Monthly Archives: May 2012

“Ambition Is Necessary to Accomplishment.”

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The beginning: Lake Pepin, where it all began for Laura Ingalls Wilder, author

My goals for the WordCount Blogathon are twofold. Primarily, I am going to write about Laura Ingalls Wilder’s homesites — the places she lived throughout her life — and provide tips and general information about traveling to and between them. As each ebook is released, I’ll provide information on them and a place where those who want to buy them can do so.

My second goal is to learn. I’ve been blogging on and off since 2003 and for the past few years have participated in the maintenance of the blog of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association, Beyond Little House. But my knowledge of WordPress is just on the level of keeping myself out of trouble. I have a lot to learn. So for the next 27 days, don’t be surprised by change. I may switch out the theme so it looks different than you’re used to. I’ll be adding and subtracting widgets on the sidebar. I may muck around with fonts and photos. Pages will be appearing everywhere, usually with announcements, sometimes not. I’ll be embracing change, day after day.

If I do everything right, I will have a robust and fully functional Web site, complete with blog and options for ebook purchasing, by June 1.

I’ll also be working to integrate this site more fully with the Facebook page for Little House Travel and the Twitter feed.

You can help. Let me know what you’d like to see. Ask a question. Suggest an idea. I’m all ears, and I’m all about experimenting until June 1.

So Many Ways of Seeing Things and So Many Ways of Saying Them

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If you’re interested in learning more about traveling to the Little House homesites, or you just want to hear about others’ shenanigans, we’ve got lots of options. One is to simply to read this blog. You can also become a fan of Little House Travel on Facebook.

Railroad tracks adjacent to Silver Lake in De Smet, South Dakota

Got a friend who always talks about making their way to the Midwest someday to see the places Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about? Send them over.

If you’re on Twitter, follow @chasinglaura.

Want to be alerted when the ebook(s) are ready for your Kindle or Nook? You can certainly keep checking in on the blog, on Facebook, or on Twitter, but you can also write littlehousetravel@gmail.com and you’ll get an email when they are available.

Got a question about Little House Travel? Write me and I’ll help.

The Art of Renovation

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One of the nice things about traveling to the Little House sites — “homesites,” we Laurafans call them — more than once is seeing how they change over the years. And they do change. Rotating exhibits, continuous improvement … time and resources permitting, it keeps going on. Rocky Ridge Farm at Mansfield, Missouri, where Laura spent the last sixty-plus years of her life (and wrote a book or two), for example, is embarking on an ambitious, complete renovation that will throroughly improve the grounds and all the structures on it.

This picture is of the gift store at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove, and that’s what it looked like the last time I was there. (In fact, that there green mug on the shelf to the right is what I drink my fresh-from-the-French-press coffee from at least three times a week.)

Well, that’s not quite true. The coffee mug part is true — I wouldn’t mislead you about coffee — but it didn’t exactly look like this the very last time I was there, in the Spring of 2012. At that time, it was a big, vast expanse of nothing, because everything had been moved out and the gift store was being expanded. But now construction is over, and renovation is complete. Visitors to Walnut Grove in 2012 will be able to shop in a gift store that’s twice the size of the one it replaced.

It sure needed the space. The Walnut Grove gift store is one of the most crowded shops I’ve ever been in. Granted I tend to visit there during events, and with events come crowds. In tiny Walnut Grove, that means big crowds. But still, even though the register kept expelling customers and their purchases at a good clip, it seemed as I tried to select what I wanted to buy I was always moving out of the way of one person or bumping into another. Now, when you shop for books or Charlotte dolls or handmade sunbonnets in Walnut Grove, everyone will have room to breathe.

(I highly recommend the coffee mug.)

See more of Walnut Grove’s gift store renovation on their Facebook page.

Welcome to Little House Travel

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You’ve read the books. Perhaps your mother read them first. Maybe now your kids are, too. You’ve followed Laura Ingalls via the pages of the “Little House” series of books as she traveled from Wisconsin to Kansas and Minnesota and, finally, Dakota Territory.

Then, when you were done reading, you wanted to go there. You wanted to go where Laura went, see what Laura saw.

I did, too. I’ve spent the last decade of my life chasing Laura.

My ebook series, Little House Travel, is written for people like you and me, and our parents, and our children. It’s a family travel series. From the Ingalls family’s De Smet to the Wilders’ Malone, I will provide the most straightforward and honest been-there-done-that guidance for families who want to follow in Laura’s footsteps.

Starting today, May 1, 2012, I will be building this website and the accompanying blog to lead up to the release of the first ebook in the series: De Smet, South Dakota.

Won’t you come along for the wagon ride?

Thanks to Michelle Rafter’s fifth annual WordCount Blogathon, I will spend the month of May ramping up this website for my new ebook series, Little House Travel, with 31 days of blog posts.