Beyond Little House | Get Out and Walk

Lots of people making a Laura trip — what we tend to call a trip to Laura’s homesite towns — for the first time, especially those who haven’t researched much beforehand, might not know what to expect. But the more you put into prepping a trip and asking questions ahead of time, the more you get out of it. Most of these towns don’t tell you everything in a one-stop-shopping format; all of them house extra little jewels if you’re willing to dig.

No matter which Laura town you visit, the best piece of advice I can give you is this: Park your car, get out, and walk. Laura didn’t experience these towns zooming by looking through her car window, and to get the best experience, neither should you. This lesson was borne into me again on a trip to De Smet, South Dakota, where I had my favorite Laura experience.

It was during a Laura conference. After the conference broke up for the day, my mother and I headed out to the Ingalls Homestead, the land southeast of town that the Ingalls family homesteaded in the 1880s. I was wearing a long dress and walked up the road from the schoolhouse back to the front gate. The sun beat down, the wind tossed the prairie grasses, kids were singing, insects were buzzing, little clouds of dust swirled up with each step and my skirts swirled around my ankles. This was the very road that Laura and her whole family must have walked a thousand times. I felt like Laura could be coming over the hill at any minute. It was really a magical experience.

Walking’s also a more practical way to get a feel for any town. I’ve walked all over De Smet. It really helps you get a feel for the town as Laura knew it, to get the relation of places to one another if you look from two feet on the ground rather than in a car. De Smet even boasts an official walking tour now. Walking there is very doable and I even met a family once who had taken an airport shuttle to town (from the “big city”) and were walking literally everywhere for the week all over De Smet. I gave them a ride back to the hotel after the pageant in the dark, but they’d walked from that home base as far as the Ingalls Homestead, the De Smet cemetery where the Ingalls graves (all but Laura’s) are, and the site of Rose’s birthplace north of town.

When I took a bus trip to Malone (documented in the Winter 2007-2008 issue of the Homesteader), the bus to take us from our lodging in the center of town out to the Wilder Homestead wasn’t leaving until 9 am. Well, I wasn’t about to waste a couple hours in Malone. So my partner in crime, Mary Kopsieker, and I started walking. Starting at the Super 8, where we were staying, we walked as far the Congregational Church locating related sights around town. By the time we returned to the bus and we drove back by, people were amazed at how many places I could point out around town.

Street signs on the corner in Pepin, Wisconsin

Pepin is another town that provides a great example of getting a feel for it by walking. When I am town for Laura Ingalls Wilder Days (which happen every September — it’s a great time, especially for kids; check it out if you’re ever in Wisconsin in the fall), I tend to park my car either by the Pepin Public Library (where there usually are presentations, including mine) or the Pepin Motel if I’m staying there, which is right next to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Park where the events are held. Then I leave it there until I head over to the Wayside (the replica cabin site at Laura’s birthplace, seven miles outside of town) and the Little House Store in Lund, which is past the cabin and not affiliated with the offical Wilder museum, but still worth wandering through.

Walking gives you a real feel for the town and how close things are. In the right part of town — along the marina and uphill from there — you’ll see all kinds of unique shops that exemplify Pepin’s diverse, artistic population. Someday, just as Pa did, I’m going to walk all the way out to the Wayside. As soon as I can talk somebody into doing it with me.