Walnut grove

First stop Burr Oak. The Master's hotel where Charles and Caroline lived and worked for a time was still there. They had one room to sleep all five of them, just off the main kitchen and dining area. Caroline was responsible to feed up to thirty people every meal. No wonder they didn't stay long.

On to Spring Valley. This is a nice town where Almanzo's parents the Wilders lived. They had a prosperous farm. Royal had a store and is buried in the cemetery. Laura and Almanzo lived here a year after the disasters in South Dakota. We took a tour of the church they attended and at the end I rang the bell.

I blame it on the heat. I hadn't even thought about gas. Hadn't filled up since Lacrosse and sure enough a few miles outside of Welcome MN I felt the car lurch, and then lurch again. We had run out. I really had no idea where I was. If it weren't for the little blue button on my phone telling me where I was I wouldn't have been able to tell AAA where to find me. By the time the AAA guy came I was feeling very bad. It was so stupid, so stupid. At least I had been able to coast to an overpass so we had shade on that continually hot day. That took an hour of our already short day. I'm thankful that is all it was.

We still had time though to see the sod houses. They were interesting to see but just as wonderful was the prairie they were restoring. What a cool thing

We also had plenty of time to check into our hotel in Tracy, get dinner and buy tickets to the pageant. It felt like the Manti pageant with everyone driving into a pasture to park. They had a singing group to entertain us before hand. The pageant itself was interesting. A different take on the Walnut grove story than the books or tv show. It was the perspective of those left behind who have made it their home. They included all that happened to the Ingalls in Walnut Grove both times they lived there. Some was stereotypical men and women conflict, Caroline was more complaining than it usually depicted, and it was more faith filled than I would have expected. Also some inside jokes which had the locals laughing.

Later, at the festival the next day, we sat next to some ladies who asked about our stop. They said the fire scene had real fire. That was impressive. There was a lot that happened to the Ingalls here and it was impressive to hear about it all in the place it happened.