We have 151 pre-registered for LauraPalooza. This is quite a jump from my original vision! I have since upgraded the space we’ll use for most events to a larger area–the ballroom–in the Centennial Student Union. This has allowed us to offer more slots on a first-come, first-served basis during the conference. Day passes will be sold until they run out–there are about 80 slots each day available–starting at 7:30 a.m. each day. Cost is $30. Saturday’s pass includes activities at the Betsy-Tacy houses in downtown Mankato. Day passes include admission to all presentations.

We regret there are no more tickets available for either the Recognition Banquet or the Tin Pail lunch, nor is there space available in the dorms.

What about parking at Minnesota State University, Mankato?

If you view the campus map available here,  you will see all the campus parking lots noted on the second page. The Green and Purple lots hold free parking during the summer. While there is a new freshman orientation occurring simultaneously with LauraPalooza on Thursday, there should be ample parking available in Lots 16 or 13, which are closest to the Centennial Student Union, Sears Hall, and the Carkoski Commons dining area. Optionally, there is a visitor’s pay lot directly across the street from the CSU, which might be a better option for some who are simply coming for the day.

I’m staying at the dorms; do I need to bring linens?

No. Sheets, towels, and pillows are provided. There is no daily housekeeping service, such as you would find in a hotel, but you can get fresh towels at the front desk if you’d like them.

I need special accommodations for a disability. What’s available?

All three spaces are in full compliance with accessibility standards. Those staying in the dorms will be on the second floor; there is handicapped-accessible parking right at the side entrance of Sears. There are also elevators for those who can’t take stairs. Handicapped-accessible parking at the CSU and Carkoski also is available. The ballroom, which is where all LP events will take place in the CSU, is on the second floor, but again, there are elevators–in this case, two banks on either end of the ballroom area.

What about technical needs?

The campus is wireless with guest access available. In the dorms, you will need an ethernet cord for your laptop computer to access the MSU network as a guest.

I can’t go this year! Will you do this again?

Let’s see how this goes! But based on excitement and enthusiasm, it’s certainly possible. Right now, we’re focusing on getting this first LauraPalooza off the ground and running.

Laurapalooza 2010

Saturday July 17

Walnut Grove, MN

Itinerary

About 2 p.m.: Arrive in Walnut Grove

11 a.m. to 6 p.m.: **Family Festival, Walnut Grove City Park

**Art Exhibit                                    3 p.m. to 8 p.m.

**Museum Tours                        All day until pageant starts

3:30 p.m. Dean Butler Speaks, Museum

4 p.m. Load at WG School for bus tour to Plum Creek.

6 p.m.  Pageant Supper

8 p.m.  LIW Pageant Singers, Pageant site

9-9:30 p.m. Start (Dusk) LIW Pageant

**These activities are interchangeable.

Amy here: All ticketed items were included in the trip fee, and those who registered for the trip will have a special stamp on their name tags indicating they’ve paid for Walnut Grove. We’ve left plenty of time in the schedule for shopping, looking, and enjoying the area.

Looking forward to it!
Amy

What should she wear this summer to LauraPalooza?

This question, fraught with potential faux pas and challenging for those flying in, deserves a deeper discussion here on Beyond Little House.

Presenters, of course, should dress up for their presentations. None of us wants to look unofficial or unapproachable.

The official Beyond Little House/LIWLRA T-shirt would work well for those not presenting. Laura attire of all sorts will be encouraged. We will have two other T-shirt designs to pick from this summer, available in the LIWLRA booth in the vending area. One focuses on Laura’s Farmer Boy; the other is the conference T-shirt. Members get 10 percent off these items. Any other home site tees or other Laura-related attire would work if you have it, but it’s not required. Business casual dress would be ideal.

We will also encourage people to dress in period attire, if they have it and can fit it in a suitcase, for the Ice Cream Social Wednesday night and for the Spelling Bee, to be held during the Tin Pail Lunch on Saturday before the Walnut Grove field trip. (By the way, those who participate in the Spelling Bee will be eligible for prizes, including a Laura bobblehead courtesy of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove.)

Good walking shoes for Friday morning activities at the Betsy-Tacy Society and the Walnut Grove field trip are encouraged, also. Plum Creek is clear and pristine, but it’s still a creek, so be prepared to clean  your feet off if you choose to wade in it as Laura did.

No matter where you’re coming from this summer, think business casual this summer. And think cool–while all our buildings are air-conditioned, including the Sears residence hall, July in Minnesota can get HOT. And humid.

Bonnets are optional.

But what do prairie roses look like?

I took this picture Sunday, during a trip to see the Pipestone quarries at Pipestone, Minn., now a national park. The quarries, which are accessible only to American Indians, yield the stone that many consider sacred to their religions. They use the stone to create pipes and other materials.

The quarries sit in the middle of the prairie, and a long trail takes one through the quarries, to surprising sites such as Winnewissa Falls and the initials of the Nicollet expedition engraved in rock. Along the route, different plants are identified by signs, and this plant was clearly identified.

Prairie Rose.

In its beauty, we can see the love Laura had for her daughter.

Sarah S. Uthoff, Trundle Bed Tales

De Smet Pageant

The De Smet News carried a big article on the De Smet Pageant. This year for the first time they are going to do an adaption of The First Four Years. The script was written by Orval Van Deest. Van Deest says “This will be something new for the audience, something they have not seen before.” He also wrote last year’s script which I think showed his experience. He is a South Dakota native who spent 26 years teaching university level theater and directing theater productions. Marion Cramer, known to many visitors, for her work in the one-room school at the Ingalls Homestead, is once again the musical diretor. Cramer has written several pageant scripts previously.

Other improvement this year come in the lighting and sound systems. They are replacing the current lavaliere mics that attach to clothing with “face bud” models that are currently popular in concert settings and with some Broadway shows. The change will make changing between outfits quicker and give the technical crew better control for balance when several different people are speaking. They will also hard wire a mic into each set to backup these people based mics. Special equipment was also installed for special scenes, one featuring fire and one featuring moonlight.

http://desmetpageant.org

Sarah S. Uthoff,  http://trundlebedtales.wordpress.com

Plum Creek from the water surface

One of the best experiences you can have at Walnut Grove is wading in Plum Creek at the Dugout Site. Make sure you bring along a towel and maybe a change of clothes with you in case of accident. I hadn’t gone wading my first few trips, because I’ve gone wading in creeks around home and not particularly enjoyed it, but Plum Creek is much, much nicer to wade in than any other creek I’ve been in. The bottom is mostly flat. The main channel is rounded sand that feels good on the feet. The first time I went,  if I stood still small fish nibbled at my feet just like Laura’s.

The water is cold so be prepared for that. My first time wading it was just around my ankles. This year it was practically up to my knees and I stepped into one deep hole that was a shockingly quick dip halfway up my thigh. Many people like to go in and wade across the creek to the dugout site. However, the banks right there are steep

Wading in Plum Creek

and muddy. I have seen people have trouble getting up, especially on the dugout side. I prefer to get in and out at the Big Rock where the bank slowly levels into the creek. Last time I could wade from there all the way to the dugout, but this time a fallen tree blocked me, but it was still a nice long wade. It’s an experience I highly recommend and it’s always fun to even watch other people wade, especially the girls in their Laura dresses. So, with apologies to Douglas Adams, grab a towel and climb in the creek.

Sarah S. Uthoff,

http://trundlebedtales.wordpress.com

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.

You don’t have to walk as far as that, but I encourage everyone wherever you go on your next Laura trip: Get out and walk!

Sarah S. Uthoff, Trundle Bed Tales

If it helps, I’ll be with my two kids, aged 7 and 4.

(Lest I lead anyone astray, I feel obligated to point out that the Anderson Inn is in Wabasha, Minnesota–not Pepin, Wisconsin. However, it’s a perfectly reasonable drive to Pepin, just over the Mississippi.)

If you are planning a Little House vacation, here is all the information you’ll need to be off to great start.

1. Use a tour guide. Guided Little House vacations are available through Little House Site Tours, LLC.

2. Decide where to go. Thanks to Pa’s “itching foot,” there are Little Houses scattered about all over. Read this post to help you choose which ones to visit.

3. Decide when to go. Click here for information about traveling during the summer pageant season, and read this post for help with traveling during the off-season.

4. Decide where to stay. We do not provide information on or recommendations for standard lodging options as these are subject to change, but there are two lodging choices in De Smet, South Dakota, that we absolutely must recommend: The Prairie House Manor Bed and Breakfast and camping at the Ingalls Homestead. Having trouble deciding which place you’d prefer? No problem. Spend two nights at De Smet and try them both out — there’s plenty to keep you occupied in De Smet to justify the second night stay.

5. Add in unrelated stops along the way to keep everyone in your traveling party happy. Here are some tips on attractions en route to the Little Houses that you may wish to work into your vacation.

6. Gather information about each Little House site you intend to visit so you know what to expect and plan for. Informative links, including all official homesite links, are provided for you at our “Go Beyond” page.

7. Enjoy the experience of stepping into the pages of Laura’s books by visiting the places she lived and wrote about. Any other questions? Email us at beyondlittlehouse @ gmail.com and we’ll be happy to assist you! Happy trails!