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After the mud run, we hit the road, heading east, toward home. We mostly did a lot of driving, but we did make a couple stops along the way. One was Walnut Grove, MN, which was the the location of the dugout the Ingalls family stayed in for a time while Pa built a frame house for them (On the Banks of Plum Creek). There’s a visitor’s center in town, and you can visit the dugout site a few miles down the road.
The visitors center had a variety of old buildings and replicas of old buildings. The old jail cells are a bit of an odd addition, and Sunshine wanted to know how the prisoners stayed dry when it rained or snowed 🙂
After walking around the visitor’s center and checking out all the historical displays, we drove to the dugout site. It’s on private land, but the owners allow people to drive back to the site. There’s a box to collect fees (honor system) and a parking lot and picnic tables. We were nervous about the parking lot, but after checking it out on the satellite view of google maps we decided it looked big enough for us to turn around in as long as no one else was there. It was indeed large enough, and since we were the only ones there when we pulled in, we were able to pull the RV and car around and park in a good position.
The hollow in front of the sign is the location of the old dugout. You can cross the stream on a bridge a little further upstream, and there’s several markers and a couple walking trails with descriptions of the local plants and wildlife. While they’ve been able to pinpoint the location of the dugout, they don’t know where the barn or frame house stood.
The rock we’re standing on is mentioned in the book On the Banks of Plum Creek, though it has sunk over the years.
The boys enjoyed their ride 🙂
We had planned on visiting the Little House in the Big Woods site in Pepin, WI after this stop, but our timing was off and we weren’t going to arrive until after they closed, so we skipped it. We’ll visit another time- there’s always more road trips in the works.
