Some pictures from our trip out west!

[CharlesFamily]

I know many of you are lucky to live with scenery like this, but this was our first trip west and it was just so beautiful!

This first one is my husband and youngest daughter walking through the prairie outside of Walnut Grove, Minnesota. We stopped in Walnut Grove and De Smet, SD, to tour the Laura Ingalls Wilder museums and homesteads at each place!

The second picture was taken in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. My oldest daughter took that picture during one of our hikes and I think she did a great job!

The third picture was one I took. It is also in Grand Teton Park. The girls were swimming in a pond there fed by a warm spring that one of the locals had told us about and we were watching a storm roll in over the mountains as we laid on the prairie.

I loved it out there and could've stayed forever - or at least until winter!

Barbara

 

[Charley]

Great Photos! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Gena]

Your pictures are beautiful!!! They sure make me miss Colorado (which is where I grew up) Thanks for sharing!!!

 

[Miss Gracie]

Absolutely beautiful!!! You have a great eye for photography.

Thanks for sharing!

Carol

 

[Frankie]

Wonderful pictures!!!!!! Thanks so much for sharing. With our 100+ days, it made me feel cooler for just a second.

 

[CZP1]

Great pictures! I have always wanted to go to Wyoming. Sounds like you had a great time!

 

[CharlesFamily]

Thank you for the compliments! Pictures don't even begin to do justice to the beautiful scenery out there. I was literally moved to tears a couple of times driving across Wyoming. The Black Hills in South Dakota are beautiful, too.

Carolyn - I can tell you I am definitely missing those 70 degree days with no humidity! That was the hardest part about coming back to Ohio!

Barbara

 

[barnbum]

Wow!! Am I ever glad I stopped here to peek at your photos. So beautiful... I can't pick a favorite. Your daughter has an amazing eye!!! Thanks for sharing these.

 

[REO]

GORGEOUS!!

When you posted about your trip, I had hoped you'd bring back pics OF Walnut Grove and those places of Laura Ingals so I could see. Did you take any?

 

[CharlesFamily]

Yes! I did take some of Walnut Grove and De Smet. I have to tell you about staying at the Ingalls Homestead in De Smet. That was my girls' favorite part of the entire trip and they keep begging to go back! It is an historical museum on the actual Ingalls homestead. They have recreated all of the buildings there and also added some different ones. They have a small campground so we stayed there.

It was getting late in the day and our girls were just running all over. The buildings are very children friendly with things they can touch and play with and set up just as they would have been. As the museum was getting ready to close I went in and asked the lady working there what time I had to have my girls out of everything and where they could play because it is just a big open farm really since they were closing soon. She said, "They can play wherever they want. Just make sure they shut the doors on any of the buildings." So, basically, my girls had the Ingalls homestead to themselves and played Little House on the Prairie on the actual Prairie for the entire night. They had the best time and I loved watching them!

Anyway, here are some pictures.

Picture 1 is the actual site of where the dugout the Ingalls family lived in on Plum Creek outside of Walnut Grove, Minn.

Picture 2 is of the girls in one of the buildings at the Ingalls homestead in DeSmet. Kind of a goofy picture of Olivia!

Picture 3 is what they call "Ma's Little House." It is an exact recreation of the house that Charles Ingalls built on the homestead. That's the house the girls spent most of the evening playing in.

Picture 4 - I'm pretty sure there were not minis on the prairie - but they had some mini mares staked out there and their foals running around who were very, very sweet. My girls had a great time playing with the babies.

Picture 5- the girls got to take turns driving the team pulling the covered wagon. It took us to a small one-room schoolhouse across the homestead. This wasn't actually a school the Ingalls children attended or one Laura taught in, but was an actual school that was in use until 1968!

 

[Mona]

ABSOLUTELY MAGNIFICENT!!!

GREAT photography!!!

 

[REO]

Oh thank you! I know I'll never go, so your pics meant a lot to me to see. I grew up watching the show and reading the books! So thank you for sharing your trip with me!

 

[AnnaC]

Really enjoyed looking at the pictures of your trip - the scenic ones are fantastic. Do you have any more for us to see?

Anna

 

[CharlesFamily]

REO - you are MORE than welcome! My favorite part about the trip as that it got both of my girls so into the books and the TV show. They still have reruns on the Hallmark channel so we DVR it and the girls watch it every day! Sooooo much better for them to watch than anything else on. They are also both now reading the series!

Anna - we took over a thousand pictures while we were out there, so I have tons! I'll post a few more of my favorites!

This is the girls playing on the Homestead. This is the actual well Charles Ingalls dug on the homestead. Behind the girls you can see the five cottonwood trees that he planted as described in one of the books.

This picture is the actual house that Charles Ingalls built for his family in town in DeSmet, SD. It's the one described in "These Happy Golden Years" and all of those. The house Laura and Almanzo were married in. Charles died in this house. They have a lot of artificats that actually belonged to the family here.

Ok - REO - this picture is the actual surveyor's house that you may remember the Ingalls family lived in the first winter they were in DeSmet. Laura describes it in "By the Shores of Silver Lake."

 

[CharlesFamily]

And here are a few more scenery pictures!

Boiling hot springs thermal area by Old Faithful. It is amazing to see these pools of water that are crystal clear and go down for several feet. But they are so hot they are literally boiling right there in the ground!

These two buffalo came walking right down the boardwalk at Old Faithful at Yellowstone!

The Crazy Horse monument - still in process! They have a great museum there and some wonderful plans for that area.

Mt. Rushmore!

 

[Becky]

Wonderful, wonderful pictures!

Since I'm not getting to 'vacation', it's so great to travel through someone else's eyes.

 

[REO]

COOL! Thank you!

 

[ohmt]

I just love taking those family vacations to sout dakota, wyoming, and montana. They are SO beautiful!!

Growing up in Minnesota I know first hand how beautiful it is there too. Trees and lakes everywhere you go.

I'll never be able to live in a city!

Thank you very much for sharing your gorgeous pictures!

 

[Matt73]

What stunning photos! Thanks so much for sharing them

 

[wpsellwood]

Great pictures!!! Im so happy I live in Colorado its so beautiful here. Not quite as cold as Montana.