haha. I WISH that my real life job was to spend my whole day talking about Laura!

Me, as tour guide. They even look like they were listening!

Me and four of my babies in the Little House Wayside cabin. 

Hey look! My very own Mary and Laura!

After looking about a bit, we trekked back into town so the kids could play at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Park, which I imagine is full of LIW picnickers in the summer months. There is a neat depot museum there too, not open in March, but the kids played around on the outdoor wagon and trains while Joe took pictures of me with a huge smile plastered all over my face😄

I feel sorry for the kids who built this huge snowman in the park. My kids dismantled it. 

Lake Pepin

We rounded out this trip by visiting the shores of beautiful Lake Pepin, which is essentially a widening of the Mississippi River.  Here, we collected "pebbles" just as little girl Laura did, only we took care not to take too many lest ma scold us for being greedy. 😂

Laura took so many she tore the pocket of her dress. I only let my little "Laura" (Mollie), who is reading LHITBW right now, take a few. 

Sadly, it was then time to go. Although we came in the off season, the trip was well worth it. The natural landscape lends enough fodder to fill your imagination for what it must have been like for little girl Laura, but mostly for Ma and Pa, who are the actual main characters in this book. A lovely morning in Pepin came to a close.