The third day of our Little House on the Prairie adventure started out with a delicious breakfast at Prairie House Manor Bed & Breakfast in De Smet, South Dakota. We had a variety of selections to choose from and everything was hot and scrumptious. The owners made sure we had plenty of coffee and tea to start the morning off right because we knew we had a busy day.
After breakfast, we got in our cars and made our way over to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society, where we took a tour that started at the Gift Shop, then moved on to the Surveryor's House, the First School of De Smet, a replica of the Brewster School, and finally to the Ingalls home on Third Street, which was just a few houses down from the Prairie House Manor Bed & Breakfast. We didn't visit the Discovery Center because it seemed geared more toward children.
We took a trip out to the Wilder Homestead after that.
We also got a chance to check out Silver Lake and the Big Slough. When I think of the Big Slough, I remember Pa seeing how thick the muskrat dens were in The Long Winter.
We spent the rest of the day walking along Calumet Avenue, getting some shopping done at the Loftus Store, and reading the historical markers along the way. This one caught my eye and made me remember how Almanzo and Cap Garland went after the wheat to keep the people living in De Smet from starving during the hard winter.
As a lover of history, I enjoyed learning more about the history behind some of the buildings. I also found it sad that some of the buildings in town were vacant. I was actually surprised how early the businesses close. Many close at 4 p.m. The public library is open until 5 p.m. The Loftus Store usually closes at five too, but has special hours during pageant weekends.
It's definitely a different culture in the Midwest than I am used to here in the Northeast. Here, we have an ATM in every bank (and there are a ton of those), plus ATM machines inside convenience stores and malls. In De Smet, I could only find an ATM in a convenience store. They only had one bank that I could see. I thought I might be able to pick up an extra memory card for the camera while I was in town, but they didn't have any and there were no big box stores nearby.
We ended the day by relaxing in the parlor of the Prairie House Manor Bed & Breakfast. After tea and coffee, and a yummy homemade snack, we went to bed early because we had to be on the road before 8:30 the next day if we wanted to arrive in Walnut Grove, Minnesota on time.
Look for more news about my LHOP adventure soon. You can go back to Days 1 and 2 by clicking here.