Day 18 ~ Across the Prairie

What a long day of driving!!!!

We had a decent sleep at the Baymont, but the breakfast was terrible.  No pool time this morning... we were off for the first of four really long days in the car as we head toward home. 

The first part of this week was nice to have the must-see stops close together, but it makes the end of our drive home hard because we have to make up for it by driving so long.  

We started out our day with tour stops early on.  Right out of our hotel, we crossed the Missouri River and visited the Akta Lakota Museum.  They had numerous displays of the tribe's way of life and history.  There was also a small section about the church and school they started for the native kids.  At first they had institutional type dorm rooms, but later moved to family style homes, which they still use today.  The whole center was nicely put together and an easy read.  The bathroom signs were a little confusing, and we learned the hard way!

Down the road a few miles (still in SD) was a highway welcome center that focused on the history of Lewis and Clark, since one of their camps was made there on the Missouri.  There were artifacts, tents, and supplies represented.  Someone had sculpted a metal native lady, and there was a teepee art form of concrete that looked pretty cool.

After we left there, we had hours upon hours of driving through SD, and then finally Minnesota.  As we moved over the flat, open land, we had a storm moving around us and it felt very ominous.  We could see dark, grey clouds for many miles.  I was on the lookout for a tornado cloud, and thankful I didn't see one in this front.  

We made it to Walnut Grove in the afternoon and explored a little bit of the area where Laura Ingalls grew up.  I had been wanting to stop somewhere she had lived as we traveled out west and back, and this seemed like the easiest to plan.  It was pretty neat to drive across and view Plum Creek and imagine her and her sisters playing in the water like my kids liked to when they were little.  There was a small museum with older style replica buildings, but we didn't tour any of them.  I really just wanted to see where she grew up and any original structures.  We saw one old mercantile building where the Ingalls family went to church in the upstairs part, and Pa Ingalls had helped with the maintenance and construction of it.  The museum owns the building now, and are in the process of renovating it, so we couldn't go in.  We then drove by the land where her dugout house had been (On the Banks of Plum Creek--makes me want to go back and read the book again!)

We headed back out to drive another hour before settling down in Mankato.  We drove through Springfield and Sleepy Eye, but I believe these are towns only mentioned in the tv series and not her books.

There's not much to talk else about with these small Minnesota towns and roads.  Very little is happening here!

We finally made it to the Comfort inn in Mankato, and to our pleasant surprise, there was another hot tub and pool, so we relaxed again and then played some board games in the room.