Thursday, July 2, 2015

On the Banks of Plum Creek, Literally (Day Three!)

Woke up to this view outside the hotel window. It was about 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning, and the light was very soft, the kind of sky you almost never see in New Mexico.  The day would prove to be hazy and hot.
20150629_053036.jpg
We checked out of the hotel and went off for breakfast. There was a nearby Perkins, so we went there. Perkins is similar to IHOP but since we don't have Perkins in New Mexico, it seems somewhat novel though it's just another chain restaurant.
20150629_105418.jpg
On the way in we picked up a copy of the local newspaper, the Independent, which covers Southwestern Minnesota, and a copy of The Star Tribune, which covers the entire state.  We had our (terrible) coffee and read through the news while we waited for our breakfasts.
20150629_101342.jpg
We had both opted for something called The Garden of Eatin' Smasher, which was a pile of smashed tater tots covered with vegetables (broccoli!--the first we encountered on our trip--onions, peppers, and mushrooms), a couple of eggs, and a ladleful of completely unnecessary Hollandaise sauce. Dave also wanted some lemon blueberry pie pancakes (three blueberry pancakes stuck together with lemon pie filling and topped with whipped cream), so we ordered those. They had the strangest blueberries in them; they were a little like blueberry-shaped and -flavored pumice stones.

Anyway, it was a huge breakfast. It was like we were preparing for a day of hard labor rather than sitting in the car for a few hours.

We drove back to Walnut Grove, which was our ultimate destination for the day (well, mine anyway). Walnut Grove is a tiny town with no accommodations (which is why we had continued on past it and into Marshall the day before). The only reason Walnut Grove seems to exist these days is as a tourist and/or pilgrimage spot for Laura Ingalls Wilder fans.

That's why I was there, anyway.

We stopped at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum, of course, which is actually a little thin on Wilder things and very heavily into the history of Walnut Grove and the Little House on the Prairie television show (which I never watched because even as a child I recognized it as the sappy dreck it was).
20150629_113721.jpg
The museum is a nice little compound of buildings that are meant to represent aspects of life in Walnut Grove around the time Laura lived near there. (She was a fairly young child at the time, seven to nine years old in the books, and though she went to school in what would ultimately become Walnut Grove, she never mentions the town by name in the book.) There is a small chapel, a tiny schoolhouse, a building full of frontier-era antiques, and a house called something like "Grandma's House" that is a bunch of old-timey things, washboards and dolls and toys and such. There was also a display of Rose Wilder Lane's books and articles. (Rose was Laura and Almanzo's only child and she was a professional writer all her life. She was also quite a feminist in her time, which was nice to see.)

One of the small buildings had a display of a few things owned by Laura.
20150629_113922.jpg
Turns out she liked to crochet.
20150629_113951.jpg
She sewed, of course.
20150629_114030.jpg
And she read, which you probably could have guessed. (The book has the name that Laura went by most of her adult life, Bessie Wilder, which Almanzo started calling her when they got engaged (he actually called her Beth at first, then it got changed to Bess over time) partly because her middle name was Elizabeth and partly because he had a sister named Laura whom he apparently disliked.)

After seeing the museum, we looked around the gift shop. I picked up a book of articles by Rose Wilder Lane and Dave picked up a book of frontier songs and ditties that I imagine I'll be hearing on the clarinet sometime soon.  I also picked up a little cookie cutter in a Holly Hobbie shape to put on the altar that I have to my grandmother in the garden. (She sometimes used to decorate her sewn pieces with a Holly Hobbie motif.)

After we left the museum, we drove out to this place, which every Laura Ingalls Wilder fan will recognize if not by sight then by name.
"This must be the place," Pa said. "It's half a mile up the creek from Nelson's. We've come a good half-mile, and there's the creek."
Laura could not see a creek. She saw a grassy bank, and beyond it a line of willowtree tops, waving in the gentle wind. Everywhere else the prairie grasses were rippling far away to the sky's straight edge.
"Seems to be some kind of stable over there," said Pa, looking around the edge of the canvas wagon-cover. "But where's the house?"
Laura jumped inside her skin. A man was standing beside the horses. No one had been in sight anywhere, but suddenly that man was there. His hair was pale yellow, his round face was as red as an Indian's, and his eyes were so pale that they looked like a mistake. Jack growled.
20150629_130823.jpg
This is Plum Creek, the very same, from Laura's book On the Banks of Plum Creek. There Pa trades what he has for the bit of land along the creek.
Pa boosted Mary and Laura into the wagon and drove out on the prairie. He told Ma that he had traded Pet and Patty for Mr. Hanson's land. He had traded Bunny, the mule-colt, and the wagon-cover for Mr. Hanson's crops and his oxen.
He unhitched Pet and Patty and led them to the creek to drink. He put them on their picket-lines and helped Ma make camp for the night. Laura was quiet. She did not want to play and she was not hungry when they all sat eating supper by the camp fire.
"The last night out," said Pa. "Tomorrow we'll be settled again. The house is in the creek bank, Caroline."
"Oh, Charles!" said Ma. "A dugout. We've never had to live in a dugout yet."
20150629_130513.jpg
The dugout is long gone now, of course, and the land is privately owned by another family. There are plum trees there, but no willows, as Laura remembered. The land had been cleared to grow corn, but part of the land around the creek near the dugout site has been planted with grasses and flowers in an attempt to somewhat replicate what it looked like in Laura's time.

We walked around the site and took some pictures. When the mosquitoes became a bit to inquisitive, I picked a couple of small flowers and a bit of grass to press into the copy of On the Banks of Plum Creek that I've had since I was a little girl, and then we headed out.

We wanted to make it back to Minneapolis that day.

And, after many more miles of looking at corn and soybeans and grain silos, we did. We stopped for lunch at a random Subway in some random picturesque small town and then just kept going.

We decided, instead of going into Minneapolis, to stay at a place in Eagan. We checked in and carried our bags up and then turned around and went right back out to drive into Minneapolis to have dinner at a restaurant David likes called Everest on Grand.
20150629_182203.jpg

They serve Nepali, Tibetan, and Indian food. We shared an awesome samosa chaat as an appetizer. (It's a samosa, chopped up and covered with raita and chutney. It looks like someone vomited on a plate, but it tastes heavenly.) Then we ordered a couple of curries to share, one kauli (cauliflower with peas) and one kabuli-chaana (chickpea). We ordered everything medium spicy and when the waitress looked skeptical, I wanted to tell her, "We're not from here. We come from a place where people eat chile. We can take it!" But I didn't. (However, just to be on the safe side, I ordered some raita to go with our dinner.)
20150629_185925.jpg
And again, this is why I will never be a food blogger, because by the time I think to get a picture, it's all but over.

While we were having dinner, the clouds rolled in and turned black. The wind kicked up and it began to rain. It wasn't bad just yet--luckily so, since I had left my specially purchased and carefully packed raincoat back at the hotel. But by the time we got to our next destination, it was raining pretty heavily.

20150629_193001.jpg

Our next destination was, of course, Target (yet again!) so that we could finally pick out a bag to pack our pottery in. (We opted for a diaper bag because it was the sturdiest and had the most structure--and a changing pad to use as extra packing material.)

After that, I was starting to feel pretty dead on my feet. It had been a long day, so we went back to the hotel, shared a dark-chocolate-covered macaroon we had bought at the arts and crafts fair in Eagan the day before, and wrapped and packed all the pottery. I got about halfway through repacking my suitcase before I started to feel like I was about to fall over. So I asked Dave to set up the ironing board so that I could iron my clothes in the morning and then I changed into my pajamas, brushed my teeth, and fell into bed.

3 comments:

Helen said...

Had no idea that Laura liked to crochet. It's cool. When I go to museums/art galleries, I really enjoy seeing the old thread and wool work. When I was at the Burne-Jones exhibit in Kobe a couple of years ago I spent ages looking at the tapestries....They just spoke to me!'

I did watch quite a bit of Little House on the Prairie, but not all. I think it was taken off the station we had at the farm...and it was pretty saccharine.

I'm enjoying eating vicariously through your blog, even if you don't take your pictures in time!!!

Rosa said...

Hi Helen!

We do love our vacation eating! I was glad to have only put on a couple of pounds...

I remember reading that Laura crocheted the lace that went on Mary's dress when she went away to the school for the blind, but for some reason it didn't really register until I saw her crocheted work at the museum. Laura must have been crotcheting pretty much all her life then. Pretty amazing!

I think I remember reading in your blog something about the farm you lived on. Did you grow up on a farm? That's light years away from the life you have now, isn't it?

Helen said...

I didn't really grow-up on a farm, but when I was 12 we came back to Canada and then bought a farm. So, I was on a farm from age 12 to 18...I came back for summers for a bit during university. It wasn't really me. I am a city girl at heart!