Pepin Wisconsin

    We have been riding for days and days, and we have finally made it to Little House country.  We arrived this morning at a replica of the little house in the big woods.  It was a little house, and very nice and cozy, but it did not seem like the little house in the big woods because there were no woods around it at all!  Amanda liked it because it was unpretentious and not touristy, but Tia Judy wanted it to be in the big woods.  Pa would not be happy to see it, either.  They left there in 1874 because Pa thought it was getting too crowded.  Over the years more and more settlers have come and now much of the big woods is gone to make room for farm land.

Little house (not) in the big woods

     We had to drive in search of woods, and we found some, but they did not seem like the mature woods that Laura described.  She said, “To the east of the little log house, and to the west, there were miles upon miles of trees…” (Wilder 2). It was also hard to imagine all the wild animals the Laura wrote about that lived in the big woods, such as wolves, bears, huge wild cats, foxes, deer, muskrats, mink, otters and rabbits.  We did not even see any tracks, just my little puppy tracks.

Woods of Wisconsin

     We did see a lot of wildflowers such as Laura described.  In springtime Laura saw “buttercups and violets, thimble flowers and tiny starry grassflowers…” (Wilder 156).  We saw summertime flowers.

Beautiful wildflowers not in the woods, but along the side of the road

     And, do you know what?  We met some girls who are doing a Little House tour, too. They made T-shirts that say “Charles Ingalls for President.”  We think Pa is pretty cool, too, the way he loves untouched nature, and how he is not afraid of anything, and can build everything.

Pa for President

    Oops.  Well, Pepin is a little touristy, we found out.  They have one of those boards with a painting of Laura and a hole for little girls to put their heads through.  Ha!  I bet they never expected a little dog to put her head through it! 

Rosie becomes a tourist. Eek!